DFI RDX200 CF-DR First look

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:

---

Originally Posted by Grayskull

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

---

... 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:

---

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 ;)

---

Quote:

---

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.

---

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:

---

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.

---

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:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

RALMFAO!!! guess his board is faulty.

---

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:

---

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. :)

---

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:

---

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?

---

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.

Opterons are run off the same silicon as the FX cpu's, so if you want high fsb CPU's these are a good choice. Don't get me wrong if I was going to buy a cpu i would get a 146.

Quote:

---

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. :)

---

run a divider...simple fix

Tony plsplspls test some BH5 RAM at high vdimm..............

Nice work with the preview Tony :)

Have you tried out the overclocking with 2x1GB kits yet? Do they overclock better on 200CF-DR compared to "older" DFI NF4 platforms?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

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.

---

Hehe, I know Tony... ;) Waiting for your results :toast:

Tomorrow now guys, 3am and im beat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

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.

---

unless you need to loosen max async and premable to run divider versus tight max async/preamble at 1:1 well for super pi at least heh

will test my opteron 144/146s on DFI Crossfire whenever the board is available http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=1536 :)

anyone else think the Anandtech review was confusing? I mean they used all different vidcards for comparison. It's ALMOST like comparing oranges to apples, ALMOST! I don't see why they couldnt have just stuck to one vidcard. Not a true comparison when one of hte main components constantly changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by situman

anyone else think the Anandtech review was confusing? I mean they used all different vidcards for comparison. It's ALMOST like comparing oranges to apples, ALMOST! I don't see why they couldnt have just stuck to one vidcard. Not a true comparison when one of hte main components constantly changes.

---

funnny you ask..
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=191999

scrol to post number 21

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by situman

anyone else think the Anandtech review was confusing? I mean they used all different vidcards for comparison. It's ALMOST like comparing oranges to apples, ALMOST! I don't see why they couldnt have just stuck to one vidcard. Not a true comparison when one of hte main components constantly changes.

---

*agreed* it a bit dissapointing actually
No UTT/BH stuff testen :slap: why?!

Its a high voltage board with great options... so can a dfi rep speak up and say if it CAN or CANT do 4x512 UTT 1T?
Lovely high voltage options but why use them if its all aimed at TCCD stuff.

Lots of buyers are the semi-budget guys (like me) who buy relatively cheap UTT (compared to expensive TCCD) and wana give it some nice volts for daily and some big volts for benching)
With the cheap utt they buy a venice 3000/3200 (mine does almost 2900mhz on air) but when the HTT is held low because they have to make a comprimise with the 4x512 1T for TCCD the low end amd's cant get to their max.

So make me some pie! uuuh... i mean give me UTT results :rolleyes:
And preferebly a BT board that does 4x512 1t for my daily gaming ^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

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.

---

I have two hitachi T7K250, switching SATA1 and SATA2 back and forth but didn't find any advantage so IF the xpert turns out to be the same as this xfire I know the SATA2 won't be missed by me for sure!! :D :D :D

Tony, by the way...thanks for the review, I don't think anybody ask you this....but how hot does the chipset get when you overclocked? is it in the 50~60'C range underload ?

hehe...I'm already looking for bigger chipset hs/f to fit on the xpert when it comes out :D :D

@ Vandread

WELL said........BUT......Don't "lock" your mind on 4 x 512MB DS 1T that DFI can deliver!......Do you REALLY need it that much?......I think not......We need over 250MHz to do our "job" properly.....So forget about "DFI's 1T" thing......It's a commercial "trick" as for me.....FOCUS on the overall performance of the board and what DFI has done till now that others just can't!.......1T @ 200MHz is for newbie’s......NOT?....... ;)

As for me, I'll buy one of these mobos to pair it with my upcoming FX57 CPU and I'll post my findings and my thoughts about it when the time comes..... ;)


@ Tony

Not very clear image...... :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hipro5

@ Vandread
WELL said........BUT......Don't "lock" your mind on 4 x 512MB DS 1T that DFI can deliver!......Do you REALLY need it that much?......I think not......We need over 250MHz to do our "job" properly.....So forget about "DFI's 1T" thing......It's a commercial "trick" as for me.....FOCUS on the overall performance of the board and what DFI has done till now that others just can't!.......1T @ 200MHz is for newbie’s......NOT?....... ;)

---

Exactly :)
The whole 1T 4xDS is nice BUT we dont want to comprimise ... and it seems like that is what happened? :stick:

PS: i was like you... always typing with lots of DOTS
But i'm cutting down on the dots :p:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

exactly I might ramble on about the 4x512@1t, but honestly since i run way over 270mhz that means nothing it was just a chanllage, hehe.

This board "HAS" to out clock the DFI NF4, but also we need features like SataII and fast USB. Im as hardcore as it comes to overclocking, but even I need to plug my digi cam in for work and when I render Photoshop with huge files need the raid perfomace that I deserve from a $240 motherboard this late in the game. :)

---

Oh, come on......Give me a break!........You want to say that you are going to use your mousepot/DI container and freeze that baby with Dry Ice/LN2 and you will have the USB stick to copy movies in it?........ :D :cheer2:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Troman

yeah why not ..it surely will go fast :D

---

Yeap sure it will..... :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

LOL, my benching rigs are my 24/7 rigs ask anyone that knows me ;)
I bench take the pot off add air/water and then upload my results. :)

So YES sata2 and usb all have to work as it should on a 24/7 top of the line video/editing rig :)

---

I think that you like teasing ppl like I do ....... :D

How are the sensors on this motherboard, how many, what do they monitor?

Poor usb performance ╛No real reason for me having bought this 2gb ocz rally drive. :S lol

My old neo 2 does 365htt stable it costs $73.

1t at 200mhz means nothing to me, cool you guys got it working, props. Sure showed amd lol, but I never run less then 250htt.

How is the cold bug issue with this board? Has it been solved, this would be great!

Does running with the old style p4 connecter instead of the 8 pin effect overclocking, what does the 8 pin do exaclty, will ocz make an adapter, for those of use that just bought there psu's lol, brand new and out of date now dam it. lol

Thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vandread

*agreed* it a bit dissapointing actually
No UTT/BH stuff testen :slap: why?!

Its a high voltage board with great options... so can a dfi rep speak up and say if it CAN or CANT do 4x512 UTT 1T?
Lovely high voltage options but why use them if its all aimed at TCCD stuff.

Lots of buyers are the semi-budget guys (like me) who buy relatively cheap UTT (compared to expensive TCCD) and wana give it some nice volts for daily and some big volts for benching)
With the cheap utt they buy a venice 3000/3200 (mine does almost 2900mhz on air) but when the HTT is held low because they have to make a comprimise with the 4x512 1T for TCCD the low end amd's cant get to their max.

So make me some pie! uuuh... i mean give me UTT results :rolleyes:
And preferebly a BT board that does 4x512 1t for my daily gaming ^^

---

Wes recieved the board friday, DFI wanted the review friday night which was impossible. Like all normal people Wes wanted time off over the weekend but tested as much as he could.

He also tested 7800GTX and crossfire to show the fastest card and the best ATI can muster in crossfire mode, i thought you would have actually liked that point.
The Anandtech full bench suit takes 3 days to complete, the graphs take a day maybe longer then the write up takes 2 to 5 days, he had to condense a little to get the review up on monday as DFI and the buying public demanded this.

If you want more indepth im sure when a round up comes along you will see even more benches etc

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

LOL, Optimized for 2x1024 crucial but again they didn't even add those to the mix.
No Sisoft Sandra ddr benchmarks/Everest with the 4x512.

Why no UTT/BH-5/CH-5 testing 2x512 or 4x512@1t?

They have had the Board for like a week, lol ive seen reviews posted over at Hardocp 2 hours after they get the parts in way more detail as does anantech usally does.

---

If he had 2gig ballistix im sure he would have tested with them, fact is he has a 1gig kit not a 2 gig kit.

He had the board friday, from lunchtime EST and DFI wanted a review that day, he pushed it back to monday to add in as much as he could.

Jason, read the motherboard reviews o Anandtech, they use OCZ TCCD for the reviews so he did remain constant.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

exactly I might ramble on about the 4x512@1t, but honestly since i run way over 270mhz that means nothing it was just a chanllage, hehe.

This board "HAS" to out clock the DFI NF4, but also we need features like SataII and fast USB. Im as hardcore as it comes to overclocking, but even I need to plug my digi cam in for work and when I render Photoshop with huge files need the raid perfomace that I deserve from a $240 motherboard this late in the game. :)

---

Jason

You will be not be buying this board, IT IS NOT FOR YOU

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Troman

yes he will ;)
mark my holy words :D

---

Well he will be disapointed, no sata2, poor usb, TCCD does not clock as high...do i need to go on?

He does nothing but moan about the review,and feels we are trying to cover something up but he does not read what is right in front of him.

I have posted exactly what i found, i have even said if you have a good NF4 rig and you were moving to this one JUST for overclcoking i would not bother.

Now, if you you want to play with crossfire and you want good overclcoking also then this may be an option for you.

lets remember, i have had the board just a few days, i have the initial shipping bios, so it may get better with the next bios release.

How are the sensors on this motherboard, how many, what do they monitor?
Just the same as the NF4
Poor usb performance ╛No real reason for me having bought this 2gb ocz rally drive. :S lol

My old neo 2 does 365htt stable it costs $73.

1t at 200mhz means nothing to me, cool you guys got it working, props. Sure showed amd lol, but I never run less then 250htt.

Again try running 200 1t 4 dimms on your board, the fact this one does it is nice but yes I agree its not for the overclocker

How is the cold bug issue with this board? Has it been solved, this would be great!

No idea, but it is a move in the right direction to solve it

Does running with the old style p4 connecter instead of the 8 pin effect overclocking, what does the 8 pin do exaclty, will ocz make an adapter, for those of use that just bought there psu's lol, brand new and out of date now dam it. lol

You can run with the 4 pin, so no worries

the ULI south bridge will fix alot of the Sata and usd problems that the ati SB brings to the table.

but sacrificing alittle is better than RMAing mobos every month.

My DFI ultra so far has cost me alot in shipping charges.

Tony, you mentioned before that Oscar had posted news that he got 4 x 512mb sticks running at 1T on current Nf4 boards through a new bios but we have heard nothing since. Have you actually recieved this bios? Is it available to us?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cantankerous

Tony, you mentioned before that Oscar had posted news that he got 4 x 512mb sticks running at 1T on current Nf4 boards through a new bios but we have heard nothing since. Have you actually recieved this bios? Is it available to us?

---

The NF4 ultra D will never run 4dimms 1t, it needs a hardware change to do it.

i will have a bios that does the REAL cas1.5 on the NF4....the one thats there now is actually cas2 it seems.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by situman

anyone else think the Anandtech review was confusing? I mean they used all different vidcards for comparison. It's ALMOST like comparing oranges to apples, ALMOST! I don't see why they couldnt have just stuck to one vidcard. Not a true comparison when one of hte main components constantly changes.

---

For the READING challenged. LOOK AT THE LITTLE RED BARS, they are the tests with the 6800 Ultra. This is the same card used in testing every other board on the chart.

The gold bars are the 7800GTX results. They are in the review for those who would complain otherwise "Why are you testing with the 6800 Ultra when it's obsolete. I don't care if all your Socket 939 board tests are also with the 6800U". The purple bars are the Crossfire X850XT, just to see if it worked. THE GOLD AND PURPLE BARS ARE FOR REFERENCE.

All this is explained, as always, in the Test Setup.

What I really want to know, and you say this board will be similar to the "expert" is how it does with the high voltage, low latency rams relative to the nf4 boards out already!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Weee

What I really want to know, and you say this board will be similar to the "expert" is how it does with the high voltage, low latency rams relative to the nf4 boards out already!

---

Just the same

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

LOL, Optimized for 2x1024 crucial but again they didn't even add those to the mix.
No Sisoft Sandra ddr benchmarks/Everest with the 4x512.

Why no UTT/BH-5/CH-5 testing 2x512 or 4x512@1t?

They have had the Board for like a week, lol ive seen reviews posted over at Hardocp 2 hours after they get the parts in way more detail as does anantech usally does.

---

Our standard motherboard test suite does NOT include Sandra or Everest, though I do use both in Memory reviews. Therefore there was not a database of Sandra and Everest to compare to other motherboards. I ran the tests for myself, but an isolated test result is an advertisement and not a review. You need to compare to other boards for a review. There are already plenty of web sites who test an isolated board, post great results in a vacuum, and give it an Editors Choice. That is the real joke in your comment.

Reviewing is about consistent comparison, which is why our standard memory results are currently TCCD on the A64. Tony and I did test and find OK Infineon 1GB, TCCD, BH5, Ballistix 51MB, and VX (CH5). The only problem memory was Hynix, which is not much used any more. However, to report results for any of these, without comparison numbers, would not have been a review. I also just received Crucial Ballistix 2GB, and since Oskar used the Ballistix 1GB dimms to test and tweak the board we have every reason to expect they will perofrm great on the RDX200. This is like TCCD was used by Oskar for the DFI nF4.

Mr. Icee is now doing some reviews for AT. Why don't you email him and ask him about our test suite at AT. He can tell you more about the time it takes for testing, and what we do in testing to assure comparability of results.

Since you're so loudly disappointed I have a challenge for you. Email me your shipping address and I'll provide you the full AT test suite on 7 DVDs for your testing. If you publicly agree to accept this challenge we can arrange with DFI to ship you a RDX200 on loan for testing. You then have a little over 24 hours, like I did, to test the DFI RDX200, and then return the board. Since it's an exclusive review and boards start selling Tuesday morning there are no other review results for Reference and you can't use the ones from my review. Then post your review and we will critique it. LOL

EDIT: flame removed
-saaya

Stop the flaming before this very helpful and informational thread gets locked....please.

Whatever you two have to say to each other, take it up through PMs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

flame removed
-saaya

---

So does this mean you decline the challenge?

hey Prom :)

curious why did DFI send the board to Anandtech/you so late and only give you 24hrs to test ???

hope there's a planned follow up part 2 ??

it's called frustration.

The more intense this conversation gets, the higher expectation people had before with this new MB.

*** Watching ***

Ive noticed something happening here at XS, something which I dont like, which I was hoping would just go away. But it isnt and it is getting worse. What am I talking abt? It is the 'banter' which is taking place between certain individuals which for me is making XS feel like a 'playground' for peeps ego's.

I dont want to take sides, I would like these things to stop, but I dont think this will happen. It is very easy to critisize, especially in the medium we have available to us. What isnt easy to do, is constructivly create a piece of work tht a review needs to be. If 'you' really feel tht such a poor job was done of the review, then buy the board and do it yourself. Its so easy to say 'do this' and 'do that', please stop posting negative comments, and expect everything you want to be done.

We all have gripes abt certain companies/individuals but at the end of the day, they are the ones who create the products and they are the ones who will lose out if what they produce isnt up to scratch.

As individuals we have the choice to buy something or not to buy it. Please leave your EGO's out of this forum and let XS return to how it was

Please......

One could wish for interrogating the board design engineer(s). :slap:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eva2000

hey Prom :)

curious why did DFI send the board to Anandtech/you so late and only give you 24hrs to test ???

hope there's a planned follow up part 2 ??

---

Always nice to hear from you, Eva. I've missed your thoughtful questions since the old days at Asuboards/ABXZone/BleedinEdge but I still see a comment from you once in a while at AT.

Oskar made improvements to the board after the initial shipment to the US DFI office. He was still tweaking the boards in Taiwan as late as Wednesday of last week. The revisions were locked last Wednesday and my sample was shipped direct from Taiwan. Overnight from Taiwan takes 2 days to the US and UK. We received boards on Friday afternoon for me, and Friday evening for Tony.

In the meantime DFI California was modifying boards to the final Oskar specs for delivery to New Egg, who was to begin sale of the RDX200 on Monday. This is unusual as we usually have at least a week or two to test new launches like this board, but I worked all weekend and slept 3 hours Sunday night to get the major testing done and the review written and to our web editor. The board is super stable, but the memory timings and options are not at all like the DFI nF4. It took a lot of calls, Oskar Saturday night, Tony, and RGone to get things working properly to bring you decent info in such a short period.

Frankly, the AT audience is not really xtreme - I often refer those readers here to xtreme in my reviews - but I still try to bring you at least the OC basics which can provide a starting point for going much deeper as most of you do. That means I will not likely do a follow-up Part 2 on this board very soon.

Part of the reason is there are several other very interesting RD480 boards that will appear shortly, and we will likely concentrate on those before we return to the most promising boards. Asus, MSI, and Abit will all have enthusiast-level boards using the ULi M1575 southbridge, which is why it is taking them a bit more time to get to market. They are not DFI, of course, but they could have some very interesting boards if they were otherwise faithful to the Reference design.

Quote:

---

As individuals we have the choice to buy something or not to buy it. Please leave your EGO's out of this forum and let XS return to how it was

---

I wont get into "how XS was" or "the good ol days"...But whenever there is a release of a revolutionary new product (and it is in many respects), there will be those that embrace it with open arms, those that wait for a more affordable option, and those that believe it isnt any different than what already available - converting those few in the third group isnt an easy task and Tony is doing his best to do so, so pls do recognize that.

On the other side, Jason has some valid points (lol deja vu xs news :p: ), but ppl seem to mind when those points are repeated over and over again. IMO the features arent there, and will not be there in the **read it** FIRST CROSSFIRE MOTHERBOARD to be released retail...so there will always be room for improvement, and look for future crossfire-based motherboards by DFI and other chipset partners to make those improvements.

Debates and arguments happen and will continue to happen as long as there'll be those pushing for a better product, but for now lets stay on topic, look at the board for what it DOES do and wait and see what else Tony has instore for us. Thx for the change in tone btw Prometheus.

Thx.

Perkam

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mongoled

Ive noticed something happening here at XS, something which I dont like, which I was hoping would just go away. But it isnt and it is getting worse. What am I talking abt? It is the 'banter' which is taking place between certain individuals which for me is making XS feel like a 'playground' for peeps ego's.

I dont want to take sides, I would like these things to stop, but I dont think this will happen. It is very easy to critisize, especially in the medium we have available to us. What isnt easy to do, is constructivly create a piece of work tht a review needs to be. If 'you' really feel tht such a poor job was done of the review, then buy the board and do it yourself. Its so easy to say 'do this' and 'do that', please stop posting negative comments, and expect everything you want to be done.

We all have gripes abt certain companies/individuals but at the end of the day, they are the ones who create the products and they are the ones who will lose out if what they produce isnt up to scratch.

As individuals we have the choice to buy something or not to buy it. Please leave your EGO's out of this forum and let XS return to how it was

Please......

---

How ironic - this coming from the guy who posted this in my preview of the E6 San Diego :rolleyes: :

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mongoled

Why r u throwing your dummy out the pram?

Does everyone have to answer, 'woot', 'amazing', sick', to be able to post in your thread? Even if the persons comments are wrong, you shouldnt get in a huff abt it.

XS is abt sharing, not sharing and then charging for it!!

there seem to be more and more posts here from peeps who have access to new cutting edge hardware, which is a good thing, but I dont like the way we r expected to only say good things abt these!


:stick:

---

...