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DFI LanParty NFII Ultra DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B: There's still life left in the Athlon XP, and we take a look at one of the better mobo solutions, which includes an excellent BIOS feature.
Date: January 9, 2004
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Overclocking
I would say that overclocking went over pretty well. As is shown in the test systems portion of the review, it is obvious that I can hit 200FSB with out any major issues. Above 200 is where things get tricky on most AMD parts, although I was able to actually boot the DFI NFII Ultra B at 250FSB, which is the magic number for Intel systems. Of course at that speed the motherboard was not stable, and would lock up at virtually any stress level in windows (but at least it booted into windows). 230FSB was fairly stable with 2.9v on the ram and 1.9v on the CPU, but by far the most stable was 220 FSB @ 2.5-3-3-3-11 and 10 multiplier for 2.2ghz. From my experience with the board, my best guess is that my CPU was the bottleneck as far as overclocking is concerned. With a better chip and maybe water or thermal-electric cooling, I wouldn't be surprised at someone hitting 240-250FSB.

User Experience
What can I say about this board? At first DFI's reputation proceeded itself, and I was thinking that this solution wasn't going to exactly fit the bill as far as enthusiasts are concerned. I sort of viewed DFI as being like Soyo, which has virtually everything onboard, but has no overclocking potential, and is not the fastest of systems. Let me tell you, that belief was soon smashed. This board performed rock solid at stock speeds, and then handled itself surprisingly well at overclocked speeds. It was practically begging me to keep raising the bar to make it go faster. Any time in which I went too far and it crashed and needed a CMOS reset, CMOS reloaded came in and picked up where I left off so that I wouldn't have to re-tweak all of my settings and start over. CMOS reloaded was very useful throughout testing the boards limits, and can be very useful for those of you who must push your boards to their absolute limit.

While testing the board I didn't even have to worry about installing the board into a case, the power and reset buttons were a definite plus while working with the board on the test bench. Those two little buttons save quite a bit of hassle. On top of that, the diagnostic LED's found on board should help out anyone who is having trouble with their board, accompanied by the guide found in the manual. Having fully soundstorm certified audio was a definite plus which worked well, and all the extra packaging was definitely a bonus. It more or less comes with everything a motherboard could be packaged with and then some. It has FrontX, rounded cables, UV reactive board (for those of you who like that), and even a way to carry around your case.

Throughout testing the DFI NFII Ultra B handled itself well, and was able to stand up against the A7N8x deluxe revision 2.0 which is certainly no slouch, and the two performed within the margin of error and showed that there really isn't a clear victor between the two.

If there is one blemish to the DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B's beauty, it is the price tag. Sure it includes everything, but you have to pay for it with a price tag, as compared to the Asus A7N8x Deluxe's price tag. Keep in mind you won't get as many extras with the ASUS package.

Conclusion
It was really a pleasure working with this DFI motherboard, it exceeded all my expectations, and it shows that DFI is really ready for producing boards for the enthusiast. If they keep producing boards like this that are fast, have nice all inclusive packaging, and are stable all the time, then DFI certainly has a good future ahead of itself. I have absolutely no problem with saying that if you want a board that has it all and are willing to pay a couple extra bucks, you won't be disappointed in this board.

Pros
Tons of BIOS options, plenty of things to tweak
Power and Reset buttons on board
CMOS reloaded
All inclusive packaging, has rounded cables, extra ports, pc transporting device, etc.
Very stable at stock speeds
Stable even at overclocked speeds
Still has the mounting holes even thought it's not AMD spec
UV reactive

Cons
Expensive price tag
Have to exit BIOS to change new settings before saving to CMOS reloaded
Bad location of onboard audio connectors

Bottom line: If you want it all and are willing to spend a little extra cash, this is a board that any enthusiast would be proud to own.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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