DFI boards and what they do

Guys it seems some of you are a little confused by the various DFI motherboards and what they were designed to do. I will briefly try and explain here what Oskar has done so that you will all see not all boards are made to do the same things.

NF4, ultra D, SLI D. etc.

Boards tuned purely with TCCD, so much so the first sample boards had issues with Hynix and Micron not booting, they were slightly reworked but did remain TCCD monsters. If you want a good board to clock TCCX dimms this is the board to use.

NF4 eXpert

Market was moving away from TCCD, Oskar designs a board to run 2 gig kits well and 4 dimms at 1T, boards also clock 4 dimms 2t real well and are monsters with UTT, BH5 etc etc. if you like 3d benching then the eXpert will break your records.

RDX200

Same design as eXpert although ATI RD480 chipset. Board is also good with 4dimms 1T etc but is lacking bios support, this due to RD580 board development. If you are looking for reasonable Xfire then the RDX200 may suit you.

Venus

DFI decide to treat the overclockers to something a little special, High quality caps, reworked VRM's and reworked memory traces and drive give us the best of all worlds on the NF4, DDR600+ support with TCCD and 4dimm 1t capabilities. Price was high and all boards sold real fast, in all for me this was the best NF4 board ever made, Rgone from DFI believes this also.

CFX3200

Im guessing here as my board is still on its way to me. Built off the Venus platform with even further tweaks, DDR clock skew, LDT drive tweaks etc. Should be the finest 939 we have seen from Oskar, it brings together all he has learn't over the past 2 yrs into a final 939 board. It should be good with TCCD, BH5, Micron as well as 2gig and 4gig setups 1 and 2T.

Remember though the old NF4 was tuned for TCCD so you will not probably see higher clocks as the dimms will only go as fast as the dimms will go, the DFI boards have been maxing memory now for a long time...so remain level headed about what the board will do.


I hope this helps you all understand where DFI have been going over the past 2 yrs.

Good post Tony :up:

Is that the reason why theres so many issues running the 5v jumper or 3.3v jumper trick on the ultra-d?

good info tony, thanks

might just be my luck, but i'd like to point out that i've had pretty nice results with micron chips on my ultra-d thus far, anything from 5b C to 5b F... though i don't have an expert or venus to compare it to.. :p:

for the TCCD part
venus is better than expert but still not good enough as ultra-d base dfi nf4mobo

for CFX3200
it still have a little problem with ram but Oskar is trying to improve it.

next board from Oskar is Intel mobo

Excellent recap Tony :toast:

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Originally Posted by afireinside

Good post Tony :up:

Is that the reason why theres so many issues running the 5v jumper or 3.3v jumper trick on the ultra-d?

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The ins and outs of the issue with the 5V jumper are not for me to go into, I know i do NOT use the 5v mode and i mod the older NF4 boards for fine tuning the Vdimm and VTT.

With eXpert etc Oskar actually moved to the power design ATI used on the Grouper board, i was quite pleased with this as i actually advised ATI how i would like the Vdimm on the grouper and to have oskar copy it somewhat was an honour..LOL...i will say vdimm on eXpert, venus, RDX200 etc is real nice, fine tuning for me is just awesome and the amount of power the board can deliver is huge.

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Originally Posted by G.S Technician

for the TCCD part


next board from Oskar is Intel mobo

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Is there something you know that you are not telling us :D

Will HZ work with rd 580

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Originally Posted by Tony

The ins and outs of the issue with the 5V jumper are not for me to go into, I know i do NOT use the 5v mode and i mod the older NF4 boards for fine tuning the Vdimm and VTT.

With eXpert etc Oskar actually moved to the power design ATI used on the Grouper board, i was quite pleased with this as i actually advised ATI how i would like the Vdimm on the grouper and to have oskar copy it somewhat was an honour..LOL...i will say vdimm on eXpert, venus, RDX200 etc is real nice, fine tuning for me is just awesome and the amount of power the board can deliver is huge.

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Ah ok. My expert runs BH5 like a monster but with my ultra-d's even when I'm at 2.8v I get cold boot issues big time with the 5v jumper or 3.3 trick.

Next board = yonah? :D

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Originally Posted by Kaiser_Sose

Is there something you know that you are not telling us :D

Will HZ work with rd 580

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HZ is running perfect in DFI RD580.

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Originally Posted by afireinside

Ah ok. My expert runs BH5 like a monster but with my ultra-d's even when I'm at 2.8v I get cold boot issues big time with the 5v jumper or 3.3 trick.

Next board = yonah? :D

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Conroe is where its at bud, wait a while

Thanks for clearly this up for us, Tony.

Subscribed, thanks.

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Originally Posted by Tony

Conroe is where its at bud, wait a while

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From the horse's mouth to your ears.... I'l be waiting with baited breath :D

nice info tony. very helpful. to be honest i've never even heard of venus before.

now lets see if AG lets you post this at dfi-street..........

i say sticky!

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Originally Posted by racinjimy

i say sticky!

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Agreed. A lot of people will find this useful.

My cents is thats ultra-d is realy the most pang for the bucks + its still king of bh5 clocks.

Yes Venus is very very good board and its clocks much beter with 4x512 than ultra-d. I dont realy know why someone buy the Expert board..yes if some one need room for 2 gfx the Expert board is good before rd580 are in the stores but if someone not need the room the ultra-d is the best way to go before rd580.

Tony maybe add gfx room to the Expert info + also crossfire + venus on "+ cons".

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Originally Posted by Tony

CFX3200
Im guessing here as my board is still on its way to me. Built off the Venus platform with even further tweaks, DDR clock skew, LDT drive tweaks etc. Should be the finest 939 we have seen from Oskar, it brings together all he has learn't over the past 2 yrs into a final 939 board. It should be good with TCCD, BH5, Micron as well as 2gig and 4gig setups 1 and 2T.
[

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The CFX3200 is ATI Chipset. How is that Built off the Venus Platform?

Venus power circuits and pcb/components I guess...

I got an sli-d but almost got a venus for my bday, bought a graphics card insted..

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Originally Posted by Freebo

I got an sli-d but almost got a venus for my bday, bought a graphics card insted..

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What do you want, a door prize :D

CFX3200..

I havnt been following mobos lately, but thats the first ive heard of it.. guess DFI is really trying to milk the 939 systems to the end.

I've used ultra-D, but that sucker is all issues when running 4 gigs.

Nice post Tony..

Thanks :toast:

FWIW, after vdimm, VTT, and vcore mods, my Ultra-D is a dream to work with. takes a long time to get it tweaked right where u want it, but when yo finally do, it screams.

I must admit tho, the newer versions for the ultra-d are alot better at VTT tracking, and with a suitable fan on the MOSFET I'm running 3.77volts stable on this board. It's a joy to work with and running BH-5 stable at 281MHz :D

If you all look at the eXpert PCB from around the middle of the board up it is exactly the same as the RDX200, now venus deviated from this and you will see the new RD580 board shares the same design tweaks + a little more, so you could say it was built up off the same PCb as the Venus.

I have a feeling we may see a cheaper NF4 board built off the Venus PCB...something like an eXpert Rev2 or rev B maybe, only time will tell.


My whole point here was to educate the guys who b1tch and moan about the various boards not doing what they want, fact is you have to buy carefully as specific boards do specific things. I am lucky in that i have all the boards here, so it really is my duty to point end users in the right direction and to try and show that boards are designed to do specific things...it is REAL hard to make a board real good at everything, something always has to be compromised.

Some compromise solutions you can still tweak as the end user - if the user is willing to resolder half of the mainboard, hehe :p: :D

The catch is, that you can't change the layout, so, unless it is really good, it have a little sense exchange the components to higher quality ones in order to get higher ;)

From this point of view I favor the Grouper for the caps, since I have older nF2 DFI mobos and they all had issues with the bad caps brands like Teapo, OST and so. Also using Chemi-con KZG caps in the PWM circuits is, IMHO, a bit cheating on the users, when MUCH more quality Rubycons MCZ (not MBZ, MCZ!) or Nichicon HZ caps do there MUCH better job (read - higher OC, since they give higher stability at higher voltages...) ...

DFI certainly know about this issue, that is why the Venus feature all solid polymer caps, like better server mobos do already ;)

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Originally Posted by Crankster

I've used ultra-D, but that sucker is all issues when running 4 gigs.

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might depend on ram and cpu too as to how well it handles 4GB ram... old 4x 1GB Ballistixs @11x274mhz 3-3-3-8 2T at 2.85v on DFI NF4 UT SLI-DR R.AB0 623-3 bios http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?p=19690#post19690

I think the reason that many went for the ultra-d/sli-dr with non-tccd stuff was because if it were meant so specifically for tccd, why would it need the 5v jumper?

Also, because it was the best board out there for any ram at the time.

1T with all 4 dimms full? :confused:

Isn't it solely CPU dependant? And as far as I know all current Socket 939 CPU's can't do 4 dimms at 1T.

Welcome to 6 months ago.

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Originally Posted by LiQU!D

1T with all 4 dimms full? :confused:

Isn't it solely CPU dependant? And as far as I know all current Socket 939 CPU's can't do 4 dimms at 1T.

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with right board tweaks and board design DFI has been able to pull off 4x dimm 1T at 200-205mhz ish IIRC

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Originally Posted by Mr. Tinker

I think the reason that many went for the ultra-d/sli-dr with non-tccd stuff was because if it were meant so specifically for tccd, why would it need the 5v jumper?

Also, because it was the best board out there for any ram at the time.

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trust me when i say it was tuned for TCCD, I had huge debates with oskar over IM and email about the pre release boards not working well with other makes of memory.

When it comes to old BH5, that stuff runs well in any board, as we all know.

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Originally Posted by Tony

trust me when i say it was tuned for TCCD, I had huge debates with oskar over IM and email about ithe pre release boards not wotjing well with other makes of memory.

When it comes to old BH5, that stuff runs well in any board, as we all know.

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You got a point there, bh5 works well in all Dfi boards thats i have tested. And thats becuse of Oskar. Many thx to him, without Oskar abits boards is nothing. With Oskar Dfi boards are rocking! :fact:

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Originally Posted by LiQU!D

1T with all 4 dimms full? :confused:

Isn't it solely CPU dependant? And as far as I know all current Socket 939 CPU's can't do 4 dimms at 1T.

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Mem controller is the most important part in the equation of running cmd rate 1T but signal tracing and EM shielding also have some relevance.

Generally it can be said it's solely a cpu issue. Afterall, it's just some ~10MHz that can be achieved with tweaked tracing and enhanced EM management.

wow i was just doing a search for an old expert thread to refesh my memory about it then this comes up. nice toejob

OMG before read this, I never thhought that my expert can run 4 dimms at 1T
I will try if my bh-5 (4x512MB) can run 2-2-2-5 1T 242MHz 3.14v

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Originally Posted by zungkono

OMG before read this, I never thhought that my expert can run 4 dimms at 1T
I will try if my bh-5 (4x512MB) can run 2-2-2-5 1T 242MHz 3.14v

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Not at 1T. You shouldn't have too much trouble with 1T @ 200mhz though. But 2T @ 242mhz is a little faster anyway.

nice post tony, i wish the dfi site had more on there that explains the differences as well...

nice post.. thanks

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Originally Posted by afireinside

Ah ok. My expert runs BH5 like a monster but with my ultra-d's even when I'm at 2.8v I get cold boot issues big time with the 5v jumper or 3.3 trick.

Next board = yonah? :D

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So thats why I had such problems with my OCZ VX memory. I thought it was the memory so I RMA it but I loved the tight timings. My SuperPi dropped from 26mins to 33min with my new 2 gig memory. Still, my gaming is better so I am happy :-)
I lust for 2 gigs of 2-2-2-5 memory :eek:

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Originally Posted by xenolith

Not at 1T. You shouldn't have too much trouble with 1T @ 200mhz though. But 2T @ 242mhz is a little faster anyway.

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I dont understand yet, is expert can run 4 dimms 1T only @200MHz?
cant take more than 200 ?

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Originally Posted by zungkono

I dont understand yet, is expert can run 4 dimms 1T only @200MHz?
cant take more than 200 ?

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It's not the Expert. It's the CPU memory controller. The Expert just gives you a good chance to get 4x512 1T at 200mhz, unlike many other boards. I couldn't get my 4x512mb BH5 stable at any higher than 204mhz with 1T, no matter how much vdimm. Heck, give 240+mhz a try, maybe you'll get luckier than me and others.

Tony, can you use the Expert bios in a Venus as a last gasp solution?

How can I expect my micron -5b D chips to run on my eXpert?

my experts wont boot using bh5 on yellow dimm, help ....
(with ultra-d it doesnt matter)

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Originally Posted by zungkono

my experts wont boot using bh5 on yellow dimm, help ....
(with ultra-d it doesnt matter)

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just use the orange for 2 dimm overclocking

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Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer

CFX3200..

I havnt been following mobos lately, but thats the first ive heard of it.. guess DFI is really trying to milk the 939 systems to the end.

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Considering that AM2 will only bring very little improvement it makes sense, at least with 939 you know whats working well together

Thread stuck, thanks for the clarification.

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Originally Posted by Tony

just use the orange for 2 dimm overclocking

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if i use orange (2x512) its no problem,
but i want to use 4x512 2T,
like my ultra-d, it can do 4x512 2T 247MHz 3.23v (a pair geil one bh5 and a pair gskill gbgh)
using expert on 200Mhz 1x512 on yellow wont boot,
i dont understand why it called expert if my ultra-d OC-ed better then expert (2x512 bh5 2-2-2-5 1T 3.23v on ultra-d(yellow or orange) i got 245Mhz, but on expert on orange(cause yellow doesnt work) only got 242MHz)

note : I need expert cause I use raid5

Thanks Tony it all makes sense now :)

When will the new DFI CFX-3300 For AM2 arive ? I cant wait to get one so i can trow my A8R32 Disaster board out of the window.

the CFX3200-AM2 is due out about the same time as conroe, so i hear from DFI.

the CFX-3300 was a mythed up name it seems, or maybe the next revision that isnt due for a while.

CFX3200 for socket 939 is fubared. Has horrible problems with RAID or sata drives. thanks to the ULI southbridge from nvidia.

Used a few 512 ballistix 3200 and almost ddr 600 @ 3 3 3. I was @ 299FSB on 2 of the sticks but no matter what would not boot at 300 :( I tried about 4 sticks and most reached 290's minimum.

Nice post... need for AM2 and conroe now ;)

I loved the Ultra D

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Originally Posted by jamex

CFX3200 for socket 939 is fubared. Has horrible problems with RAID or sata drives. thanks to the ULI southbridge from nvidia.

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Tell me about it.... that conroller stink! Random hangups is a part of my daily basis... got some help with installing drivers in xp-install instead of when install was done, but anyway, that controller is really rotten!

FIXUP: For the 2nd time in six months I actually managed to get the freeze s*HIT to disappear! Had to first install with regular driver, then in windows update to a beta driver for ULI. Installed x64 bytheway, not XP.

This thread reminds me: I wish so bad DFI would make a real 680 SLI board... :(

i hope in upcoming nforce7 series DFI will make at least 1 model

well lets see what DFI can do with this new 790fx board ;) ; hopefully it will be worthwhile

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Originally Posted by non

i hope in upcoming nforce7 series DFI will make at least 1 model

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I'm with ya there...
Although the 790X/FX seems to be a decent board, we won't really know how good it is until we see some competition.

I've always liked Nv chipset boards for the most part..

I'm STILL running my Ultra-D..... buggy cold bootin mofo that it is!!

When it boots(most of the time, unless I change ANY hardware at all- that's a damn nightmare of clearing and praying)- it runs great..
I try not to change hardware on this board.... luckily, I am not putting anything new in it anymore!!

C'mon Nv,release the 780a !!!