Help understanding DFI product lines

[Polyknikes]

Hey everybody,

I'm looking to get a socket 775 p45 board and DFI seems to have a great reputation and from what I've seen I really like the layouts for a water cooling setup.

However, I'm very confused about their lineup. They have a lot of different product lines and I'm having trouble figuring out what is what, maybe someone can help me?

The lan party group seems to be the boards marketed to gamers and OC'ers so thats where I'm looking.

They have 5 different lines, UT, LT, DK, JR, and BI

I haven't been able to figure out what the differences are between them, is a particular group considered their "top of the line?"

Thanks for any help, I have no experience with DFI but they look very nice.

 

[dndhatcher]

I have a Lanparty DK 790. I can give you what I know and can see from their website and newegg.

The JR series are the smaller microATX size boards.
The BI series seems to be the cheapest (bargain) boards.
The DK is their mainline board.
The LT stands for "Lethal Tweaking" so it should have more enthusiast options than the DK series.
The UT i think is "Ultimate" the highest end, most expensive board line.

There are no P45 boards in the LT or DK lines so you would be looking for the UT P45-T2RS or UT P45-T3RS.

 

[Polyknikes]

Thanks I sent an email to their sales department and they also recommended those two UT boards. I currently have DDR2 memory but hey its the holiday season and it may be time for an upgrade to DDR3.

With DDR3 I would need the LANPARTY UT P45-T3RS

I see the north and south bridges are covered with heatsinks connected by piping, which also connects to a third heatsink near the cpu.

What is that third heatsink covering? Is that removable if I want to install water blocks on the NB and SB?

Also, is your DFI fairly user-friendly when OCing? I heard somewhere that they are very scalable but tricky.

 

[dndhatcher]

Im a casual overclocker (that computer has an Athlon 64 x2 2.8GHx OCed to 3.2GHz) but it seems to have every possible bios setting needed for overclocking. On my board you have to set every setting manually, there is no assistance.

I think the 3rd heatsink is the voltage regulators.

My only problem with DFI has been that most of the directions are written in "engrish" and can be a bit hard to parse the meaning out of sometimes.

 

[Polyknikes]

My only problem with DFI has been that most of the directions are written in "engrish" and can be a bit hard to parse the meaning out of sometimes.

Haha isn't that always the case with the best technology?

I have to say, though, I have emailed DFI sales in San Jose 3 times today, and I have gotten a reply within 5 minutes every time. They even told me that removing the stock heatsinks and replacing them with north and southbridge water blocks would not void the warranty as long as I "don't break down anything."

I think I'm going to go with this board after I figure out what to do about the voltage regulators.

Also, is it possible that this mobo supports DDR2 and DDR3? I'm reading a review that says they used DDR2 memory in their test setup but the motherboard clearly supports DDR3. I haven't seen that on any other board so I figured it wasn't an option.

 

[dndhatcher]

Now that I am looking at it closer, it seems to me that the third section may just the heatsink and cooling fins for the bridge cooling system. The voltage regulators are closer to the CPU socket.

DDR2 has to be a typo. It doesnt have the correct kind of slot to plug DDR2 into.

 

[Polyknikes]

The review I am reading used DDR2 memory at one point, and DDR3 at another point.

I checked the memory to see if it was a typo but its not, its PC2-9200, DDR2

In our tests we'll be testing the DFI LanParty UT P45-T3RS motherboard using the usual PC Mark 2005, 3D Mark 2005, 2006 and Vantage tests. we'll also be running some DX games too. Our test rig includes an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ default 2.4Ghz, Radeon HD 4870 1Gb GDDR5, Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC2-9200 2Gb Kit, PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU and a 24" Samsung SyncMaster 245B LCD monitor. Windows Vista with native DX10 was used as our OS.

I got a reply from DFI clarifying what they meant about "not breaking anything down" and they said as long as I can reapply the heatsink assembly before an RMA it is ok to remove it. That was my plan anyways, but I didn't think their sales rep would condone that, haha.

I'm going to get this motherboard, it seems to OC very well, has great a great layout of PCIex16 slots, comes with rounded cables, and much of the expansion slots and cables are UV sensitive which is always fun since I just bought a UV light.

If it supports DDR2 and DDR3 that will just be a bonus

Now to see if I can actually FIND the board for sale...

 

[Polyknikes]

Bought for $153. Not a bad deal if I may say considering it compares to $300 boards.

I'll write a follow-up about how it performs.

 

[jitpublisher]

I used to have a Lanparty UT 3200 CFX DR/G and it was an impressive piece of hardware to say the least. It will take you some time to figure out all the BIOS settings, the BIOS on DFI boards is amazing, yet overwhelming at the same time.
But if you want to tweak and overclock, I have never found a motherboard made anything like DFI. Have fun.