DFI LanParty NForce II Ultra Revision B

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Nicholas Hart
Kurtis
DFI
Jul. 23, 2004

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Introduction

Not even a year ago we wrote a glowing review of the DFI LanParty NFII Ultra. Great performance, exceptional overclocking, plenty of extras and great looks made this board a favorite. So why would DFI update such a great board? More features of course!! LanParty boards are filled to the brim but DFI saw some things that they could add to an already impressive package. They replaced the HighPoint ATA RAID controller with a Silicon Image 4-port SATA RAID controller. They removed a serial port to add SPDIF output. They even added heatsink mounting holes.

So in the move to accommodate these features, and with the extensive component relocation, will we speak as highly about this new revision? It doesn't take a mind reader to know that I'm about to say!you will just have to read on to find out.

UPDATE: July 31, 2004

There is an update regarding DFI's tech support and the Onboard LAN problem on page three of this review.

/UPDATE

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Page 1 of 11

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Board Layout and Features
Page 3: Board Layout and Features, Continued
Page 4: Bundle and Extras
Page 5: BIOS
Page 6: Test Setup / Benchmarking
Page 7: Benchmarks: PCMark04 / Aquamark 03
Page 8: Benchmarks: Aida32 / Sandra 04
Page 9: Benchmarks: SpecViewPerf 7.1 / ScienceMark 2.0
Page 10: Benchmarks: Winbench 99 / UT2k3
Page 11: Overclocking / Conclusion

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17 User Comments

1 - Posted by MaNiAk21 on September 27, 2003 - 4:10 pm

Oooooooooo! The colors! The colors! Ermm... look awesome, though I would have liked to see mounting holes on such a high performance motherboard, especially when it is targeted at the enthusiast crowd... but as you said, a later revision may fix that minor problem. The 3D interactive movie was flawless if I might say so myself, I especially liked watching the stands numbers change. :D

2 - Posted by Brian on September 27, 2003 - 4:15 pm

Glad you liked it. Talking with DFI revealed a possible Revision B that will fix the mounting hole problems along with a few other things. Nothing for sure, though.

We are working to improve the quality of the 3D animations right now, hopefully we will have an easy solution that isn't too bandwidth intensive soon.

3 - Posted by A Person on September 27, 2003 - 5:32 pm

What would you use the dual ethernet for?

4 - Posted by handrail on September 27, 2003 - 7:59 pm

" If you want to mount a heatsink with screws, your screwed. That pretty much sums it up."

that your should be you're.

me wants DFI. if i had know it came with all that stuff, i would have gotten that over my a7n8x dlux, oh well se la vive.

la vive.

5 - Posted by handrail on September 27, 2003 - 8:00 pm

oh yeah, and the 3d rotat0r animations are the shizz boys. good on ya!

i dig 'em!

6 - Posted by m[X] on September 27, 2003 - 8:40 pm

Howcome you didnt include the cpu you used in test system section? ;)

7 - Posted by A Person on September 27, 2003 - 9:39 pm

It says on page 10. He was using an Athlon 1700+ and Corsair PC4000.

8 - Posted by ELiTE KiLLaH on September 27, 2003 - 10:11 pm

but it should have been in the specs (i too was looking for this..)

"made this board solid overclocker." (last pg)
maybe an an "a" in there?

i didnt proof read everything, just loooked at the results...lol..

9 - Posted by Brian on September 27, 2003 - 11:59 pm

Lol, I can always count on you guys when I don't have spellcheck installed :-D

All mistakes noted are fixed.

10 - Posted by handrail on September 30, 2003 - 3:16 pm

my wife is a word nerd, i can't get away with typos at home either.

11 - Posted by PHR34K3R on October 10, 2003 - 12:04 pm

I just got this board and I still havn't bought a heatsink for it. What heatsink would you suggest I use with this, The processor is an AMD Anthlon XP 2400+ 2.0GHz 266MHz.

12 - Posted by Brian on October 10, 2003 - 12:38 pm

I believe ThermalRight has released a socket mounting heatsink. You may want to look at that.

13 - Posted by Kurtis on October 10, 2003 - 1:31 pm

Aero 7+ would be a good choice as well. That's what I use and I haven't had any problems with it. If you haven't already, check out the review I did of it here to see what sort of cooling performance it has

14 - Posted by Guest on July 24, 2004 - 8:09 am

Interesting to read your comments about the SiL RAID controller as most users reckon the 3114 is noticeably slower than the 3112 & certainly not upto the Intel ICH5 (particularly as it passes data via the PCI Bus so it is possible to get bus saturation).

The DFI nForec2 boards have a lot of potential but they also have a no. of "issues"

15 - Posted by Guest on July 26, 2004 - 3:53 am

how does the board stand in comparison with the abit an7?

16 - Posted by dump_it_here on July 31, 2004 - 4:59 pm

I dont like the choice of Silicon Image for the SATA RAID in the B version of this board.

There have been a lot of reports of hard disk corruption corruption with Silicon Image.

The A version of this board uses a Highpoint RAID controller and Highpoint (in my opinion) is a far better RAID company then Silicon Image.

17 - Posted by Guest on January 20, 2005 - 3:21 pm

OMG thank you so much .. i have been trying for ages to get the mcp port working ... This must be the problem .. trying it right now.

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