DFI has been in the IT industry since 1981, and by 1992 became a motherboard manufacturer. As their market increased they began to create enthusiast motherboards. Earlier this year they released the LanParty series of motherboards directly geared at the hardcore gamer, and featuring an all inclusive package with virtually everything a motherboard could have or come with. Today we look at the LanParty NFII Ultra B to see how it stacks up against the competition.

Packaging:

This box is huge. Because of all the equipment that comes bundled with this motherboard, the box is nearly 2 ½ times as large as a standard motherboard box. It features an appropriate design of someone at a LAN party. On the top it has a convenient carrying handle which I'm sure would be useful if you were buying it off the retail shelf. Inside of the larger box are more boxes of course.

Each box contains separate components which are clearly labeled. The boxes are: Motherboard, PC Transpo, Accessory Kit, FrontX, and Round Cable. Upon opening each box the appropriate item is inside.

Obviously the motherboard itself is found in the motherboard box. This box also contains the motherboard manual, the drivers CD, and the WinDVD software.

The Accessory Kit contains all the smaller cabling for the SATA drives, the USB bracket, and some other items. The rounded cables are UV reactive and come in the Round Cable box. The FrontX is a series of ports that can conveniently fit into a 5 ¼" drive bay. The PC Transpo is made to carry a mid or smaller tower.

Motherboard Layout:

One of the first things I noticed about the board was the rounded PCB edges. This makes the board so much easier to handle. Also I noticed the motherboard features UV reactive PCI slots and the PCB itself is also UV reactive. Modders who have a UV cold cathode or Neon in their case with a window should be pleased with a nice looking motherboard to showoff. The color scheme is green and black, and at first I wasn't too much for it, but after a while the colors grew on me. Generally the items on the motherboard seem to be laid out in a good fashion.

The rear ports are all color coded, and noticeably one of the serial ports is gone in favor of the S/PDIF in and out which surely would be more useful for most people. Other things of note are the 2 Ethernet ports and the 4 USB ports. For me the most wonderful of all are the 5 audio jacks that can be used in digital or analog along with the MCP-T Southbridge giving the LanParty NFII Ultra B full Soundstorm support. The 5 jacks are Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in, Center/Bass, Rear out. Room around the CPU socket is plentiful, and DFI even has the four mounting holes which are no longer a part of AMD spec, to allow larger HSFs such as old Swiftech MCA-462's, Alpha Pal 8045's, or Thermalright's SLK-900-U's to fit without a hitch. Kudos to DFI for the inclusion of said holes.

The DIMMS have plenty of space between themselves and the AGP card, and have enough space to be removed or installed with a long AGP card installed such as a 9800 XT or a 5950 Ultra. There are 3 DIMM slots allowing for up to 3GB of ram. Although the RAM slots themselves are not color coded, they appear in 2 banks, DDR 1 and 2 on one bank on the left, and the third DDR slot in the bank on the right. DDR 1 and 2 is one memory controller and the third is the other, making it easy to distinguish the two to make full use of the two memory controllers. During testing I had my RAM installed in bank 1 and 3.

The AGP slot has the distance of 1 PCI slot as a "buffer zone" between it and the other peripheral devices. This space will surely allow room for larger cooling devices found on 5900 Ultra cards or water-cooling or TEC setups. Next to the AGP slot is the 12v rail which is Intel spec, but DFI included on this board.

The Northbridge is just above the AGP slot, and there is plenty of clearance between the two. It's cooled passively by a heatsink that looks very similar to the one found on the Asus a7n8x. Underneath the northbridge was a good amount of thermal paste. I'm glad DFI supplied something; many manufactures still leave the northbridge dry.

The Southbridge is also passively cooled by a low profile heatsink. It's not a part of the MCP-T spec, but its inclusion is good none the less, because the Southbridge did become quite hot during testing.

The bottom right hand corner of the motherboard is populated by four SATA ports. With four SATA connectors, instead of two like most boards, one could easily have all SATA drives without needing an additional add-on SATA card. The SATA and SATA raid is controlled by the Silicon Image chip located next to the SATA ports. More notably is the power and reset buttons found onboard. This little feature made working with the motherboard that much easier. I didn't have to bother setting up a power switch on it while using it on the test bed.

There is plenty of space for the IDE devices at the edge of the board, and the 3 ½" floppy port is at a 90 degree angle allowing for easier access. I found myself wondering why the IDE devices didn't follow suit, but the IDE ports are in a good location none the less. You'll also notice in this picture it shows where the board revision is located.

All of the jumpers on the board are easy to get to, especially that critical CMOS reset jumper. Additionally a power and reset button are found onboard, which proved to be useful time and time again during testing. The status indicator LED's were neat, and paying attention to them would allow me to see at what point the motherboard was during boot. Inside the motherboard manual are the error fault codes to go along with the diagnostic LED's should you have any trouble.

A few trouble spots were found however. It seems to me that the placement of all the audio jacks on the bottom left are in bad locations. If PCI cards were installed in all the slots, then reaching all those jacks would be a really big pain. Additionally, I do not know why the CPU fan header is on the other side of the ATX power connector. Looking at the motherboard, the set up is CPU Socket --> ATX power connector --> CPU fan header. Preferably, it should be CPU socket --> CPU fan header --> ATX power connector. Hit us up in the forums if this is still unclear.

BIOS:

The Bios is based on the AwardBIOS, which is common among many boards. It has its convenient menus that most tweakers are familiar with. Inside, DFI included a wealth of options that will keep tweakers busy getting all their settings perfect. All the standard stuff is in here too, like devices and what not.

The RAM timings found in the chipset section are all standard as well.

Looking at all the Genie Bios settings which hold all of the overclocking features we find this: A whopping 300FSB maximum, more than enough for any AMD part. 22 multiplier options, so there is a lot of overhead here as well. 2 volts on the cpu, where most manufacturers stop at 1.850 or 1.900. 1.8V AGP and 1.9V Chipset to add a little more voltage to keep that higher clock speed stable. 3.3v Ram. Wow, 2.9 is toasty enough for most, but with this, who needs volt mods?

CMOS Reloaded

This by far was one of the best features I have seen implemented into a BIOS and wish that more companies would use something similar. Simply enough "CMOS Reloaded" as DFI has dubbed it, is a back up for your commonly used BIOS settings. So if you wish to set it up a particular way, or change the settings a lot and are a tweaker, the next time you reset your CMOS you can simply load up your old settings and start from there.

CMOS Reloaded allows the user to save up to four different settings and label them with 3 different lines of text. There are only 2 problems with CMOS Reloaded. The first is that settings you change while in the BIOS cannot be saved directly into it. You have to "Save and Exit" from the BIOS, and then reenter the BIOS and then save it to CMOS Reloaded. Although that isn't a big issue, it was a small annoyance, but it's a great step forward from having to redo ALL of your settings after overclocking the board just a little too much and having to reset. The second is that CMOS Reloaded doesn't save the time. I realize that after saving the CMOS and then resetting it later the time would be incorrect, but having to change the time back all the time gets tedious. However I don't really think that that is directly a problem with CMOS reloaded.

CMOS Reloaded saved me a bunch of time while tweaking the board to its limit, and hopefully it will get better and something similar will be implemented by more manufactures in the future.

Audio Subjective Listening

I wanted to use something with plenty of highs and lows, and good use of bass. I first listened to Hybrid's "Kid 2000" which consists mostly of a full string orchestra (providing highs) and beats (providing lows), with female vocals for this particular track. I found that there was no pops or clicks, but a bit of hissing with no audio at high volumes. Later on as I used the machine as my main computer for a while, I listened to many different audio tracks, and found the experience quite pleasant.

Test Systems

DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B (NVIDA nForce 2 Ultra 400) with version 3.13 drivers, AthlonXP 1700+ Thoroughbred CPU (clocked at 11x166 = 1.826 GHz and also clocked at 11x200 = 2.2 GHz), 1GB Corsair XMS PC4000 2-3-3-3-11, MSI Nbox 5900 Ultra (500 Core clock speed 950 Ram clock speed) with version 52.16 drivers, IBM IC35L020AVER07-0 Harddrive, Windows XP w/SP1 and all hot fixes, and Direct 9.0B

Asus A7N8x Deluxe Revision 2.0 (NVIDA nForce 2 Ultra 400) with version 3.13 drivers, AthlonXP 1700+ Thoroughbred CPU (clocked at 11x166 = 1.826 GHz and also clocked at 11x200 = 2.0 GHz), 1GB Corsair XMS PC4000 2-3-3-3-11, MSI Nbox 5900 Ultra (500 Core clock speed 950 Ram clock speed) with version 52.16 drivers, IBM IC35L020AVER07-0 Harddrive, Windows XP w/SP1 and all hot fixes, and Direct 9.0B

The test software will include:

HDtach 2.61
Comanche 4
Sisoft Sandra 2004 CPU and Memory benchmarks
Pifast
DBpowerAMP music converter
PCmark 2002
PCmark 2004
3Dmark 2001SE
Unreal Tournament 2003

Subsystem Testing - HDtach version 2.61

At 7.3 CPU utilization, it's pretty good for an HD as old as it is. 31mb average across the IDE.

Comanche 4: Good CPU heavy game, to see audio utilization.

Frames per second (Higher is better)

As you can see, there is only about a 2fps difference between with audio and without audio.

Sisoft Sandra 2004 is a very popular and free benchmark that is good for showing CPU power and memory bandwidth.

Sisoft Arithmetic Benchmark

Dhrystone: At stock speeds, the Asus board is faster, but after the OC the DFI pulls ahead slightly. However, both boards really are neck and neck, and both are within the margin of error.

Whetstone: At stock and OC'ed speeds, the A7N8x deluxe is ahead, but not by much. It's only by 1 or 2 points on both counts.

Sisoft Bandwidth Memory Benchmark

MB's a Second

Int Buffered: Stock speeds the DFI board is ahead. Oc'ed the A7N8x pulls ahead. More of the same, they both are within the margin of error.

MB's a Second

Float Buffered: The LanParty is slightly ahead at stock speeds, OC'ed both of them run the same.

Application Testing

Pifast: Really good for crunching down on the CPU. We used version 4.2 by Xavier Gourdon. We used a computation of 10000000 digits of Pi, Chudnovsky method, 1024 K FFT, and no disk memory.

Time in seconds (Lower is better)

DBpowerAMP music Converter: Another really good test for testing the CPU and the memory. I used a 63.2mb wave and converted it into a 192 k lame encoded mp3.

Time in seconds (Lower is better)

Literally both boards performed the same at stock speeds and overclocked.

PCmark2002: This one sort of speaks for itself.
On the Memory the LanParty is a bit faster. The scores show the A7N8x deluxe pulling ahead on all the CPU based tests.

PCmark2004: The latest version of PCmark. If you ask me, it seems to be less versatile. I don't put too much stock in this particular benchie, but it appears that the scores offer more of the same.

3D Mark 01 SE: This used to be the definitive test as far as over all system performance in a gaming rig.

The A7N8x is faster at stock speeds, and the LanParty pulls ahead overclocked.

Unreal Tournament 2003
Stock the A7N8x is just slightly faster, overclocked the LanParty is just slightly ahead.

Throughout all of the testing, both boards were more or less neck in neck, showing that there was no clear winner.

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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