DFI NFII Ultra: Mean Green Dream Machine
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2003 6:25 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
DFI NFII Ultra: Basic Features
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket-462 |
| Chipset | nForce2 Ultra 400 North Bridge nForce2 MCP-T South Bridge |
| Bus Speeds | 100 to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| Core Voltage | 1.10 to 2.05V (in 0.0250V increments) |
| DRAM Voltage | up to 2.80V (in 0.1V increments) |
| Chipset Voltage | up to 1.90V (in 0.1V increments) |
| AGP Slots | up to 1.80V (in 0.1V increments) |
| Memory Slots | 3 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard IDE RAID | HighPoint 372N controller (RAID 0, RAID 1, Raid 1.5 & RAID 0 + 1) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | Six USB 2.0 ports supported by MCP-T Agere FW803 IEEE-1394 FireWire (up to 3 ports available) |
| Onboard LAN | Dual LAN: nForce MCP-T 10/100 Ethernet Realtek RTL8101L 10/100 Ethernet |
| Onboard Audio | CMedia CMI9739A codec (nForce2 APU) |
| Onboard Serial ATA | One SATA connector via Marvel 88i8030 |
| BIOS Revision | 6/25/2003 Release BIOS |
The DFI NFII Ultra comes in a HUGE box containing the LanParty trademark components: PC Transpo carrying harness for hauling around your computer, a FULL selection of cables (including round UV reactive cables that match the board), and the flexible modular FrontX box that includes front microphone jack, USB, and Firewire. Other connectors can be added to further customize the FrontX box, which fits in a 5-1/4" bay, and can be purchased at www.frontx.com.
As you can see, the new DFI nForce2 is loaded! The board uses the latest nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset for official support of all Athlon chips, including the new 200FSB 3200+.
As in the other LanParty boards, the new NFII LanParty is UV reactive. It glows a soft green under black light, which seems to be the trademark color for AMD LanParty, since it is also used in the LanParty KT400A.
On boards using the MCP-T Southbridge, sound is provided by the excellent nVidia SoundStorm digital audio controllers built into the MCP-T. The manufacturer provides a compliant audio codec for the front-end that interfaces to Sound Storm. DFI uses the excellent cMedia codec – the same codec used on all three LanParty boards.
nVidia’s powerful MCP-T SouthBridge contains the nForce2 APU (Audio Processing Unit), which is designed around three functions. First, it supports hardware acceleration of 256 2D voices, 64 3D voices, and 3D positional audio. Second, full support is provided for Microsoft’s DX8.0 standard. Third, support is provided for Dolby Digital 5.1 and in-hardware Dolby Digital encoding. To take advantage of Dolby Digital, you must use an SPDIF connector with a receiver and the right speakers. Unfortunately, most nForce2 boards do not come with the proper SPDIF connectors, which basically make the wonderful features of the MCP-T a waste of audio power. Fortunately, the DFI comes with the accessory bracket that provides input and output coaxial SPDIF connections.
The NFII Ultra utilizes two 10/100 LAN controllers available in the nForce2 design. You get the familiar nForce2 10/100 Ethernet plus Realtek RTL8101L 10/100 LAN. For a machine with a name like LanParty, we can think of many situations where two LAN adapters could be very useful for a traveling gaming box. However, we are a bit surprised that DFI equipped the NFII Ultra with two 10/100 speed connections and decided not to include at least one Gigabit LAN option. In fairness, the two 10/100 connections will be just as useful in almost all situations, as there are very few situations where a LanParty gamer would find a real need for a Gigabyte LAN connection.
The DFI NFII Ultra I/O ports configuration is complete with two PS/2 ports, two serial ports, one parallel port, four USB 2.0 ports, two 10/100 LAN ports, and Mic In, Line In, and Line Out, which drive the onboard sound and are configurable for rear/sub/center outputs if desired. The microphone output is not lost since it is also available on the FrontX box. The DFI NFII Ultra also supports IEEE 1394 FireWire courtesy of a Agere FW803 controller, capable of supporting up to three ports (two ports on a rear bracket and an additional port on the FrontX break-out box). The dual-IEEE 1394 FireWire bracket is included, as are the SPDIF coax I/O bracket, a SATA cable and even that elusive SATA to molex power adapter required by some SATA drives.
The FrontX kit includes ports for MIC, Headphone, two USB, and Firewire. It is modular, so other options can be added. As already mentioned, a complete collection of matching round green UV reactive IDE cables and a floppy cable are also included, which will look well-coordinated in a window case. DFI even realized that there are still some who are attached to a favorite game controller (connects to a game port instead of USB), so a game port bracket is also included for those who won’t retire their favorite game-port device.
DFI uses the well-regarded HighPoint 372N RAID controller on the NFII Ultra – but with a twist. Included are the usual HighPoint options of RAID 0 (striping for performance), Raid 1 (Mirroring for security), and the four-drive option of RAID 0+1. However, as on the other LanParty boards, DFI has included a really slick RAID option, called RAID 1.5, which allows both striping and mirroring with just two drives. Basically, half of each drive in the 1.5 array is used for striping and the other half is used for performance. So, if you combine two 80GB drives in a 1.5 RAID, you would end up with a fast 80GB drive with mirroring. This is a really interesting option because it will allow faster performance with striping than the pair of 80GB drives set up for mirroring alone using RAID 1. The IDE drive support for this board is truly exceptional, since the HighPoint controller also allows single hard drives to be driven by the RAID chip with no special formatting required.
DFI apparently did not think SATA would matter a great deal on the nForce2 Ultra because a SATA RAID option is not on the board. The support for a single SATA drive is provided by a Marvel controller, which disables IDE channel 1 if a SATA drive is connected. You can use a SATA drive on the NFII Ultra, but support is fairly basic.
To make the LanParty image complete, DFI has included a LanParty decal, thermal compound, a pack of jumper caps, and a LanParty ID badge for the front of your case!!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
46 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 10, 2003 - link
why is everyone going nuts over this,this is aNforce2 ultra400 chipset so its new the asus a7n8x deluxe its a Nforce2 chipset so its old why compare an old MB with a old chipset with the new chipset,i own both boards and the DFI its 12% faster than asus and its the best
overcloking board for the athlon that i have used.
OH and xtras lots of Xtras for the price, with this board i was able to clock my 2500+ to 2466 MHZ no problem with the asus and same proc i only reach that # and it would not boot at all
and if U where wondering i got version 2.0 of the asus. peace
Anonymous User - Tuesday, August 5, 2003 - link
#34, did you read the review or any of the comments from the editors? You'd have to be stupid to think that DFI's nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboard would show anything different from the many nForce2 and KT600 motherboards AT has reviewed here. Look at any of the past few motherboard reviews and you'll clearly see nForce2 is faster than KT600, and that all nForce2 boards are no faster than each other, varying in performance by no more than 1%.Jeez, why should AT even bother posting reviews for such clueless readers with an ignorant attitude.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 3, 2003 - link
It does not matter how new he is to Anandtech, there must be an editor responsible enough to make the call as to whether or not this review was worth putting up. In my opinion, I see little or no value to this review because there is no comparison worth mentioning. Come on! A Ti4600 on 3 motherboards but the review board has a 9800!When I finally got the the benchamrks and realized what was being done, I was through taking this article seriously. What is to be gained by reading this? You must compare it to a comparable system with the same components.
What gives with the two different hard drives listed in the setup? Was the DFI using the faster drive while the others used the slower setup?
Cashmoney995 - Sunday, August 3, 2003 - link
Its free, and Anand would never accept any type of bribe from the companies. Its not the easiest thing running a FREE to view website, and doing a multitude of benchmarks on THEIR free time. Just chill a bit guys, we dont want to become completely cynical. AT says the DFI mobo is the best deal out there, and I think im gonna pick one up. I bought a Chaintech and have had horrible experiance with the drivers especially for audio, it comes out all scratchy and the provided driver doesnt even work! Even worse is the horrible chaintech website which does shit for letting u contact support.Anonymous User - Saturday, August 2, 2003 - link
Posting an email i sent here but didn't get any response to regarding this article:"Please correct me if I am wrong but from what I understand Soundstorm is a
certification given to a motherboard that guarantees it meets certain
specification set by Nvidia/Dolby guys. I also understand that it's a money
issue a lot of manufacturer don't pay to be certified, the sound might be as
good but it's not Soundstorm. So in the article when you say:
"On boards using the MCP-T Southbridge, sound is provided by the excellent
nVidia SoundStorm digital audio controllers built into the MCP-T. The
manufacturer provides a compliant audio codec for the front-end that
interfaces to Sound Storm. DFI uses the excellent cMedia codec • the same
codec used on all three LanParty boards."
It's for me very confusing, and I believe mislead potential buyer,
especially that I remember earlier Nvidia clarifying this issue and stating
that at the time Abit was the only certified motherboard
http://www.nvidia.com/object/motherboards.html. It also doesn't seem to
make sense to say that SoundStorm is built into the MCP-T since it is a
certification process that applies to the entire motherboard once complete
not only to a chipset. Same logic says that anything interfaces with
SoundStorm seems also flawed. As a buyer for me it's the same thing when I
go to the movies and specifically go to the THX certified screens only, I
mean I pay the same price so why not have a peace of mind that sound quality
has been inspected and certified by a team of expert. Personnally I don't
care about sound in motherboard but I would think if someone did the same
logic would apply and they might rather go with Abit, or other SoundStorm
certified motherboard, for peace of mind. That's just my understanding and
opinion."
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
why didn't you just go back and rebench the gigabyte board with the 9800? that would make a lot more sense and certainly would have been what AT did back in the day...Wesley Fink - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
Regarding the post about the 32MB Aperture Size:The Aperture Size makes very little difference in the performance of the ATI 9700/9800 series video cards because of the way the architecture handles textures. For the sake of consistency we have used 128MB Aperture Size and will use it with the 9800PRO in the future.
However, these are game benchmarks run with the ATI 9800 PRO at the same settings - except 32mb and 128mb apertures - with UT2003 and GunMetal 2 DX9:
UT2003 1024x768
Flyby 32MB Aperture 217.08, 128Mb 217.36
Botmatch 32Mb Aperture 81.16, 128Mb 81.28
Gun Metal 2, Benchmark 2 DX9, 1280x768
32Mb Aperture 31.47, 128Mb 31.47
As you can see, the real difference between 32Mb and 128Mb Aperture is negligible in these game benchmarks on the 9800 PRO.
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
I'm sure thats what most of us wanted to see. I don't even know if you can use ANY data from a past benchmark and compare it accurately with a new test. Unless you are sure NOTHING has cnaged with the test setup (no driver or windows updates, no programs installed or removed) even just surfing the web with the "test" pc for a couple weeks might skew the results.Fresh OS install > Test > Swap parts
Fresh OS install > Test > Repeat
Nightmare
Wesley Fink - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
Review conclusions were NOT based on comparisons made with different video cards. I HAVE compared the Gigabyte and DFI nForce2 Ultra 400 boards - both with a 9800 PRO 128Mb card. But my Gigabyte review is posted on a website I used to write for, www.bleedinedge.com, and can not be fairly quoted here since Evan Lieb reviewed the Gigabyte board here at Anandtech. I would never draw conclusions based on differences in benchmarks run with cards performing as differently as the Ti4600 and 9800 PRO.We have moved to the 9800 PRO as our new standard for reviews, and there is never a good time to make such a switch. I considered not even posting earlier benchmarks run with the Ti4600, but there are benchmarks - Media Encoding being one - that are not affected by the video card. I also thought the benchmarks, clearly identified as different video cards, would also help our readers see the changes our new video standard would make in test scores.
This will all make more sense as new reviews are published using the ATI 9800 PRO.
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
Without using the same video card, you can NOT compare the DFI and the Gigabyte nForce2 motherboards. Moreover, you can NOT say that the DFI is the best performing AMD motherboard.
This review is useless for someone who wants to buy an nForce2 motherboard and wants to compare these two.