Breakthrough FSB550, the high C/P ratio DFI Blood-Iron launched!!

[windwithme]

Intel launched their P35 chipset more than 3 months.
I remember that when P965 launched last year,
all motherboard manufacturers were rush to release related products.
From the beginning, Gigabyte’s 965-DS3 priced around USD$160.
no matter OC or the components it used are really splendid.
DFI’ P965 is not bad at OC record, but the price around USD$180.

Nowadays, the P35 chipset motherboards are also the same in the situation.
The prices are down to NT$5000 or cheaper…
This one is the excellent entry-level platform for “performance users”.

DFI has already launched their high-end LANParty UT P35-T2R.
It takes advantage of its good OC ability and the unique heat pipe,
to gather the reputation from market; nevertheless,
the price is a bit higher than Asus, Gigabyte and MSI’s top models…

For this reason DFI launches a new P35 model in market.
The price is also reasonable between other manufacturers.
It is DFI Blood-Iron Inf. P35-T2RL a new “sub-series”.

They use a new tone to this new model. The crimson color is really eye-catching.


The package box adopts a “relief” style. It seems more tasteful than in INF. NF4 period.


The inside box accessories:
Wow, all the way “Red”, even though, the label of floppy disk is also in red.


A smaller PCB form factors.




The lower left of the board:
1 x PCI-E X16
2 x PCI-E X1
3 x PCI
The audio codec adopted Realtek ALC885, which supports 7.1ch.
This model is higher than ALC888. besides, LAN chip is adopt Marvell 88E8053.


The lower right of the board:
6 x SATAII (SB adopted Intel ICH9R)
1 x Floppy (almost no one needs it today)


The upper right corner of the board:
1 x IDE (JMicron JMB368)
4 x DIMM DDRII, supports 533/667/800, maximum up to 1066.


The upper left:
4-phase PWM, all Japanese solid capacitors around it.


IO interface:
6 x USB2.0 and S/PDIF connector


DFI uses a bigger black heat sink for NB chip


BIOS options
Start-up screen


BIOS main page


Main page for tweaking


CPU Features


DRAMs’ Timing options




CPU FSB’s range: 200~700Mhz


DRAM speed ratios


The voltage option pages


The highest voltage that you can add for CPU is 787.5mV


DDRII voltage range: from 1.800 to 3.375v


PC Health Status:
3.3V/ 5V/ 12V, it seems a bit low when test…


The BIOS options are almost as rich as the highest-end UT P35-T2R.
Although, the price of INF P35 is quite cheaper than LP’s one,
but I think the Overclock performance should has a “closer” record to LP P35.


CPU:INTEL Core 2 Duo E6700
MB: DFI INF P35-T2RL
DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF
VGA: ASUS EAH2600XT DDR4
HD: WD1600AAJS
POWER: Corsair HX620W Modular Power Supply
Cooler: Thermaltake V1


The drivers installation screen


The CPU I got is good for OC.
Well, I’ll try to test the board without add extra voltage to SB.
FSB543, Super PI 32M finished the test.


I tried to add the voltage “1 level up” for related chipset
For SB Core/ CPU PLL Voltage are up to 1.95V

FSB 555MHz, Dual Super PI 32m finished


560MHz, DDRII 1200, CL5
Dual Super PI 32m finished


I tried to run some 3D stability test under high FSB
3DMARK2005


3DMARK2006


Intel chipset also did a good job in DRAM OC.
DDRII 1150, CL5 5-5-18


DFI INF P35-T2RL (BLOOD-IRON)


The goods:
1)As we know, P35 normally is not cheap, but DFI set its price at around USD$140.
nice price and good performance motherboard.
2)The package design has a “unify look/ style”, truly eye-catching
3)BIOS options for voltage and others are rich.
Almost can compare to highest-end product
4)FSB OC performance is better than others in same level, DDRII also performs good too.

The bads:
1)If the board has one more PCIe for Crossfire, it would be better
2)3.3v/ 5v/ 12v, the motherboard voltage support modes seems a bit few
3)If the board has a on board Power and Reset button would be better too.

This brand new “Blood Iron” model uses a total-red design is really eye-catching. Also,
the price around USD$140 or cheaper is nice for entry-level overclockers.
I think MSI’s P35-FR is the pin-to-pin enemy to this model. In the way,
it’s good to see more choices for consumers in market.

My next review

BIOSTAR TD35D3-A7 Deluxe


MSI PR210


Thanks

[Aldy402]

thanks for the nice review, i ordered 1...
could you test this with a quad?

[HDCHOPPER]

bro you do good work !
that issa a way good entry board for the buck .....eye been looking at msi board now eyema taking a hard look at thissen ....btw any second booting going on?

[Bail_w]

DFI P965S is a disappointment to me, Overclocking wise is not compareable to the Asus P5B series and it come with Squeezing / High pitch noise when it full loaded. I hope this is not a disappointment as well.

[MADMAX22]

DFI P965S is a disappointment to me, Overclocking wise is not compareable to the Asus P5B series and it come with Squeezing / High pitch noise when it full loaded. I hope this is not a disappointment as well.

Wow are you kidding you must have gotten a bad one. MIne took my E6600 straight to 540fsb (cpu limit) with 1.35vmch. Would run ram oced very nicely and all on the 1066 strap. It and the quadgt were the two fastest baords I have ever owned for intel. It destroyed my p5b-d easily.

The only thing on this board for quad core is the 4 phase power. Not sure how that will work out. Still I bet for the dual cores this thing will rock.

[gillll]

thanks for the review

very recommended "budget" board.

[leoftw]

great review as always

[Monstru]

I am very happy to see that they allowed a good voltage range for the CPU and Ram, as I was fearing that they would cripple this board not to compete with the high price sister. But I see that this is truly going to be a faithful follower to the path set by Infinity P965, which is the best 965 overclocking board ever made, if you ask me. Thank you for your review, I will try to get my hands on this board as soon as possible, as it seems to be the best low-priced P35 overclocking board. Great job man!

[Solarfall]

really looks like a great entry level board for beginner overclockers...
very good review windwithme as always.

[BulldogPO]

Beatiful NB cooler, er..
I mean that is easy to replace with waterblock.
I just hate heatpipes, period.

[major_john]

Brilliant photos,nice review,probably the best-buy P35.
I love it.

[GripS]

newegg has em for 130 right now...... God it's tempting. I need to see how it does with quads before i buy one. The slickest part of the board is the cmos jumper access on the rear I/O panel. No more opening up the case. It's about damn time!

[Shaotai]

newegg has em for 130 right now...... God it's tempting. I need to see how it does with quads before i buy one. The slickest part of the board is the cmos jumper access on the rear I/O panel. No more opening up the case. It's about damn time!

You sure?! Looks like $156 with shipping now!! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136038

[TEDY]

so 140-150€ in EU

[GripS]

You sure?! Looks like $156 with shipping now!! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136038

Yup.... Typical newegg. It was posted last night and indeed WAS 129.99. God damnit I shoulda bought one at that price! God damn you newegg.

[hiwa]

thx very nice review

[luihed]

really looks like a great entry level board for beginner overclockers...

Then itll be perfect for me ... just ordered one...

[Omastar]

Yup.... Typical newegg. It was posted last night and indeed WAS 129.99. God damnit I shoulda bought one at that price! God damn you newegg.

I just bought one, and my thoughts exactly.

[scwam]

Ok, I'm tired of screwing around with a p35 (ip35 std version) that not even mine, a friends. Should I take the IP35 Pro or this DFI Infinity?

I've a great experience with the Lanparty NF4 but I would like to get the best overclocking chipset.

[nguyenquochuy]

The upper left:
4-phase digital PWM, all Japanese solid capacitors around it.

Is there something wrong with my eyes? I don't see the 4-phase digital PWM.

[windwithme]

Is there something wrong with my eyes? I don't see the 4-phase digital PWM.

Sorry its not 4-phase digital PWM

[windwithme]

DFI Blood-Iron P35 9/13 new bios

the same


Add NB 1.7~1.77v is better for DRAM setting


The new selection on DDR2






DDRII 1150 CL5 5-5-15
Dual Super PI 32m finished

[ieatrawbacos]

I have a question for windwithme and any other Blood Iron owners: Have you noticed any of the dimm slots on your boards performing significantly worse than the rest?

The reason I ask is that last week I purchased a Blood Iron P35-T2R and a set of SuperTalent T800UX2GC4 from eWiz and I've been running into some odd memory problems (seemingly random errors in S&M and memtest86+) that I have traced to the last dimm slot.

For pretty much the last 3 days straight I have been testing each of my dimms in each dimm slot to isolate the errors. Seems that the last dimm slot has shoddy traces/termination. I can run each of my dimms at DDR2 1150 5-5-4-14 with 2.1v (with all voltages besides vcore and vdimm at stock) in dimms 1-3 for hundreds or thousands of loops of test #5 in memtest86+ with zero problems, but when ever I try to use that last dimm slot, I need to loosen timings to 5-5-5-15, drop the memory speed to below DDR2 1000, and increase pretty much every available voltage setting to attain some form of stability, and even then, seemingly random errors inevitably crop up after 100-150 passes of memtest86+.

I know this is a problem, but I want to know if it's typical of the last dimm slot, or if my board is worse than the majority. I'd like to RMA it, but if it won't help, I'd rather not be without a motherboard in my main system.

Thanks.

Edit: Mystery solved. While cleaning the board I discovered that DFI had attempted a repair on three of the traces on the back. It looks like there are a few very tiny blobs of solder under the PCB's lacquer. The problem is that there is also a very, very faint line of solder connecting all three traces, shorting them out. I follwed these traces, and they extend to precisely the area of dimm4 where errors were most common.

RMA time.