Thoughts on DFI RD600

Before the thread below was closed , about 40% thought this mb would be the best board for Conroe. I did not think it would but that it would be a good board. I think many who thought that it would be the best were AMD guys who thought DFI could do the same magic again with Intel as it had done with AMD 939. The boards have been out a few weeks and I wonder if it is just the best tweaking mb or if in time it will be the as good as the hype back in the summer.


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=111727

Well so far I've gathered from others:

buggy
digital pwm is crap and dies
not much of an fsb champion
sucks at pi

Everyone I've talked to who's owned the board says it sucks.

stay away at all costs, the rd600 is one of the worst boards ive ever owned, only the CFX3200-DR on 939 is crappier/buggier...

Go 975 or 965 if you have an allendale.

xbx2, aw9d, p5b dlx, etc

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Originally Posted by afireinside

Well so far I've gathered from others:

buggy
digital pwm is crap and dies
not much of an fsb champion
sucks at pi

Everyone I've talked to who's owned the board says it sucks.

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Digital PWM is crap and dies?? Dude, care to explain? :eek:

Except for being slower in Pi, I dont have much against this motherboard.

In what ways is it buggy? I haven't had any issues with the board yet (since it was released) :)

As for fsb, I have no trouble reaching 515fsb (Orthos stable), which is the max. fsb of my CPU. I'll see if the RD600 can do over 515fsb stable once I get another CPU that is pretested (on P5B-dlx) at 540fsb stable.

I'm not saying this is the best board available, but it definitely doesn't suck :)

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Originally Posted by afireinside

Well so far I've gathered from others:

buggy
digital pwm is crap and dies
not much of an fsb champion
sucks at pi

Everyone I've talked to who's owned the board says it sucks.

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This is a nice stable board, but then I just use it for gaming and such not super pi. It does seem however that higher fsb requires lots of NB volts that taps into so called unsafe levels.

The board fell on many levels,it's a shame,most of the boards that support the Core 2 do have problems,and i think it was hoped that this was a stable as the XBX2 but with a multi, and have the highs of the P5B without the reboots and its traits.
I never actually got one but i read the posts and gave up a while ago.
Ive got the AW9D-MAX (crap) at the mo and im looking at the Commando or the ABIT Quad as my next board,im not sure what the next 'exciting' board will be.

Of course with anything like this, the opinions will be mixed. A lot of people seem to have a fair amount of trouble with their P5B DH for example...i`m just annoyed by the 4:5 behaviour, and even at that, mine is better than some (lucky me)

Please can more detail be given on the PWM? Is it a DFI fault, or a problem with the idea? Will Asus and Abit have similar troubles looming with their 680 boards for example?

The BIOS in the RD600 is...fairly comprehensive. Is Pi performance really the board/chipset limitation, or are there BIOS tweaks still to be learned?

I`m not accusing anyone of poor attention to detail, just want a balanced picture :)

K

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fhpchris

stay away at all costs, the rd600 is one of the worst boards ive ever owned, only the CFX3200-DR on 939 is crappier/buggier...

Go 975 or 965 if you have an allendale.

xbx2, aw9d, p5b dlx, etc

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How can you state that rd600 is a very bad board when you barely had time to test it?

You most probably had a defective motherboard, that's all :)

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Originally Posted by pcmoddingmy

Digital PWM is crap and dies?? Dude, care to explain? :eek:

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fhpchris can explain...

Maybe I am wrong with the fsb but it seems in the thread people are having issues hitting 500.

Actually, let me rephrase, unless raju is the worst 3dmark tweaker ever, RD600 is slower than every chipset at 3d also.

Maybe the board isn't as bad as some make it out to be, but when the xbx2 is rock stable, much faster clock for clock, and 75 dollars cheaper, why buy RD600?

I like mine...no, it's definately not a benching board, but if you run crossfire and want the best board for ram tweaking, this would be it. 3D it's faster than all the other boards I have had(quite a few), so it's in my gaming rig, but it's not one to get just for benching.

RD600 cpu score = 3346:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1114475
975x cpu score = 3315:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1061505

vdroop is very bad on my board.
1.2625v=1.19v
1.35v=1.29
1.4v=1.34v
1.45v=1.38v
1.5v=1.43
1.55v=1.47
1.6v bios= 1.51v real


....and that sucks.

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Originally Posted by rick_fx

How can you state that rd600 is a very bad board when you barely had time to test it?

You most probably had a defective motherboard, that's all :)

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I can say the board is buggy..its biggest issue(and we were warned IMHO) is the number of options which affect stability and performance...way too many

I have no idea what to change and how it will effect thing...You cant really just change one thing and test..you will be there forever

I would love a guide that really points to what options are best to first change to max. stability and how other voltage need to be adjusted if a particular is increased or decreased

lol it's not really all that hard...took me abt 2 days to figure out the options. Alot of them are directly related to what other hardware you have installed though, so other than general hints, direct ideas as to "what to change" without having the same hardware is kinda pointless.

Honestly, who cares about a 1sec in superpi?


I feel its a good board, but a little overpriced.

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Originally Posted by wangerin

Honestly, who cares about a 1sec in superpi?


I feel its a good board, but a little overpriced.

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Enthusiasts that are looking to make a WR.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wangerin

Honestly, who cares about a 1sec in superpi?


I feel its a good board, but a little overpriced.

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What if you're 1 second or even less from the WR?
Would you care?

This is XtremeSystems after all.

I would avoid DFI at all costs.
Support is horrible, LanParty's were supposed to be "the overclockers dream", so getting no support for overclocking at DFI street is pretty ironic in my book.

DFI street made me throw up, their ignorance/arrogance made me promise myself to never buy a DFI board again.

Results i've seen from RD600 were dissapointing, no reason to choose DFI over anything else atm.

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Originally Posted by nealh

I can say the board is buggy..its biggest issue(and we were warned IMHO) is the number of options which affect stability and performance...way too many

I have no idea what to change and how it will effect thing...You cant really just change one thing and test..you will be there forever

I would love a guide that really points to what options are best to first change to max. stability and how other voltage need to be adjusted if a particular is increased or decreased

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Since when is having too many bios options a bad thing? :rolleyes:

Not knowing what to do with certain bios options doesn't make a board buggy. If a certain option makes your board unstable, leave it alone and try other options :)

Sure, a guide would be nice but the whole point of tweaking is to learn, not being spoon-fed with solutions :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Alot of *options* are directly related to what other hardware you have installed though, so other than general hints, direct ideas as to "what to change" without having the same hardware is kinda pointless.

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QFT :)

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Originally Posted by afireinside

fhpchris can explain...

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That is only 1 case, that's very far from being a "widespread problem". He probably had a defective motherboard :)

Stating that "digital PWM is crap and dies" with only 1 known case reminds of when a member claimed that "EVGA 680i" killed ram :rolleyes:

The board was marketed toward performance however it's better for stability. The unlinked ram means you can pretty much plug in whatever you like and if it'll work, it will. the cpu fsb means you can get to around 450fsb with safe voltage. Maybe 470 with a only .1-.2v higher. After that getting to 500fsb pretty much means close to 2.0 core voltage which people have killed their boards on in only a day.

"ZOMG ITS A FEW SECONDS SLOWER IN SUPERPI!!!"

You do realise that a few seconds in SuperPI means nothing in real life application performance, just like a few points in 3d mark mean nothing in gaming performance, unless you care about one FPS.

Ok, so the board isn't what you want if your a bencher for superPI times.

No one in this thread even knows what all the bios settings do.

The board is stable.

The board isn't FSB champ, but unless your running a low multi processor then 511FSB is fine, your processor will max out before the board unless you're using phase/LN2/DICE and you're core is a well stepped one.

I'm running a E6600 and water cooling, so 511 is a wet dream achievement. The board is fast in 3D.

It's got one bios out, majority of boards have had way more revisions. I'm putting my money on this board doing something in the future, if the bios support is as good as NF4 was from DFI.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rick_fx

Since when is having too many bios options a bad thing? :rolleyes:

Not knowing what to do with certain bios options doesn't make a board buggy. If a certain option makes your board unstable, leave it alone and try other options :)

Sure, a guide would be nice but the whole point of tweaking is to learn, not being spoon-fed with solutions :)


QFT :)

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I never said it was buggy or more options are bad(..except not knowing how they play together can be very frustrating....)

While I would love to be spoonfed..I would like a guide that tells us a bit more detail on the effect of various settings...yes Big Toes guide is good but a bit more info is need IMHO

BTW...do you have to manually set it to run Dual channel...I left this at auto but I was thinking someone said you need to set it to channel A and B

DFI street was nice but Travis was abrasive at time....new site will be just as good IMHO over time

DFI at least with bios support always has been good at least at trying to find solutions..though some boards never worked well

My board has been pretty solid, although I think I may have either damaged a hard drive or sata port. It absolutely sux for Pi benching & I'm having trouble with 3DMark 06 & hacked sli drivers. Highest 12hour prime stable FSB I got so far was 478 mhz. It look to need more voltage than I was comfortable with to hit 500FSB though I was successful @ doing so. Looks to be an awesome board for testing & toying with ram due to the independent FSB. I think with a little more time, effort, & tweaking the performance can be improved to rival the 680i boards but perhaps not the 975 ones. Alot of people are so quick to say the board suxs, but I just don't remember the previous lan party boards all being great and easy for everyone to overclock the first three weeks after release.

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Originally Posted by nealh

BTW...do you have to manually set it to run Dual channel...I left this at auto but I was thinking someone said you need to set it to channel A and B

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Yes, manually set it to "channel A and B".

Before I tried that option, I was starting to get pissed at the motherboard because I couldn't even get Orthos stable at 3ghz. :p:

After finding that option, it was all fun from there on. :woot:

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Originally Posted by Mekrel

"ZOMG ITS A FEW SECONDS SLOWER IN SUPERPI!!!"

You do realise that a few seconds in SuperPI means nothing in real life application performance, just like a few points in 3d mark mean nothing in gaming performance, unless you care about one FPS.

Ok, so the board isn't what you want if your a bencher for superPI times.

No one in this thread even knows what all the bios settings do.

The board is stable.

The board isn't FSB champ, but unless your running a low multi processor then 511FSB is fine, your processor will max out before the board unless you're using phase/LN2/DICE and you're core is a well stepped one.

I'm running a E6600 and water cooling, so 511 is a wet dream achievement. The board is fast in 3D.

It's got one bios out, majority of boards have had way more revisions. I'm putting my money on this board doing something in the future, if the bios support is as good as NF4 was from DFI.

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No-one welcomed you to XtremeSystems did they :p: Why buy this board over an entry-level CF/SLI board? We want performance. with a side of performance. DFI build these boards for enthusiasts, and if they dont deliver, DFI are wasting their time and money.

Well, after spending about a week of playing with the board 10+hrs a day, I personally think they DID deliver.

But I can easily say what ISN'T about this board, honestly:


1. Price. But then again, given what it is, the price probably IS fair.
2. NON-Solid Capacitors. Don't need to explain this one. However, putting a kit together with all the caps needed and offering them for sale somewhere would be nice. It's just easier to buy one thing than many.
3. Digital PWM. Great for phase users only, that need such clearance. But then it's too close to socket by about .75cm IMHO. Droop is less and v-core more accurate the cooler PWM is, and this is affected far easier than regular PWM. Users with this tech be careful during summer when temps rise...your voltage might too! ASUS's idea to include fan with thier boards was a great idea, and should have been something DFI should have considered. I would have paid the $5 extra.:fact:

333strap faster than 266 strap @ 333mhz.:stick:


Otherwise, this board is bloody brilliant. But #3, and #2...both power delivery issues. That's a big upset.

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Originally Posted by K404

No-one welcomed you to XtremeSystems did they :p: Why buy this board over an entry-level CF/SLI board? We want performance. with a side of performance. DFI build these boards for enthusiasts, and if they dont deliver, DFI are wasting their time and money.

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It may be Xtremesystems, but I don't see a forum dedicated purely for Xtreme performance minded people.

I see to name a few:
Case modders, those who water cool for silence and not for overclock headroom, I see people buying products which follow their build colour.

Not every purchase made by everyone on this board is for pure performance purposes. People have different needs and requirements and personal preferences.

If we all were, we would all own the same recommended motherboard and cooling system. BORING!

Hey if number crunching and showing off times is your thing (as by going by the fact you participate in score submitting via HWBOT) then hats off to you. People have to realise not everyone on this forum wants to thrash a piece of hardware to the inch of its life.

Personally, I overclock because I can and it's free performance. I'm not going to keel over with envy because someone else is getting more free stuff than I. I run SuperPI and 3DMark as a way of indicating how my score has scaled from stock. As far as I'm aware RD600 is the only chipset to offer strap selection support and 8*2 PCI-E lanes for crossfire.

Think of it as, a hungry beggar with a free meal. He isn't going to turn it down because beggar B got mayo with his free meal.

The board is an enthusiast board, and it does deliver. The bios options tell me that, just because at the moment its slower clock for clock than another enthusiast board, doesn't make it any less of one.

Lets remember what 704 bios did for Nforce4, and what 965 infinity bios' did for that board too. DFI RD600 has a lot more to offer I feel. Yes it was released late, but NO hardware has a real test until it's out in retail in hundreds of different end user setups and scenarios.