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DFI LANParty UT nF3-250Gb: Overclocker's Dream

 by Wesley Fink on September 8, 2004 12:05 AM EST
54 Comments | Add A Comment
54 Comments

Memory Stress Testing: DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb

The memory stress test is very basic, as it simply tests the ability of the DFI nF3 250Gb to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the lowest memory timings that OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 Modules will support. Because of the numerous questions that have been asked about the number of DIMMs on Socket 754 boards, Memory Stress Testing was conducted by running 1 DIMM, 2 DIMMs, and all 3 DIMMs at DDR400. All DIMMs used for stress testing were 512MB double-sided (or double-bank) memory.

Stable DDR400 Timings - 1 DIMMs
(1/3 DIMMs populated - Single-Channel mode)
Clock Speed: 200MHz
CAS Latency: 1.5
RAS to CAS Delay: 2T
RAS Precharge: 10T*
Precharge Delay: 2T
Command Rate: 1T
*Several memory tests have shown that memory performs fastest on the nVidia nForce chipsets at a TRas (RAS Precharge) settings in the 9 to 13 range. We ran our own Memory Bandwidth tests with memtest86 with TRas settings from 5 to 15 at a wide range of different memory speeds. The best bandwidth was consistently at 9 to 11 at every speed, with TRas 10 always in the best range at every speed. The performance improvement at TRas 10 was only 2 to 4% over TRas 5 and 6 depending on the speed, but the performance advantage was consistent across all tests. All benchmarks were run at a TRas setting of 10.

We have not tested a Socket 754 board that offered a CAS 1.5 setting. The OCZ memory ran without problems with 1 DIMM at 1.5-2-2-10 settings.


Stable DDR400 Timings - 2 DIMMs
(2/3 DIMMs populated - Single-Channel mode)
Clock Speed: 200MHz
CAS Latency: 2.0
RAS to CAS Delay: 2T
RAS Precharge: 10T*
Precharge Delay: 2T
Command Rate: 1T
*Several memory tests have shown that memory performs fastest on the nVidia nForce chipsets at a TRas (RAS Precharge) settings in the 9 to 13 range. We ran our own Memory Bandwidth tests with memtest86 with TRas settings from 5 to 15 at a wide range of different memory speeds. The best bandwidth was consistently at 9 to 11 at every speed, with TRas 10 always in the best range at every speed. The performance improvement at TRas 10 was only 2 to 4% over TRas 5 and 6 depending on the speed, but the performance advantage was consistent across all tests. All benchmarks were run at a TRas setting of 10.

All earlier 754 benchmarks were run with 2 DIMMs, and this is the configuration that was used for all standard benchmark tests. The DFI LANParty UT was completely stable with 2 DIMMs at the rated timings of 2-2-2-10 at default speed.


Filling all three available memory slots is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DIMMs on a motherboard. We were very pleased to find that 3 DS DIMMs (1.5GB) of memory worked fine at timings almost the same as the aggressive timings that we used for 2 DIMMs. The DFI is one of the few Socket 754 boards that we have tested which can handle 3 DS DIMMs. You do need to use slightly slower timings with 3 DIMMs, but the 2-2-3-10 is very close to the rated 2-2-2-10 timings of the memory which we used for testing.

Stable DDR400 Timings - 3 DIMMs
(3/3 DIMMs populated - Single-Channel mode)
Clock Speed: 200MHz
CAS Latency: 2.0
RAS to CAS Delay: 3T
RAS Precharge: 10T*
Precharge Delay: 2T
Command Rate: 2T
*Several memory tests have shown that memory performs fastest on the nVidia nForce chipsets at a TRas (RAS Precharge) settings in the 9 to 13 range. We ran our own Memory Bandwidth tests with memtest86 with TRas settings from 5 to 15 at a wide range of different memory speeds. The best bandwidth was consistently at 9 to 11 at every speed, with TRas 10 always in the best range at every speed. The performance improvement at TRas 10 was only 2 to 4% over TRas 5 and 6 depending on the speed, but the performance advantage was consistent across all tests. All benchmarks were run at a TRas setting of 10.

The boot screen and Sisoft Sandra 2004 both reported a Command Rate of 2T when all 3 DIMM slots were filled.

FSB Overclocking: DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb Performance Test Configuration: DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb
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  • leexgx - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    the 939 AMD cpu will only be my upgrade path (unless i wait and some thing els comes out)

    my NF7-S v2.0 mobo has 2x faster mem speed then an s754 so in my view it be an Downgrade if i whent to it

    my upgrade (dream at the mo :)
    MSI K8N Neo2 (waiting for the nForce4 ultra to comes out) or something like it (but nf4 chip)
    3500+ 939 (mite even wait for the 4000+ or the FX55 to come down in price)
    2x 512 ddr 400 OCZ low latency stuff (or other stuff that mite run better then OCZ)

  • MiLaMber - Sunday, October 31, 2004 - link

    Hmm
    Why on earth bring out this board for s754 NOW??
    Do they honestly think ppl would have waited this long for s754? They SHOULD have made it s939.

    I see this as lost revenue for DFI.

    Fantastic board yes, but for those who are looking to currently upgrade, will there be many who opt for this baord over a s939?

    I wish they had brought it out as a s939, as I would forget about buying an MSI K8N Neo2 in an instant.
    Its all well and good having the best board, but you need to have some savvy to, and think about when the introduction of your board will result in the greatest revenue!
    And thats just plain common sense.

  • tchuyev - Monday, October 25, 2004 - link

    So... using 3 SATA disks in a RAID0 array (using SATA ports 2 & 3 + 1 or 2, along with 2 * 512 OCZ PC-4200), I can't overclock the motherboard any higher than 240 FSB, right ?

    Using both the nForce & Marvell SATA controlers with the same 3 SATA disks on a RAID0 array : is it more likely to cause a performance drop - comparing to 2 disks on ports 3 & 4 - more than anything else ?

    In my case, wouldn't it be thus better to go for a Silicon Image 3114r instead, like on the Asus K8N-E Deluxe ?

    Thanx a bunch ;)

  • GGiovanni - Saturday, October 9, 2004 - link

    Is there any detail regarding the memory DDR616 bandwidth since this mb uses on single channel setup? I'm interested on bandwidth when oc , not only low CAS o other tweaks.

  • Happy Buddha - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link

    Opps! Looks like I have double personality and they bot want to know what RAM have you bought.
    =:p

  • Happy Buddha - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link

    #47 - What RAM stick are you using?!? I have never seen a review on the Net that was able to pull these timing @245mhz Fsb..

  • Happy Buddha - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link

    #47 - What RAM Stick are you using? I have never seen any review out there that have been able to push these timing at 245Mhz FSB...

  • eva2000 - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link

    awesome review.. just got my DFI Lanparty UT NF3-250Gb 3 days ago and posted results at http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=142 with my AMD64 3400+ @ 11x 245HTT = 2695mhz and ram at 245mhz 2-2-2-6 1T !

  • JustAnAverageGuy - Sunday, September 12, 2004 - link

    "With our stock 3200+ and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, the DFI is one of the better 2nd generation 754 boards. Standard performance tests demonstrate the DFI LANParty UT is very competitive with other recent Athlon 64 boards in Direct X 9 games, which is all we would expect. UT2004 and Far Cry include results from Socket 939 and Intel 775 for comparison. Since both the 939 and 775 results were with faster CPUs running an nVidia 6800 Ultra AGP 8X/PCIe, it is remarkable that the scores are as close as they are."

    I nearly missed that paragraph. Perhaps you should make it stand out a little better?

  • Cygni - Thursday, September 9, 2004 - link

    If it does come in around that price point, DFI will move ALOT of these things...
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