DFI RDX200 CF-DR First look

This is the first RD480 Retail board, and the first always expects to be rewarded with a premium price. My guess is the DFI will settle around $180 if you are willing to wait - most xtreme users don't like waiting though :D

The SB 450 is actually even better than nF4 in IDE and Sata performance as I found in the Sapphire and ATI Crossfire chipset launch review. In fairness SATA1 on SB450 is actually faster than SATA2 on nF4.

As I also showed in the ULi M1575 review, the ULi southbridge is also fast, even faster than SB450 in all the storage controllers, with USB performance near but a bit lower than nF4, and with full support for 4 SATA2 drives, RAID to 5, and NCQ (which the M1573 also supports but not the SB450). Always nice to hear form you. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2562

The practical reality is almost no one will notice the slow USB and missing SATA2/NCQ. However, I can think of better-performing extra SATA controllers than the Sil3114 used on the DFI.

While it doesn't really matter much in performance I still don't get why ATI didn't think USB performance and SATA2/NCQ were important enought to fix. We first pointed it out a year ago. This is a new chipset and the competition is nVidia. nVidia has had zippy USB2, SATA2 and NCQ from their first 939 chipset.

If SB600 were here or makers used M1575 we would all only be talking about the first board to use Azalia HQ on the A64, the great IDE and SATA2 performance compared to nF4 instead, and the incredible overclocking performance and stability of this 6-layer board. Instead we are debating USB and SATA instead of talking about truly important features. You don't introduce a new chipset and not expect a DIRECT features comparison. You just get the checklist stuff right so reviewers and users will concentrate on the unique stuff.

remember the lanparty nf4 was over $200 when it came out too...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

Aso any ETA on reviews from:
HARDOCP
XBITLABS
DIGITIMES
PC Perspective
T-BREAK
TOMSHARDWARE
FIRINGSQUAD

Just to name a few? I think these all had the nvidia Dfi Nf-4 to review on release.

---

Thats a question you need to ask DFI, not Wes or myself. We were issued with an exclusive, just llike the NF4 and the 250GB as DFI trust us to test and report faults...the only issue here is we had 24 hrs and not the 2 weeks we had with the other 2 motherboards.

Somthing you guys don't know is when the NF4 was lauched by DFI the bios it shipped with was a CPU killer, i killed an FX53 and Rgone killed a cpu also within hrs of us first testing. We brought this to DFI's attention and numerous bios files were written to eliminate the issue and bring performance back.

Now, its better for me to kill my cpu's etc on a pre release board than you lot lose your new FX etc on a shipping board, this is part of the service i offer to DFI and it helps them keep their boards at the top of the pile with the enthusiast.

This is why I usually get boards early, I also ask that I can post about the boards to bring to the public a sneak peak at what the boards do and what to expect from them.

Now with the constant bashing i have seen here DFI may take away my right to post early, so in future you may have to wait for the official reviews....for me this would be a bad move but i would understand if DFI took it.

nevermind....I better stay outta those criticism, would love to see more screenie and result of this board eventhough I'm still going to stick with the NV. :D :D :D

I don't think people bash because it is a bad product. People are just expressing their opinions based on the initial results. The NF4 Lanparty series set the overclocking bar (quality wise-so so) so high that whatever comes next has to at least match or exceed the previous gen products. There's always going to be obvious questions being asked but I guess it was directed at the wrong people. Most questions should have been directed towards DFI. No one knows why the price is so high yet feature wise its a generation behind except DFI. No one knows why DFI is going to essentially release an updated board (BT) in the near future even though it follows the ATI reference design. These are questions DFI needs to answer, not Tony or the Anandtech guy.

Just for the "neutral bytstanders" keep in mind the people who tend to argue the loudest are usually (usually means not always) those with financial stakes in the success or failure of a product. I tend to take what they say with a grain of salt. While I am sure they try hard to be neutral, it's not always possible.

Reviews are great and all, but what I want is a thread with 50,000 reads and 1,000 posts of you guys tweaking and breaking this board. What the funded reviewers say doesn't mean much really, though it's usually a good read.

There are always exceptions; When you have industry reps like Tony who have always been straight up on their positions and actively given BACK to the community (BT BIOS mod's anyone), you can be sure he is saying what he believes to be the truth or he'd keep his mouth shut.

Some just come to whine. They brag about their own results but do nothing to help others get them.

In any case, play nice before the thread goes the way of the dodo bird and we all lose out.

UnG

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by perkam

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 perkam

Debates and arguments happen and will continue to happen as long as there'll be those pushing for a better product

---

You can say tht again, lets keep it on topic, just wanted to say my piece.

Ive been hearing tht the raid0 performance isnt too bad. Not seen any real numbers yes, but im sure we will have some results soon. I strongly believe tht this mthbrd will drop in price to make way for a feature rich mobo. Ive got a feeling tht this mthbrd being the first of its kind will be the base for later revisions, it will be the first sample of mass produced Crossfire mobo in circulation. Does anyone believe tht they could get the mthbrd perfect straight away? I think i may skip this one, im sure the 'real deal' will be arriving in the next few months.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ugly n Grey

Just for the "neutral bytstanders" keep in mind the people who tend to argue the loudest are usually (usually means not always) those with financial stakes in the success or failure of a product. I tend to take what they say with a grain of salt. While I am sure they try hard to be neutral, it's not always possible.

Reviews are great and all, but what I want is a thread with 50,000 reads and 1,000 posts of you guys tweaking and breaking this board. What the funded reviewers say doesn't mean much really, though it's usually a good read.

There are always exceptions; When you have industry reps like Tony who have always been straight up on their positions and actively given BACK to the community (BT BIOS mod's anyone), you can be sure he is saying what he believes to be the truth or he'd keep his mouth shut.

Some just come to whine. They brag about their own results but do nothing to help others get them.

In any case, play nice before the thread goes the way of the dodo bird and we all lose out.

UnG

---

Well said.

...Yet if any other board had these problems bar the DFI RDX200 CF-DR,they would have been slated straight away? ;)

Im gonna sit on the fence,but i just cant see myself shelling out for this overpriced 'wonderboard',no matter who's involved in it,its not personal,i just dont think it's that good.

Peace :) :)

Looks as if OPB can't get his board to go over 235mhz with his memory. Also, he's unable to run spi @ any speed. Anybody got a link to an updated bios? Or Clockgen for this chipset?

s7, link to opb's results ?? Those results look very discouraging.

Perkam

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by perkam

s7, link to opb's results ?? Those results look very discouraging.

Perkam

---

Hehe...i just got off the phone with him-I think he's too embarrassed to post :p: j/k No screens yet, he's gonna talk to Oskar first ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Prometheus

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.

---

Thanks Prom, guess we need more input and results from Tony and Rgone as to how particular memory run on this board and their settings for performance and stability :)

But guess there maybe more improvements already ATI lists a Pure Innovation Crossfire II coming soon http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...75#post1078175 SATA2/better USB performance ???

Does anybody else have the board so we can more thoughts from other people.

Im sitting this round out. This is ATI's first stab in this market... Im sure they will get it right on the second attempt. I just find it nuts to pay $240-$260 shipped for a board lacking important features in the southbridge. Thanks Tony for providing this info for everyone and putting up a pretty good fight to defend ATI and DFI in this manner. Its helped make my decision easier.

Just thinking out loud here but, what would it take to get sli working on one of these boards?

I'f im well informed sli doesn't need anything chipset wise like the crossfire.

If this board could run sli, ... that would be very nice for alot of reasons.

Thanks tony for answering my questions.

hey wes!
nice to see you post again, been a while :D
thx for taking your time to post here, and sorry jason got so upset about things :D

jason, i think your getting to emotional with this again :D
i get your point and partly agree with you, but its too early to judge this board and imo you shouldnt get so upset about this.

i removed parts of some posts wich were imo just provoking and didnt add anything to the discussion. please stay on topic, and if you want to post your opinion about it whether its possitive or negative, please do so without offending or provokig anybody else.

if you dont like something just say so and dont blame anybody for it, thx :)


now regarding what you said about usb and hdd performence wes, i disagree with you there. you said most people wont notice it and wont care, i my opinion thats not true, at least not totally.
if you have two competing products and one is just a tiny bit faster or lacks a tiny feature the other one has people will go for the better product, even if the difference is incredibly small.
thats my expirience at least.

whats confusing me is not that the board has lower usb and ide performence, what confuses me is that it was probably possible to perform the same or even outperform the competing solution without much work at all, but for some reason it didnt happen.

and i have to agree with jason that the review was really very sort and only shows some few results, id rather have called it a preview and not review.
thx a lot for working so hard on it though to bring us at least some basic infos before the board reaches newegg! :toast:

i hope you will focus on memory tweaking and crossfire performence in part2 of this review, wich is imo the 2 interesting features of this board.

tx a lot to wes and tony again for answering all those questions! :toast:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 4rory

I'f im well informed sli doesn't need anything chipset wise like the crossfire.

---

sli needs driver support...
afaik crossfire doesnt need any support from the chipset, all you need is to be able to mirror the data sent to the videocard so both cards get the data afaik.

crossfire should work on nf4 boards and sli should work on crossfire boards afaik, its all a driver thing, so in the end its up to nvidia and ati.

but thats the problem...
since nvidia already has a load of sli boards and sli cards out in the market they should rather be interested in not allowing crossfire on their boards and not allowing sli on atis boards. that way people with an sli board will have to get sli cards, and people with sli cards will need an sli board, so more people buy nvidia...

so i think the chance for running crossfire on an sli board or sli on a crossfire board are low :/

Guys you need to measure performance of sata2 on the NVraid, then measure IDE, then measure or compare against SB450 and the ULI1575...you will see ATI win some, ULI win some and NV win none.

Issue is no one is moaning about the NV raid though which kinda confuses me.

NVRAID? gotcha... first thing I turned off... gotta have lots of BIOS space for real RAID ...may I calculate that XOR bit for you Sir? Cache some data on a real DIMM ? Thank you sir. LSI Megaraid anyone?

Buffoonery aside, everyone complains about NV IDE performance, that's why there is a bunch of threads asking about uninstalling the drivers from Nvidia and going back to the default windows drivers to try and gain at least a little performance on it.

So yeah, people complain.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

whats confusing me is not that the board has lower usb and ide performence, what confuses me is that it was probably possible to perform the same or even outperform the competing solution without much work at all, but for some reason it didnt happen.

---

The ATI SB450 actually has BETTER IDE and SATA performance than the nVidia nForce4. Check my results at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2542&p=9. The only real issues is USB, which is less than half the throughput of nVidia. Sata2 and NCQ are not there on SB450 and I totally agree they should be there to compete with nForc4.

I was merely pointing out that performance wise, SATA2 3.0Gb/s and NCQ really make no performance difference right now. SATA sustained transfer rates are still maxing out at around 100MBps (0.8Gbps), and that's only with RAID-0 and two drives... so SATA1 can easily handle current real transfer rates with it's 1.5Gb/s. NCQ is similarly not very important at present.

It's like nVidia's new Dual x16 SLI. We're all testing it but we can't find any test results that show it makes any performance difference at all over dual x8, but we're still looking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

Somthing you guys don't know is when the NF4 was lauched by DFI the bios it shipped with was a CPU killer, i killed an FX53 and Rgone killed a cpu also within hrs of us first testing. We brought this to DFI's attention and numerous bios files were written to eliminate the issue and bring performance back.

---

Not laughing at the fact you two lost CPU's, but i find it hilarious that this can happen. Do they not test the boards themselves first, or do they just design, manufacture, and ship? :stick:

The problem with the SATA numbers game is people somehow believe that the bigger number makes a difference. Sustained write performance never enters the equation. The actual internal transfer speed to interface of the drive is the choke point and only the cache bursts at anything resembling those numbers. But 3.0 is better than 1.5 right? Must be, it's a bigger number after all.

Would you rather have a 250hp motor in a 2000lb car or a 350hp motor in a 3500 lb car if your goal is speed?.... Bigger is not always better. The numbers are decieving...

/rant mode

UnG

What's new, Grey. It's always like that in the computer industry. Numbers rule! However, the new drives (SATA2) are usually otherwise updated as well (higher platter density, quieter motors, etc). Seagate 7200.9, Hitachi 7T250..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

Guys you need to measure performance of sata2 on the NVraid, then measure IDE, then measure or compare against SB450 and the ULI1575...you will see ATI win some, ULI win some and NV win none.

Issue is no one is moaning about the NV raid though which kinda confuses me.

---

Tony you sure ? i totally destroyed titac's posted UL1575 SATA benchmarks at http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...77#post1078177

and

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...38#post1078238

i know it's 2x and 4x Hitachi 7K80 SATAII raid 0 but wonder how same 4 drives handle on SB450 and UL1575 ? as that's what i run nowadays 4x Hitachi 7K80 SATAII :D

I'd run 6x 7K80 id ya had 6x sataII ports :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Prometheus

The ATI SB450 actually has BETTER IDE and SATA performance than the nVidia nForce4. Check my results at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2542&p=9. The only real issues is USB, which is less than half the throughput of nVidia. Sata2 and NCQ are not there on SB450 and I totally agree they should be there to compete with nForc4.

I was merely pointing out that performance wise, SATA2 3.0Gb/s and NCQ really make no performance difference right now. SATA sustained transfer rates are still maxing out at around 100MBps (0.8Gbps), and that's only with RAID-0 and two drives... so SATA1 can easily handle current real transfer rates with it's 1.5Gb/s. NCQ is similarly not very important at present.

It's like nVidia's new Dual x16 SLI. We're all testing it but we can't find any test results that show it makes any performance difference at all over dual x8, but we're still looking.

---

You ran SATA150 drives on SATA2 port ? Why not run SATA2 drives across all 4 controllers ? time limits of the review ?

Prom maybe i need a copy of Business Winstone 2004 and MCC Winstone 2004 for comparable I/O benchmarks heheh

In Australia
74GB WD Raptor 10k = AUD$259-295

80GB Hitachi 7K80 SATAII = AUD$79-110

4x 7K80 = AUD$320-440 still cheaper than 2x 74GB WD Raptors!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

lmfao I run to this day 3 original dfi nf4's with the bios 1-25 or even the predated beta that shipped on all org nf4 dfi's and it is one of the most stable bios's I have run.

I have a bios 1-21, 1-23, 1-25, 1-26 and the 2-01, lol

So this CPU killer sounds like maybe your PSU or some other Hardware you had was not very user freindly. :)

EDIT: flame removed
-saaya

---

Yeah, some people just do everything better than everyone :rolleyes:

personally, I liked the graphics card comparision, it gave me hope for the single card solution which I'll be getting, well my stock ECS went to heaven too,,,,.... I guess for me it'll be the expert or the single card solution from ati/dfi

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ugly n Grey

The problem with the SATA numbers game is people somehow believe that the bigger number makes a difference. Sustained write performance never enters the equation. The actual internal transfer speed to interface of the drive is the choke point and only the cache bursts at anything resembling those numbers. But 3.0 is better than 1.5 right? Must be, it's a bigger number after all.

Would you rather have a 250hp motor in a 2000lb car or a 350hp motor in a 3500 lb car if your goal is speed?.... Bigger is not always better. The numbers are decieving...

/rant mode

UnG

---

The REAL problem as I see it is that people on this board believe in what you just wrote. And that's really silly when people on XS are supposed to be enthusiasts and KNOW better then that.

The lack of SATA2 support is not any REAL drawback!

I think ATI should tell the mobomakers to market the boards something like this "ATI IDE and SATA speeds exceed nVidia IDE and SATA speeds even without support for SATA2" :D

I thought I read somewhere that crossfire will only run if the chipset is compatiable. like some info needs to go threw it.
So that means the graphics drivers check what motherboard you have.


Sata 2 is marketeing, atlest right now it is. kinda like 64bit processors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

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.

---

Hi Tony, when do you expect to have this bios exactly and will it be available to the general public? Most low latency ram users are using CAS 1.5 even if it isn't doing much however would probably like to see what 'true' 1.5 can do if your system is still stable. I know I would like to see any sort of performance increase I can get even if minor.

I am LOVING your 704 mod bios. I am sure the CAS 1.5 bios will be something different on its own as it wasn't edited like you did to the 704 bios however if you could get a CAS 1.5 working bios with all the same tweaks you did to 704 would be simply amazing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Prometheus

I was merely pointing out that performance wise, SATA2 3.0Gb/s and NCQ really make no performance difference right now.

---

true, but its always leaving a bad taste on my mouth going for hardware wich might be less future proof.
i think it was a mistake to go for the slower southbridge, even if it was a lot cheaper or anything. hmmm maybe you can run some tests on this as well? :D

real world impact of the slower southbridge.
game level loading times and boot times as well as copy times for the hdd performence and copying mp3s to an ipod for example as a usb test.
i think this is what people would like to see more instead of synthetical and abstract benchmark numbers. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ugly n Grey

The problem with the SATA numbers game is people somehow believe that the bigger number makes a difference. Sustained write performance never enters the equation. The actual internal transfer speed to interface of the drive is the choke point and only the cache bursts at anything resembling those numbers. But 3.0 is better than 1.5 right? Must be, it's a bigger number after all.

Would you rather have a 250hp motor in a 2000lb car or a 350hp motor in a 3500 lb car if your goal is speed?.... Bigger is not always better. The numbers are decieving...

/rant mode

UnG

---

exactly...

damn gerge, those numbers are insane!
and they are cheap too compared for the performence you get!
very nice find!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 4rory

I thought I read somewhere that crossfire will only run if the chipset is compatiable. like some info needs to go threw it.
So that means the graphics drivers check what motherboard you have.


Sata 2 is marketeing, atlest right now it is. kinda like 64bit processors.

---

ive been told crossfire works on nf4 and vias dual graphics chipset at cebit :D
i dont think they changed crossfire a lot since then

64 bit cpus arent marketing, for the desktop, pretty much yeah, but for workstations and servers def not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

damn gerge, those numbers are insane!
and they are cheap too compared for the performence you get!
very nice find!

---

yes those numbers are insanely awesome - that's why i wish to see the same if not better on a crossfire board :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

lmfao I run to this day 3 original dfi nf4's with the bios 1-25 or even the predated beta that shipped on all org nf4 dfi's and it is one of the most stable bios's I have run.

I have a bios 1-21, 1-23, 1-25, 1-26 and the 2-01, lol

So this CPU killer sounds like maybe your PSU or some other Hardware you had was not very user freindly. :)

EDIT: flame removed
-saaya

---

How about the 1-14, 1-15, 1-18, 1-19, do you have those? I think not! I do though.

If you decide to run any of those and leave Vcore on auto you stand a chance of pumping 3V + into the CPU which instantly kills the memory controller...

Jason, stick to being the uber overclocker you think you are and i will stick to helping make the boards you dearly love.

These boards are down to $209 on newegg already? Sweet in 3 weeks they will be $5

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Weee

These boards are down to $209 on newegg already? Sweet in 3 weeks they will be $5

---

LOL....

@Tony,

Can you now maybe give us some screenies? What's max on any mems you got from it so far? Thank you! :)

Im going to post the bios i tweaked which will help those looking for high clocks TCCD.

Also i have been playing with timings and drive strength, some will seem real slack to you but its the only way we could get 300 stable upto now...and yes we are using drive strength at 4 or 5

I will show some screenies also, A64 tweaker seems to differ from the bios so it may be just easier to post bios screen shots for you all. I do plan on a guide on the OCZ forum for setting up OCZ ram so look forward to that.Im working hard with Rgone off DFI-street to tame the board but it does need a new bios.Lets hope Oskar comes thru soon.

Some bios shots for you all....Rgone wants me to tweak the bios again so we will post this later.Ram is OCZ PC4800 platinum.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=38832&stc=1 http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=38833&stc=1

Now this is close, its not bang on the money yet but it may help get 300 for many.


We are still tweaking and we only post prime stable settings.

Bios layout and options look nearly identical to that of the nF4 boards.

What are you running for memory with these settings? I have some OCZ PC4800's, Patriot XBLK's and some Geil One (TCCD) on the way to play with...

Thanks for all the info so far...

data drive at level 4 is 100%, i reworded it to relate to what it actually does.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OldGuy

What are you running for memory with these settings? I have some OCZ PC4800's, Patriot XBLK's and some Geil One (TCCD) on the way to play with...

Thanks for all the info so far...

---

OCZ PC4800 Plat

timings arent that bad... hows performence though?
can you post some sciencemark and 2k1 results? :D

Nice reviews Prometheus (at anandtech)!
The only thing I missed (in the existing tests) was the Ultra-D results in the PCMARK 2005-graphs,
both at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2542&p=7
and http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2572&p=7

(hope the links work so you know what I´m talking about)
Maybe you can include those figures in future reviews??
:)

Aiming for 4 sticks 1t thats great and everything but I'll never run it. Whats the point when I can go 300Mhz 2 dimms @ 1t? Someone mentioned this being great for a desktop workstation LOL for $200+? Ya OK, but I don't think thats what this is designed for. I hope a few BIOS revisions allow higher overall memory clock, higher than NF4 even.

If they sacrificed top end memory speeds for 4 dimms @1t, it's kinda silly if you ask me.

Just got some the board today will try to test tonite if not tomorrow afternoon.
Tony would really be glad if you could send bios

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by althes

Just got some the board today will try to test tonite if not tomorrow afternoon.
Tony would really be glad if you could send bios

---

I will post up the next version when Rgone is happy with it

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by G H Z

Aiming for 4 sticks 1t thats great and everything but I'll never run it. Whats the point when I can go 300Mhz 2 dimms @ 1t? Someone mentioned this being great for a desktop workstation LOL for $200+? Ya OK, but I don't think thats what this is designed for. I hope a few BIOS revisions allow higher overall memory clock, higher than NF4 even.

If they sacrificed top end memory speeds for 4 dimms @1t, it's kinda silly if you ask me.

---

I can see your point for benching. However, 2 gigs of ram is almost becoming common for gaming now. So keep that in mind. We all have 4-8 sticks of high clocking TCCD laying around. Why waste it? 4 X 512 @ 1T is a good thing for the gamers.

We all have 4-8 sticks of high clocking TCCD laying around? WTF?!! And if it is high clocking, who cares? We can only run it at ~DDR400 in 1T.

And Tony....I'm sorry but those timings are fairly awful at DDR600....x-4-4-10-8-14-5-3-2-5 is just awful. Does the board really have that much trouble getting high TCCD speed right now? I'd rather run DDR400 2-2-2-0-7-14-0-2-1-2 frankly :(

especially since D2OL loves tight-like-spandex timings :banana:

Are there any tests done with 2 x 1GB Ballistix with this MB? I'm curious of the timings and max speeds reached... i so wanna push the checkout button on my Newegg cart, but am hesitant.

supposedly 2x1gb is where the board will beat out the nf4.

dont quote me on that though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by G H Z

If they sacrificed top end memory speeds for 4 dimms @1t, it's kinda silly if you ask me.

---

exactly what im thinking...


sure, memory speed for ddr1 have reached the top and wont go any higher, so its all about timings now, and increasing the memory capacity while keeping the speed and timings up, but even if 1t with 4 sticks would work at ddr450 people wouldnt really use it i think. everybody would still go 2x1gb at ddr600 instead because its simply faster...

i think 1t with 4 sticks needs to work at around ddr500 to really make sence, then tight timings+1t and interleaving (4 sticks) would get us to similar numbers of ddr600 with 1t with 2 sticks and 2.5-3-3 i guess, but at ddr400 it doesnt realy make sence...

if anybody can get 1t with 4 sticks to ddr500 then its oskar :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

Why USB perfomance was bad after waiting so long for a release of the board and if the 450sb was bad why didn't this board use the ULI?

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MickeyMouse

And why didn't DFI and Mr. WU use the ULI in the first place on this board?

---

Simple. The ULI is not a drop in replacement for the 450SB. Pin count and layout are different. DFI was to far along in the design process when the ULI chip popped up to shift design gears, change the layout to use the ULI chip and still get the MB onto the street in anything approaching a timely manner.

My understanding is ATI has a second generation, pin compatible SB to replace the 450 that addresses the 450's short comings. The question is when lol.

Viper

Before I jump on any bandwagon regarding the 4x512 DDR400 1T vs 2x1GB DDR600 bandwagon I want more benches specifically addressing this. I have a feeling that it won't be unanimously in favor of the 2x1GB setup :fact:

There's a certain benchmark that even if the 4x512 only wins THAT benchmark that it would make it worthwhile to me....anyway, carry on.....I'd just like someone to compare the two setups before judging what will be better--8 bank interleave with 1T is nothing to shrug off.

hmmm, im surprised no one has asked this yet

hows the CPU clock?

i mean, according to anandtech the reference boards have been better cpu clockers then the LP DR, so hows this in comparison, would be interested to know if anyone has the time.

Im still beating up on this board as is Rgone trying to get 8hrs prime stable for the OC database on DFI-Street etc. I expect i will be able to tighten TRP to 3 pretty easy but the rest im not to sure on at the mo. Im 24hrs into prime testing and the longest i have gone is 3hrs 5 mins, so there is still much to do.

For anyone who has this board you need to realise the following do not act like they do on the NF4

TRC
TRFC
TRRD
Read to write and write to read
Read pre amble
Async latency
drive strength
DQS or data drive (looks close but it does seem to act different)

No we are working hard to get good base line settings, im just sorry its taking so long.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Revv23

hmmm, im surprised no one has asked this yet

hows the CPU clock?

i mean, according to anandtech the reference boards have been better cpu clockers then the LP DR, so hows this in comparison, would be interested to know if anyone has the time.

---

Its a good cpu overclocker, i have maxed all my cpu's here air cooled with ease.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tony

No we are working hard to get good base line settings, im just sorry its taking so long.

---

Thanks for the effort Tony. Are you trying to do this all on ONE board? I mean if you had five you might stand a reasonable chance of getting things done more quickly. Should we start a petition? :p:

UnG