DFI RDX200 CF-DR First look

[madpete]

now the real question. this board, grouper or expert.

Or CF-BT

[wai-wai]

wow~~~~ i love it ~~~~
still waiting nf4 expert

[pcdoc1]

Woah! Time to image the nvidia array..........

[Prometheus]

When's Wesley over at Anandtech supposed to post a review? Like today or next week?

The review is sceduled to post at AnandTech on Monday/Tuesday at midnight. If we can get it up Monday AM we will, but I just got the board a few hours ago, and we plan to check out all the controllers and features.

One nice surprise is that DFI did a Karajan audio module with an Azalia HD chip - for those who might care. This should be very low CPU utilization AND decent sound quality for those who might game between competetive benchmark runs.

According to DFI, New Egg will have retail product for sale either Tuesday AM or Wednesday AM.

[Tony]

all the boards are 6 layer...its more to do with the traces and which layers they are spread over.

Grouper=6 layer
halibut= 6 layer
RDX200= 6 layer
expert=6 layer

[Dani]

@Tony,
How about those VDIMM's, how exactly is eg. 3.59V in Windows via Smart Quardian?
Is it 0.02V lower in Windows than BIOS?
Which DRAM Driving Strength is best when we are pushing CPU's with CO2/LN2, 0 or 15?

I lov that space around S939

[x714n]

wow, nice one tony, that board looks very nice.
i didnt see any jumper on the board that will get 5v and give as 4v in the dimms - like the j16 in the nf4 dfi boars.

afaik you dont need jumper for that

[dnavarro]

Tony, how does the clocking with two dimms look? 300 1:1 1T still possible? Any particular issues with initial setup? Thanks for the preview

D

[kappa2001]

what i really want to see is x1800xl/xt benchies in CF :p
that would be really nice

[Tony]

Guys

Bear with me, im playing with overclocking at the mo and i only have 1 screen as the wife has borrowed my other so im back on forth on this monitor.

Vdimm i will check with a meter, the options are good but not quite as nice as CF-BT will be as that goes from 2.5 to 3V is 0.02V steps then from 3 to 4V in 0.05V steps.
Drive strength, 15 is max drive, we used that to hit 4dimms at 1T, regards the other settings its going to take me 40 hrs just to learn the board so i need time to play.

I will bring you as much as i can as i can, im working close with Prometheus to get the board clocking well etc as there are tight deadlines.

[kappa2001]

Guys

Bear with me, im playing with overclocking at the mo and i only have 1 screen as the wife has borrowed my other so im back on forth on this monitor.

Vdimm i will check with a meter, the options are good but not quite as nice as CF-BT will be as that goes from 2.5 to 3V is 0.02V steps then from 3 to 4V in 0.5V steps.
Drive strength, 15 is max drive, we used that to hit 4dimms at 1T, regards the other settings its going to take me 40 hrs just to learn the board so i need time to play.

I will bring you as much as i can as i can, im working close with Prometheus to get the board clocking well etc as there are tight deadlines.

I won't bother you again lol

Good luck

[revenant]

this board looks a lot like the new SLI DR expert board... in layout..

[Tony]

I have managed to clock OCZ TCCD VERY well using the 250 upclock ratio with a SD with a 10 multi, DDR620+ seems real easy.

Now im going to work on 1:1 next to see how that does.

[althes]

Keep the updates coming

[gundamit]

The board SHOULD cost about $189... however the vaseline vendors will get about $260 the first week...

Isn't CES in LasVegas Jan 4-8th 2006?
I can promise you I will be there and I will bring you a Mousepot to give away at the booth no problems.

Even though you stated no industry pros, this looks like a good promotion for both parties.

I'm sure a lot of people are scrambling to gather up thier matched 4x512 but the 4x512 set-up will have a hard time coming close to the performance of new 2x1gig sticks available. 4x512 seems like a nice option though when you want to go from benching mode into gaming mode and don't want to pop for the premium on 1gig sticks. Finally a home for all the cheap Twinmos UTT purchased over the last year.

@BigToe - Thanks for bringing this preview to XS community. Always nice to have the "pros" sharing with the enthusiasts.

[SlackeR]

This looks like the board to get when this is getting changed.
Drool

[Dani]

Hmm, I think 4xMushkin RedLine XP4000 should be nice RAM's @ 1T

[MaxxxRacer]

Vdimm i will check with a meter, the options are good but not quite as nice as CF-BT will be as that goes from 2.5 to 3V is 0.02V steps then from 3 to 4V in 0.5V steps.

You mean .05V correct?? 0.5V incriments are nothing short of useless.

[gundamit]

Hmm, I think 4xMushkin RedLine XP4000 should be nice RAM's @ 1T

Just remember the 4x set-up won't come close to the 2x. Reaching 4x512 200HTT 1:1 is an event. I doubt the Redlines 4x512 at 250HTT 1:1 is in the cards.

[Master_G]

How hot do those MOSFET heat sinks get?
It's a real pet peeve of mine that they are spread over the board, preventing focused cooling on all of them, im a bit disappointed to see them so spaced out again on this board tbh.
Cant argue with the results otherwise though, looks like a sweet board (not that i can afford to go crossfire so grouper is still the way forward for me)

G

[kamongear]

Thanks for the sneak peak. I will wait until crossfire comes out to upgrade.

[Tony]

You mean .05V correct?? 0.5V incriments are nothing short of useless.

sorry m8 yes, 3.55 3.6, 3.65, 3.7 etc....sorry for the mix up

[Tony]

CPU mosfets get hot,the dimm mosfet im actively cooling so hard to tell.

Im running 307 in memtest 2.5-4-4-10 so its looking like these dimms will max out around 305 or so in windoooze

Remember some will have better dimms than I so this is just ball park tests to give you all some idea.

[dinos22]

good going Tony..........pitty about the SATA1 controller but i guess a card would do nicely........these are already available with disties here but i think everyone is waiting for results..... so the promise of 1T 4xdimms came true.....so what was your drive strength in the end to reach 1T

CPU mosfets get hot,the dimm mosfet im actively cooling so hard to tell.

so what were the temp readouts

[Tony]

I had to set 15 for the 200fsb run at 2-2-2 with 3200plat rev2, we benched it and it was 100% stable...what we did not test was overclocking.

Oskar tells me the board will do 4x1gig dimms 1T at 200 also so this may be the ultimate workstation with a dual core opty