DFI RDX200 CF-DR First look

[Tony]

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.

[Tony]

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

[dinos22]

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

[Zebbo]

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?

[bachus_anonym]

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

[Tony]

Tomorrow now guys, 3am and im beat.

[eva2000]

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

[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.

[calcal]

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

[Vandread]

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 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
And preferebly a BT board that does 4x512 1t for my daily gaming ^^

[ben805]

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!!

[ben805]

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

[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?.......

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......

[Vandread]

@ 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?

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

[hipro5]

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?........

[hipro5]

yeah why not ..it surely will go fast

Yeap sure it will.....

[hipro5]

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 .......

[4rory]

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.

[Tony]

*agreed* it a bit dissapointing actually
No UTT/BH stuff testen 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
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

[Tony]

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.

[Tony]

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

[Tony]

yes he will
mark my holy words

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.

[Tony]

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

[iboomalot]

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.

[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?