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Overclocking (This portion of the article was contributed by Quasar)
The DFI LanParty was not one of the easiest boards to work with for overclocking. Maybe I've been a bit spoiled with the ABIT NF7-S, but 200FSB was in no way attainable with our TBred 2400+. Considering I could do an easy 12x200 on my nForce 2, this proved to be extremely frustrating. I lowered the multiplier from 15 to 11, and the highest OC I managed was 191, but to say it was rock solid would be a flat out lie.
The best, stable environment I managed was 11x189. This was done using a Swiftech MCX462+ and Vantec Tornado fan. Further voltage adjustments, and even lowering the multiplier to 9 did not improve the situation.
Subsystem Testing - HD Tach
At 14.4ms/67.9mbps for the LanParty, it seems that the nForce2 IDE chipset's 14.2ms/70.9mbps is superior to that of the LanParty, trumping the KT400A by more than 3 mbps and a 0.2 ms better read burst speed.
Audio Testing
To be quite honest, it seems that both of these audio solutions don't take up too much CPU time. I have found both to be exactly what I would expect from an AC'97 solution, nothing more. There was noticeable distortion at higher volumes, where it was easy to pick out a SBLive! from an AC'97-based sound card.
DUMeter
The maximum transfer that I could achieve on my home network was a bit over 8 Mbps, or about 1 MegaByte per second.
Conclusion
So what are my feelings about this motherboard? Is this chipset really a BFG compared to the nForce2's "two shotguns"? I wouldn't go that far - I found the boards to be quite on par. The discrepancies between the tests can be accounted for by the fact that different tests utilize different memory and CPU management techniques, either to a motherboard's advantage or disadvantage.
It is clear to me that DFI thought long and hard through it's creation of this motherboard. They made sure the KT400A was not going to wimp out against the nForce2, and created a motherboard that I find to be unconventional, and perhaps even eccentric - but hey, I think it's growing on me.
Pros: Tons of included "goodies" as well as on-par performance with nForce2.
Cons: Tough to get a HSF on, board a bit pricey (although not when you consider the extras), and should remove the diagnostic LEDs if they're going to go for the blacklight-effect.
Bottom Line: You get what you pay for. The LanParty is going to cost you some extra dough, but you'll end up getting things which, if you bought separately, would most likely cost you more money than if you had simply bought the LanParty. It is quite the contender, despite it's late release, it most certainly is not too little too late.
Agree? Disagree? Discuss it in our forums
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DFI LanParty KT400A: One of the most unique looking motherboards makes it's way into the test labs at VL. Can the LanParty's beauty be backed up by it's performance?
