DFI RDX200 CF-DR First look

Im saying they are both fine boards, both have plus points and both have negative points. Im not going to judge them till I have both here.

Jason, the CF-BT is a direct copy of the reference board with some minor tweaks to traces going to the dimms, the board already does 300+ fsb easy.

There will be a single 16X version from many companies, Sapphire have the PURE range which features grouper, DFI tell me there will be a second BT board based on grouper also.

Abit have a board with many features copied off Halibut aslo so this may be a good clocker as well.

We will find out over the next few weeks im sure. i have been offered PURE and i can probably get the Abit also, the DFI's will come a little later.All in there will be an explosion of boards over the next 6 weeks, many have the next generation voltage regulation etc so should be a move forward.

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Originally Posted by metro.cl

nice but i'll wait and see the nf4 xpert mobo, also i wont need to learn almost from 0 with the xpert mobo :)


thanks for all the info

p.d. i'm sure i read somewhere before that ati would made a 4 layer pcb mobo

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Expert is going to be like the RDX200, if you think you won't need to relearn then im sorry to say you are wrong.

If all boards worked the same it would be pretty boring now wouldn't it? ;)

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Originally Posted by Tony

There will be a single 16X version from many companies, Sapphire have the PURE range which features grouper, DFI tell me there will be a second BT board based on grouper also.

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All sounds good to me, just gotta wait for the reviews and take the plunge at Xmas.

G

Tony, noticed you say you tested with VX.
Any issues such as those i constantly encounter using my Ultra-D with 2.6V being fed on boot up even though 3.4V in BIOS, therefore no boot?

Tony, I noticed the board has the 8pin PSU connector rather then the P4 4 pin. Any idea if users with power supplies from last year with the 4 pins need a new power supply? My PCP&C has 4 pins and it would suck to have to replace that.

Thanks,

D

4pin will work afaik.. but 8pin will definitely be better (they don't put it there for no reason ;))

as for PC&C u can send it back and they mod it for u @ a price of 20 if i'm not mistaken

What the big deal?

Venice/Sandy A64's are SUPPOSED to be able to do 1T 4x512M @ 200Mhz. The Winchester was limited to 166Mhz.

Call me when you get 250Mhz 1T out of 4x512M BH/CH or 300Mhz 1T out of 4x512M TCCD.

Meantime, is the Vtt issue cleared on these boards, or not? DFI needs to implement the heatpipe cooler for the chipset that Asus/Abit have. That stupid hsf on the ATI chip is just not gonna cut it longterm.

The 1,000 point drop in AM3 1T vs 2T is what, just over 1% difference? Hardly worth running 200Mhz 1T rather than 300Mhz 2T you'd get out of the same TCCDs.

Eye on the prize people.... Vtt fixed, Crossfire working, chipset cooled correctly, USB performance at least equal to NF4, and SATA raid performance.

venice and sandy were never 4x512MB DDR400 at 1T only 2T - the improvement was only to allow DDR400 with all banks populated at 2T instead of DDR333

im surprised no one has asked this yet:

so whats 4x512 utt/bh do under volts? :D :D :D :D

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Originally Posted by Revv23

im surprised no one has asked this yet:

so whats 4x512 utt/bh do under volts? :D :D :D :D

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Or better yet, 4x512MB old BH5? ;)

Have you fiddled with the memory dividers yet?

Can you get Trtw 1 to work with old BH-5 on the 13x above 250FSB?, because it never worked on 4 SLI-DR boards I owned & tested....... All other multi's were fine!

I tried 4BH5 1T and didn't have much luck, it will run but not memtest stable. The stables runs were with 4XTCCD at 2-2-2-5.

4 pin connectors will work, but as mentioned 8 pin is better.

I ran VX last night and had no boot isses at 260fsb, it booted fine for 10 reboots and then 5 more after a 15 min cool down.

I have run memory dividers without issue, there should be no isses as remember the memory controller is on the CPU and that is a factor that has not changed.

I have had issues with my 4000gold, not sure whats cusing them yet so won't comment further till i know exactlyt what the issue is, as fo my 3200Plat and 4000EB kits they boot fine with the same 2gig density so itssomething weird i think probably just with my kits as they work fine on Halibut and the vanilla NF4 from DFI.

lol

Has the board increased your max memory clocks atall?

Part of the Q I have was asked before, but without the answer...

Tony, do you have any idea what NB Core and NB Analog Voltages are for? Also, what does NB-SB Port Configuration option do? Thanks in advance ;)

Great preview... I hope you'll find the way to work those issues you've had so far :)

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Originally Posted by Tony

I tried 4BH5 1T and didn't have much luck, it will run but not memtest stable. The stables runs were with 4XTCCD at 2-2-2-5.

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Ok, then it's not worth for me anymore. I think this "4x512MB 1t Feature" is absolutly on his limit, no plus for the board! Near to instability, even @ 200Mhz and with TCCD. :) (imho)

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Originally Posted by bachus_anonym

Part of the Q I have was asked before, but without the answer...

Tony, do you have any idea what NB Core and NB Analog Voltages are for? Also, what does NB-SB Port Configuration option do? Thanks in advance ;)

Great preview... I hope you'll find the way to work those issues you've had so far :)

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Analogue voltage i have no idea but will ask

NB core is chipset voltage

NB-SB enhanced state is reduced latency between the chipsets.

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Originally Posted by GravediggA

Ok, then it's not worth for me anymore. I think this "4x512MB 1t Feature" is absolutly on his limit, no plus for the board! Near to instability, even @ 200Mhz and with TCCD. :) (imho)

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It may be just my dimms not evenly matched, keep an eye on the members posting their experiences as they may have more luck than i did.

Yep, let's wait and see what's coming up if the board is in stock and alot of ppl can test this.

Love to hear more about the VX 'issues'. I know you said you wouldnt post until you know what they are, btu can you explain the symptoms?
Is it just a no boot issue, or instability, or????

Tony, would you say there's any chance of getting 2xTCCD + 2x5B -D to run at DDR400 1T at 2.5-2-2?

I don't think many enthusiasts would bother unless you can run nVidia SLI on this board (which you can, but the ATi drivers won't let you). The NF4 expert should be the same in terms of memory compatability and OCability, right?

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

lol

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WOW!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HKPolice

I don't think many enthusiasts would bother unless you can run nVidia SLI on this board (which you can, but the ATi drivers won't let you). The NF4 expert should be the same in terms of memory compatability and OCability, right?

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I guess a lot of people who run single card would buy this.
And all the ones who wants to run CF of course..

here I am....go Tony...;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tony

Expert is going to be like the RDX200, if you think you won't need to relearn then im sorry to say you are wrong.

If all boards worked the same it would be pretty boring now wouldn't it? ;)

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i like to learn but not from 0 every time :)

As I feared they made it with the 8 pin CPU 12V connector, preventing many from using it unless they buy an adaptor... if it exists...

the 8 pin really doesnt do much if your PSU can handle the load on each wire, all the 8 pin does is make it so the psu supplies less power through each wire... but if you have a quality psu with thick wires its not realy an issue using the 4 pin.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136165 :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :clap: :clap: !!!!!

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Originally Posted by Brock911

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136165 :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :clap: :clap: !!!!!

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musta sold out

what was price?

Price was $239. It should still show as out of stick. I wonder if it was posted by mistake. You could order them though.

Tony !!

Just for kicks, have you tried running 2x Nvidia cards in SLI ??

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Originally Posted by Major

Tony !!

Just for kicks, have you tried running 2x Nvidia cards in SLI ??

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Won't work dude, you need a bios flash on the cards and a hacked vid card driver

Either ATI/DFI is smoking silicon or whoever buys this mobo for that price is smoking some stuff. No reason why the buyers should be penalized cause ATI blew the budget with this chipset cause it can't do it right. Nvidia's gonna have a party when they see these prices yet xfire underperforms.

I think that was a mistake.

Agreed...

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Originally Posted by situman

Either ATI/DFI is smoking silicon or whoever buys this mobo for that price is smoking some stuff. No reason why the buyers should be penalized cause ATI blew the budget with this chipset cause it can't do it right. Nvidia's gonna have a party when they see these prices yet xfire underperforms.

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LOL well said :clap:

i think that's probably the intial price and it will eventually go down. How come dfi didn't use the ULI southbridge? The Ati southbridge doesn't handle usb that well and it has some other kinks and issues with it as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by situman

Either ATI/DFI is smoking silicon or whoever buys this mobo for that price is smoking some stuff. No reason why the buyers should be penalized cause ATI blew the budget with this chipset cause it can't do it right. Nvidia's gonna have a party when they see these prices yet xfire underperforms.

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Quite true, but the DFI nF4 expert board is going to be right around this price bracket as well... :(

Why you "fight" about the 4 x dimms and 1T?........To do what?........200MHz?.......That's NOT for us!......That's for a "simple" user right?.....We want 250MHz+ to do something......For that, forget the 4 x dimms and 1T........Am I right?....... ;) :)

P.S. I'll buy one of those beauties...... ;)

Now, Tony could you please tell me if the SMD chips with the 8 legs near the DDR Slots are Winbond chips?.......Coz IF they are Winbond chips for the VTT, they rock up to 2A load.......And please tell me if they are 2 of them?........Thanks....... :)

EDIT: Those in the red circles...... :)

http://www.thelab.gr/images/Hipro5/Temp/CIMG1128.JPG

here you go hipro, best i can do upto now.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=38740&stc=1

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Originally Posted by Lood007

Quite true, but the DFI nF4 expert board is going to be right around this price bracket as well... :(

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Nvidia made their money already. Now they just want to sink ATI's boat further by offering something ATI doesnt such as 2*16x PCI-e even if its for show purposes. Nvidia wants to tell people "look we have something at the top end that's better than ATI's, yet our mid end products are untouchable by ATI..."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by situman

Nvidia made their money already. Now they just want to sink ATI's boat further by offering something ATI doesnt such as 2*16x PCI-e even if its for show purposes. Nvidia wants to tell people "look we have something at the top end that's better than ATI's, yet our mid end products are untouchable by ATI..."

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Now im not an ATI fan boy here, im a motherboard fanboy....nvidia does not know what ATI is coming with next, if you think the dual 16X is good from NV then you will love the ATI offerings that should be coming soon.

I got that from an interview with John Bruno, he doesn't say much but he is very confident we will like what we see.

Subscribed. Waiting on expert news as well =)

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Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

Yeah but 'NVIDIA IS DOING' while 'ATI IS STILL JUST TALKING'

This is the point thats been the casue of everything bad/negitive about ATI in the past few years.
We don't hate ATI we just hate paper launches reviewers and beta overclockers getting cards/boards to show off that are never making it to retailand they are showing them off like they are the best things since milk when they are months late to release if they get released at all. :)

If ATI can do what they say when they say it like Nvidia is "which they are just getting so good at now" then i doubt you will see many false responses directed at ATI at all. :)

We the comsumer want the truth and the products on time and thats the bottom line. :)

Dual 16x is here and works ATI is just now talking about something new and there ATI chipset can barley if all be found :(

ATI PRESS CONFERANCE.
WHAT TO DO TO COUNTER NVIDIA'S DUAL 16X SLI:
"IF YOU WILL PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 258 OF THE PAPERLAUCH BOOK YOU WILL SEE WHAT WE THINK WE CAN MAKE HAPPEN"

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The issue Jason is the NV option is not true 16x X2, if you read how they implememnted the technology you will see its actually a compromise. Then to move on they do not run the chipsets at actual LDT speeds so you have a performance drop there also.

Im not taking any sides but im waiting to see what ATI do with their 16x X2 before i go buy an NV board...as the ATI just may be a little better.

Now, to comment about NV are doing it and ATI are just talking the good talk you are partially correct, ATI are behind, but the fact is they also have been looking at whats there already and seeing if they can do it better.

Rememeber i get board here to test and to show you guys, they are retail boards, nothing special, nothing cherry picked and from now on they will have either ATI or NV chipsets, which can only be good for the consumer.

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Originally Posted by Weee

Subscribed. Waiting on expert news as well =)

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Expert is 8x8 not 16x16 as far as i know....

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Originally Posted by Tony

Expert is 8x8 not 16x16 as far as i know....

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bah who cares......most people run single cards anyways.....we are interested in that mobo and what it does :D....are you under some sort of NDA (you are disclosing some info but you're not posting much OCing) heheh :)

AG mentioned something about Anandtech having exclusive rights to review this thing....they better be quick cause you've covered a lot of ground already heheh

I promised Anandtech he would have the benchmarks, he has the exclusive off DFI and I respect that.

I will step up with more info once the review is launched

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tony

Now im not an ATI fan boy here, im a motherboard fanboy....nvidia does not know what ATI is coming with next, if you think the dual 16X is good from NV then you will love the ATI offerings that should be coming soon.

I got that from an interview with John Bruno, he doesn't say much but he is very confident we will like what we see.

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I have no preference, its all marketing to me. I prefer ATI anyways only cause the waterblock I have only fits an ATI. lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hipro5

Why you "fight" about the 4 x dimms and 1T?........To do what?........200MHz?.......That's NOT for us!......That's for a "simple" user right?.....We want 250MHz+ to do something......For that, forget the 4 x dimms and 1T........Am I right?....... ;) :)

P.S. I'll buy one of those beauties...... ;)

Now, Tony could you please tell me if the SMD chips with the 8 legs near the DDR Slots are Winbond chips?.......Coz IF they are Winbond chips for the VTT, they rock up to 2A load.......And please tell me if they are 2 of them?........Thanks....... :)

EDIT: Those in the red circles...... :)

http://www.thelab.gr/images/Hipro5/Temp/CIMG1128.JPG

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so have you found anything yet?? you are looking to see if this board will have the vtt issue you found on the dfi nforce 4 boards outnow right?? do tell if you find the answear as i really need a rock solid board and my dfi right now well it isnt rock solid. its fine for gaming but at full oc it is never rock solid only flakey in very strange times like outlined in your mobo mods thread!
keep us updated!




also tony do you know of an nvidia based dfi board with 1 16x pci-e slot but with the same volt regulation and power circutry of these boards??? that is what im looking for this board but with only one pci-e16 slot and a lower price point because of it!!!!!!!
________
FIX PS3

Let's clear the air of the B.S. and focus on facts pertaining to the chipset side of things which is what I am involved in and can speak with certainty.

First of all, on Nvidia doing and ATI not. B.S. plain and simple. That's what Nvidia wants you to believe. Let's look at the bigger picture.

Nvidia has been around in the AMD channel market for a while now and is most well known there. But what about anywhere else? ATI specifically focused on the OEM market and hit that first on both the AMD and Intel fronts at the PCI-E market transition. This was the plan and it worked very well. But don't let me try to convince you of that, just check the Mercury numbers ;) Our market share has increased rapidly and this will only continue. ATI has pumped out more chips in the last year than anyone else; namely RS480, RX480, RS482, RD480, RS400, RC410, RD400, SB400, SB450 and a few unannounced ones are pending. The fact that channel motherboards are appearing later on is a simple result of the motherboard vendors' design cycle. Remember that the whole Xpress 200G family of products has been shipping in droves for a very long time to OEMs. The channel will follow. It was never and still isn't a chipset issue.

On the flip side, where are the green guys in the Intel IGP market? Nothing there. What about the AMD IGP market? Nothing there neither except a in any significant way (speaking of paper launches, where is the C51G?). So when you ask the question "who's doing?", look at the whole picture, not just a portion of it.

As for the green guys' dual x16 implementation, anyone who knows anything about computer architecture will tell you it's a hack job. It's an amalgamation of existing chips to get dual graphics ports and nothing more. True dual x16 bandwidth is not achieved even on paper. Secondly, what happens when an I/O device (like a SATA drive) needs data? Even more bandwidth is stolen from the lower graphics port. Is there anyone that can demonstrate that dual x16 actually improves performance in any way? In fact, what happens to I/O performance of southbridge devices when 2 cards are being used and active? Has anyone measured that? ;) The flaws are numerous.

Our policy is to not comment on unannounced products, but there is something coming. Overclockers, get ready. Gamers, get ready. Now back to the topic at hand...RDX200.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tony

The issue Jason is the NV option is not true 16x X2, if you read how they implememnted the technology you will see its actually a compromise. Then to move on they do not run the chipsets at actual LDT speeds so you have a performance drop there also.

Im not taking any sides but im waiting to see what ATI do with their 16x X2 before i go buy an NV board...as the ATI just may be a little better.

Now, to comment about NV are doing it and ATI are just talking the good talk you are partially correct, ATI are behind, but the fact is they also have been looking at whats there already and seeing if they can do it better.

Rememeber i get board here to test and to show you guys, they are retail boards, nothing special, nothing cherry picked and from now on they will have either ATI or NV chipsets, which can only be good for the consumer.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Our policy is to not comment on unannounced products, but there is something coming and it will bring new capabilities. Overclockers, get ready. Gamers, get ready. Now back to the topic at hand...RDX200.

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overclockers get ready bit cought my eye :fact: .....you got something superspecial coming up?......damn once i get the expert i really don't want to be tempted until M2 damn it

on the current mobo.....why in the world would ATI not include Sata2 controller with it or is this DFI's call?

DFI recognized a good thing when they saw it and duplicated the memory power delivery section of ATI Grouper/Halibut. The component selections are a little different based on what I can see on the DFI board but the components used are equivalent. There is over 5 A VTT drive capability at 100C.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brandinb

so have you found anything yet?? you are looking to see if this board will have the vtt issue you found on the dfi nforce 4 boards outnow right?? do tell if you find the answear as i really need a rock solid board and my dfi right now well it isnt rock solid. its fine for gaming but at full oc it is never rock solid only flakey in very strange times like outlined in your mobo mods thread!
keep us updated!




also tony do you know of an nvidia based dfi board with 1 16x pci-e slot but with the same volt regulation and power circutry of these boards??? that is what im looking for this board but with only one pci-e16 slot and a lower price point because of it!!!!!!!

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Motherboard vendors dictate onboard features, not the chipset suppliers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dinos22

overclockers get ready bit cought my eye :fact: .....you got something superspecial coming up?......damn once i get the expert i really don't want to be tempted until M2 damn it

on the current mobo.....why in the world would ATI not include Sata2 controller with it or is this DFI's call?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Motherboard vendors dictate onboard features, not the chipset suppliers.

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that was a dumb decision whoever made the call

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dinos22

that was a dumb decision whoever made the call

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We talk about DFI board build with ATI chipset here...not ATI board. Let them work out some data and you can find out yourself if you got the board :)
I'll post results later today with -90s C performance on this board...without any real benchs its hard to tell. Imo, it will surpass SLI-DR with BH/UTT...
One thing about SLI-DR....it survived 2 months straight run..6/7 hours daily with cascade...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dinos22

that was a dumb decision whoever made the call

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I would agree with you if this is going to be their topline ATI chipset mthbrd, but somehow I dont believe it will be. If it does end up being their topline mthbrd then that was a dumb decision!!!!

Why put old tech on a new mobo? To save costs! I see this mobo becoming something like the cheaper varients of NF4, over a period of time ofcourse!

[OFFTOPIC...sortof]

umm, during the whole however many months that ati hasnt released a gfx chip, hasnt released the ATI chipset as quickly as it wanted, they know nVidia is in a position to one up them, and they are probably planning ahead, doing something to show up nvidia, and this is more a mobo thread im sure, so nVidia with their nForce range is a performance chipset, ati's shipsets have been aimed squarely @ the OEM market...so they gotta start from ground up. and in all possibility, could have a next generation ready to come out to show up nVidia, when they do release the generation after nF4 expert (i think thats what it is anyway...)

because btw, Expert or whatever it is, is only using a hacked 8x2, not 16x2, so im pretty sure, that this generation is designed to top off nF4 sli/possibly expert. and then nVidia could already be hard at work, trying to release something which is fully 16x2

and as greyskull has said

Quote:

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overclockers get ready

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seems to me, ati has definitly been hard at work...

as greyskull has said, nVidia has probably just done a hackjob on the 16x2 slots, and even if the next generation of ati's performance chipset turns out to be a dud, they have been growing steadily and are fairly well known in the OEM market, and have also (i think) signed a deal not too long ago with intel so that they can include their integrated gfx chipsets in their motherboards, ati, doesnt need to release any overclocking boards to keep themselves in business, some business is almost entirely based on it :p: but i think more than anything, they want to show up nVidia, which is why they are putting out these motherboards...

soz if it doesnt make sense, have to go

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Our policy is to not comment on unannounced products, but there is something coming. Overclockers, get ready. Gamers, get ready. Now back to the topic at hand...RDX200.

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Whilst im probably not going to get an answer to this its worth asking anyway. :p:

how long is the new stuff likely to be? are we talking couple of weeks/a month/ a couple of months?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Our policy is to not comment on unannounced products, but there is something coming. Overclockers, get ready. Gamers, get ready. Now back to the topic at hand...RDX200.

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id honestly rather have not known about this... as when i jump on halibut, i was planning on riding it all the way to M2, or at least i wanted to think thats what i was doing for a minute... its pretty sweet to hear this, but id avoid talking more about it just for sake of avoiding competition with the boards that still arent available

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Let's clear the air of the B.S. and focus on facts pertaining to the chipset side of things which is what I am involved in and can speak with certainty.

First of all, on Nvidia doing and ATI not. B.S. plain and simple. That's what Nvidia wants you to believe. Let's look at the bigger picture.

Nvidia has been around in the AMD channel market for a while now and is most well known there. But what about anywhere else? ATI specifically focused on the OEM market and hit that first on both the AMD and Intel fronts at the PCI-E market transition. This was the plan and it worked very well. But don't let me try to convince you of that, just check the Mercury numbers ;) Our market share has increased rapidly and this will only continue. ATI has pumped out more chips in the last year than anyone else; namely RS480, RX480, RS482, RD480, RS400, RC410, RD400, SB400, SB450 and a few unannounced ones are pending. The fact that channel motherboards are appearing later on is a simple result of the motherboard vendors' design cycle. Remember that the whole Xpress 200G family of products has been shipping in droves for a very long time to OEMs. The channel will follow. It was never and still isn't a chipset issue.

On the flip side, where are the green guys in the Intel IGP market? Nothing there. What about the AMD IGP market? Nothing there neither except a in any significant way (speaking of paper launches, where is the C51G?). So when you ask the question "who's doing?", look at the whole picture, not just a portion of it.

As for the green guys' dual x16 implementation, anyone who knows anything about computer architecture will tell you it's a hack job. It's an amalgamation of existing chips to get dual graphics ports and nothing more. True dual x16 bandwidth is not achieved even on paper. Secondly, what happens when an I/O device (like a SATA drive) needs data? Even more bandwidth is stolen from the lower graphics port. Is there anyone that can demonstrate that dual x16 actually improves performance in any way? In fact, what happens to I/O performance of southbridge devices when 2 cards are being used and active? Has anyone measured that? ;) The flaws are numerous.

Our policy is to not comment on unannounced products, but there is something coming. Overclockers, get ready. Gamers, get ready. Now back to the topic at hand...RDX200.

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All that sounds dandy, but the bottomline fact is more than likely you'll have to wait to buy ATI products. ATI has put out lots of products I can read about on the internet, but I can't buy it until months later. So much so that by the time they are available its time to move on to something else. I have been using ATI cards for more than 4 years now and have been satisfied. But the reality is ATI is about as dependable for launching a product in reasonable time as me going out and buying a Unicorn horse. I read about grouper back in July or May, lets just say a long time ago, its darn near Christmas time.

I actually think half the issues with Grouper and Halibut were that they are built without compromise and in reality are NOT cheap to manufacture. Remember Taiwanese companies are all about making nice profits and to make a board like Grouper and be competitive would eat into their margins....so they design their own instead.
We saw Sapphire downgrading components on grouper, this was all due to board manufacturing costs.

What we need is a small manufacturer to make boards without compromise, issue is would you guys be willing to pay the price or would you just complain that $200 or so is just to much?

If there really was a difference in end performance, I'd do it.

if you mean an OCZ mobo tony, then im all ears hehe

no but seriously, if a board like that were released, it would need to justify its price with better performance then the cheaper mobo's, or at least helluva lot better features, I.E. no using the sil3114.

you know us here at XS don't mind paying more for the good stuff, but itll really need to be the good stuff, i mean, abit's boards all have quality components, but they cant clock nearly as good as dfi's offerings that use lower quality components.

and if you used all of the good stuff but only equaled that of a CF-BT or whatever, then it wont do well, people wont pay a premium for brand name caps when generic ones are working fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Revv23

if you mean an OCZ mobo tony, then im all ears hehe

no but seriously, if a board like that were released, it would need to justify its price with better performance then the cheaper mobo's, or at least helluva lot better features, I.E. no using the sil3114.

you know us here at XS don't mind paying more for the good stuff, but itll really need to be the good stuff, i mean, abit's boards all have quality components, but they cant clock nearly as good as dfi's offerings that use lower quality components.

and if you used all of the good stuff but only equaled that of a CF-BT or whatever, then it wont do well, people wont pay a premium for brand name caps when generic ones are working fine.

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Totally agree.
Paying more is OK, but we want better results. Otherwise it doesn't make sense

You guys shouldn't be complaining about 200$.
CF-DR is on preorder in Denmark. About 300.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SlackeR

You guys shouldn't be complaining about 200$.
CF-DR is on preorder in Denmark. About 300.

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I thought along a similar line, luckily it's only about $250 in the UK so i get off slightly better.
$200 for me would have me dancing around the room lol.

G

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Master_G

I thought along a similar line, luckily it's only about $250 in the UK so i get off slightly better.
$200 for me would have me dancing around the room lol.

G

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yeah i've noticed that UK guys get ripped off pretty badly.......but we are not too far behind either heheh

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dumo

I'll post results later today with -90s C performance on this board...without any real benchs its hard to tell.

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We waiting for your results :woot:

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2572

anandtech's article

Don't the ~90k AQ3 screens look familiar? They were posted here, a different CPU was used IIRC.

There's no mass consipiracy here, this was a fairly collaborative review, not the typical AT style (from what we know at least). More results in the coming days....

EDIT: between all the AQ3 runs the settings were left the same (other than the RAM configs).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

So they say. ;)

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:shakes:

They are so much fun, well lets the board in the handds of us mere mortals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

So they say. ;)

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For the 1t runs we were using an FX57 at its stock speed, for the review a 4000+ was used.

That is why the scores are lower in the review than the 4x1dimm 1t results.

No conspiracy here, please just ask the correct questions and we will give you the answers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Troman

LOl i love these discussions :D
:toast:

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I'm backing out of it right now....I don't want to get in trouble :nono:

Anyway, at the price of $240+~$30 of shipping, Americans can get the board and use it tomorrow....in fact, you could have ordered yesterday and have had it today!

It should be any day now before we get more reports and results :toast:

And thank you Tony for explaining the details....:up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

WHAT A LOAD OF SH*T!!!
'Tony' even said they couldn't do 4x512 bh-5 so that alone states that its not going to jsut "HAPPEN' for everyone.


And still just those 3 aqumark3 runs where LOD or CPanel settings can casue that drop in perfomance in that benchmark, lmfao.

Gotta Love this Mess!!
ANANDTECH USALLY DOES A BETTER JOB THAT THIS !! :(

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I had an 2 hrs IM conversation with Oskar yessterday, cas1.5 is a TCCD tweak, 4 dimms 1t is also more of a TCCD tweak, this is because the samsung IC is obviosly more stable running huge drive strengths and creates less crosstalk.

Oskar also mentioned he had good performance with a micron 1gig based dimm and i will be testing 4000EB 4 dimms also.

Jason

Go buy the board and play with it, im getting sick of you slamming what we try and say to you. I fully expect to see users with 4xTCCD or 4Xballistix or 4x4000EB running 200fsb 1t in the next day or so...whether they think this is worth it is just for them to decide.

We have not hidden anything here, and not conspired to make the board better than it is....lets not forget the features it does not have.

NCQ
SATA2
good USB

So take from the review what you want,nothing was hidden and nothing was conspired here....

What about using the CAS1.5 setting on UTT? Will it be a slightly more stable yet equally fast setting like it was with the NF4 series?

Well we know tomorrow, one of us will have it in our hands and test the hell out of it, and then return it, hahahahahahaha.

Where is dumo results this should be fun

The review looks good, but the lack of SATA 2 support is very unattractive to me.

deception``

SO when is the sapphire board coming out, the abit board will be here shortly wonder if epox will be late as usual.

So Tony, now when Anandtech has posted the article, feel free to provide us with your personal thoughts on the board :D And when are you getting the nF4 Expert finally? The layout being almost equal as well as the added tweaks, it would be very nice to see a comparison between the RDX200 and the nF4 Expert.


Btw, not trying to sound offensive, but this Grayskull's comment:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Our policy is to not comment on unannounced products, but there is something coming. Overclockers, get ready. Gamers, get ready.

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... was right there for one to think: "so, if ATI is coming out with something better soon, why bother buying the current ATI chipset boards even if they become available finally?" Quite an irony, I must admit ;)

There is always something coming next. If we do our job right it'll always be better than the previous generation. This is nothing new and happens in the entire industry...CPUs, graphics, chipsets, memory etc. If you always want to wait for the next generation, you'll be caught in an endless loop of waiting. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrlobber

So Tony, now when Anandtech has posted the article, feel free to provide us with your personal thoughts on the board :D And when are you getting the nF4 Expert finally? The layout being almost equal as well as the added tweaks, it would be very nice to see a comparison between the RDX200 and the nF4 Expert.


Btw, not trying to sound offensive, but this Grayskull's comment:



... was right there for one to think: "so, if ATI is coming out with something better soon, why bother buying the current ATI chipset boards even if they become available finally?" Quite an irony, I must admit ;)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tony

Go buy the board and play with it, im getting sick of you slamming what we try and say to you.

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I agree with you wholeheartedly, Tony, but we cannot buy this board as of yet. IF you find some way that i can purchase this board from Canada to try for my own, please let me know.

Btw, a well laid out post from DFI street rep Angry_Games (regarding the 4 dimms 1T issues, USB & SATAII):

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Angry_Games

in reality though...this is sort of a useless feature for this board since most that buy it (and every that it is marketed to) will want to overclock it...and once you go above about 202 (DDR405) you lose this ability...and you are back at 2T

then you have poor USB performance (which I honestly don't care about...the USB works for me on my board and I only use a jumpdrive, gamepad, digital camera, and they all worked very well for me)....is USB performance that important to you? It really isn't to me...but we are all different.

the biggest drawback is lack of NCQ and SATA II...i am rebuilding my main rig with 4GB of memory, an X2 4400+, and 3 hdd's in RAID-0 for video editing and gaming etc. I thought for a minute about going with the RDX200 board I have...but decided against it because I have 3 Hitachi 80GB SATA II drives that are stellar, exceptional performers, and I want that to translate well on my rebuild...and so I stuck to my NF4 SLI-DR, which is still my overclocking champ, as well as my hdd performance champ.

As I had statetd earlier, the RDX200 CF-DR is a great board in teh sense that it boots right out of the box with EVERYTHING left at AUTO, and with now 11 different kits of memory in it...and they all work very well in the board.

as for overclocking....it probably is just me, but I cannot get this board to overclock for nothing, no matter what i put into it, no matter what settings I try.

I used the same hardware (3200+ Venice, Centon/GEIL tccd and GEIL/OCZ BH-5) that I have entered numerous times in the OC Database...and I cannot get this board to overclock...my highest was with Centon TCCD, and I achieved a measely 223HTT (223x10).

Now..I am not the best overclocker on the planet...and I know this is a new board...but I have spent since Friday morning fooling with this thing, and I have sat at the board with my finger on the reset button over and over and over and over and over and over again trying one setting at a time and nothing seems to work...so maybe I am retarded, maybe the board needs a bios update, or maybe it just is a dog for me (and you might have different results like Wes @ Anandtech did).

But for me....its a great board for stock speeds as it is very compatible and seems to boot with every memory I have.

But if I was going to choose it for overclocking...I would stick with the NF4 Lanparty, or wait for the Lanparty NF4 Expert, or the one I am REALLY looking forward to, our Lanparty RDX200 CF-BT (props to Tony/BigToe for his input on this board). I don't know if the Expert NF4 or the CF-BT ATI board is going to be good, better, worse, etc....but in the meantime, I am sticking to my NF4 Lanparty SLI-DR, and recommending it for overclocking.

I am recommending the RDX200 CF-DR to those who want a flashy board with decent features and ease of use in setting up.

keep in mind this is first generation, first run...so because I have had an easy time with it, does not mean you will, or that i found any of the issues that you guys will find...I've spent most of my time trying to overclock it, not playing any games or listening to music or any of the 'everyday' things that you all will use it for.

And as I stated earlier...my suggestion for you is to wait until we have had more time to play with the board....don't just run out and spend your money because it is new and a single review said that it is a decent board.

Being smart with your money is the most important thing you can do. If you have extra cash and want to check it out, by all means, buy one as they are good boards. If you don't have a lot of cash...then be patient and let the early-adopters come back and tell you what they think of the board.

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did that review seem rushed to anyone else? It's not up to anandtech's usual standards. I guess it's our own fault for being so impatient. :banana:

Well, the board certainly seems solid, but fails to impress. :( Waiting for CF-BT. :(

I had ther same overclocking issues untill we worked out the drive strength was totally different to the NF4, infact i must thank Rgone for helping get the magic 300 as he was first there after discovering DS7 to 9 worked best with TCCD.

What you all need to remember is this board is a lot different to the NF4, it has more options and will need patience when setting up, I know i have been frustrated by it many times.

Regards the SATA2 etc, I posted its faults back a page, thats all i can really fault on it.

Tony,

What drive strength do you recommend for 2*1gig of Ballistix?

Any results in the cold bug department yet?

Tony, I wonder how well oc'ing goes when you use 2x or 4x SATA drives in raid 0 ?

I have to say, the biggest disappointment is DFI's use of the ATI SB450. They knew about it's problems back in May and they decided to take the chance ATI would fix it.

The question I have, did ATI ever plan to have SATA2 support with their SB450? If not, then what the heck was DFI thinking?

For those who don't know. A SATA2 Raid0 config is a real significant bang-for-the-buck performance feature. Especially with two 80GB Hitatchi SATA2 hard drives.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

RALMFAO!!! guess his board is faulty.

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well it took me and some oc'ers 3+ weeks to tame the DFI NF4 options for memory, so i guess Crossfire with even more options needs as much time if not longer to tame... no way someone just getting the DFI Crossfire can tame it in a few days - especially for TCCD (for me takes 3x times longer to tame on DFI NF4 than BH-5/UTT BH-5 does) :)

mickeymouse are you going to get the board and test it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136165
http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2572
ITS OUT @ 238 bucks!!

I have tweaked the bios already, its allowing TCCD to boot and run at around 280 with no other tweaks apart from Vdimm so we are already taming the board.
LDT has to be set, setting auto does not scale like the NF4 does.Also i have hidden from 3.76V and up and opened up all the inbetween settings for vdimm, so we have options in 0.02v steps all the the way from 2.5v to 3.74V which I really like.

The drive strengths we found nice were 7 8 9, i have set the board to use 8.

To comment on the bios, it needs an update.It is first release and as usual it does need polishing.

Now talking about sata2, I really can't understand why we don't have 3124-2 on this board, it features sata2 and sata1, or you can use 3132 for 2 ports and use a port expander for more, this would have brought the fastest sata2 controller onboard and satisfied many who run Hitachi drives.

The USB is no biggy to me, its fast enough for what i use but you could always add a usb card for faster thru put. Issue is though with the price of the board it kinda leaves a bad taste if you have to do it.

I like the board layout a lot, running this board BTX style with a 120mm fan at the back like the Lian Li would help keep cpu and dimms real cool, I do think this layout is a good move forward.

yeah not very inviting this board with low HTT OC, crap USB2.0performance and not SATA2 and NCQ......my mobos spend most of their life well above 300MHz HTT so don't want no challenges to break 300 let alone 330/340/350+ no thanks........i realise it's an early bios but yeah let's just wait for this Expert mobo to be released in the next ..............well whenever they make their mind up......wonder if OPB has any word on availability as his hit prediction seems to be coming true about a massive delay....our disties just keep pushing the ETA up and up....now they are saying it is unknown and that is scary

I have a feeling Expert is just like this board in terms of TCCD overclocking, the NF4 first gen we all love was purely tuned to clock TCCD and it really does show, this RDX and i bet the Expert is tuned to clock all dimms well with the exception of hynix which seems to have issues. The only issue is that TCCD clocks have come down a little.

Remember 270x10 2.5-3-3- can be faster than 300x9 2.5-4-3- with the right tweaks, all is not lost with either of these new boards from DFI, you just need to overclock in a slightly different way.

I kind of think or hope that it's not that HTT cannot go high but TCCD doesn't clock as high. Those are then two different things ;)

Tony, have you tried to see how how on HTT you can get on that mobo with a mem on divider?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

Yeah but you 'NEED" the HT bus for some of the chips with locked low multi's :(
If you have a 3100mhz air 144 opteron "9x" multi you need over 340mhz HT bus to run to get your max perfomance ;)

So many run 3000+ -3200+ venice chips /144-146 opterons becasue they are so good they can run 3ghz+ on air/water. So you can see high HT "HAS" to be able to be as stable as an nf4 chipset. ;)

and 270x10@2.5-3-3-7 might be faster than 300x9 wihtt he wrong timings, but CPu powe always win so oyu need HT speed to get the cpu up to par. :)

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Tony mentioned a dream workstation with an Opteron inside...........i REALLY REALLY hope they will optimise these bioses to get them working well with the Opterons............

Tony it would be nice to see if Opterons work on them at all..............and about TCCD comment yeah it looks like TCCD is a bit passe cause they don't have 2GB kits anyways so probably not a major concern even tho i have TCCD :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bachus_anonym

I kind of think or hope that it's not that HTT cannot go high but TCCD doesn't clock as high. Those are then two different things ;)

Tony, have you tried to see how how on HTT you can get on that mobo with a mem on divider?

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Playing with that now.


Remember there is no performance hit for running a divider as the A64 operates the memory controller independantly, as soon as you hit 300fsb in 183 mode the ram gives exactly the same performance as 1:1 as long as the cpu speed is the same.