Review: HEXUS Group Test :: Is there a perfect high-end Intel motherboard?

by Michael Harries on 10 July 2008, 05:15

Tags: LANPARTY LT X48-TR2, DX48BT2, 132-CK-NF79-A1, P7N Diamond, nForce 790i Ultra SLI MCP, nForce 780i SLI MCP, X48 Express Chipset, EVGA, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), AMD (NYSE:AMD), MSI, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), DFI (TPE:2397)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qanqd

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DFI LANPARTY LT X48-TR2 BIOS options




Item Specifications
CPU FSB 200MHz-700MHz (1MHz increments) (400MHz–2800MHz QDR Format)
CPU multiplier CPU Min. (6x) – 50x (1x increments)
PCI-E clock 100-250MHz (1MHz increments)
Memory Ratios 200MHz FSB / (667 or 800)
266MHz FSB / (667, 800 or 1066)
333MHz FSB / (667, 800 or 1066)
400MHz FSB / (800 or 1066)
400MHz FSB
CPU voltage 0.9V-1.6000V (0.00625V increments)
CPU voltage reference
(Avaliable from 1.45625V and above)
0 to 130% (0.24% increments)
Memory VDIMM 1.710V-3.040V (0.02V increments)
Northbridge voltage 1.265V-2.040V (0.013V increments)
Southbridge voltage 1.510V- 2.380V (in ~ 0.130V increments)
FSB termination voltage 1.10V-1.603V (0.005V increments)


Discussion

DFI offers more options than most, allowing you to tweak settings to your heart's content. Voltage and clock adjustments are very generous, offering options beyond you would require or, indeed, are achievable.

Gallery





Accessing the Genie BIOS section reveals most of the performance-related options.















There are so many options for memory tweaking it can become quite mind-boggling. We experienced a few issues with the auto settings not adjusting when manual settings were changed elsewhere, which meant that you would have to start fresh by loading optimised defaults from the main menu. Loading optimised defaults for just the current page wouldn't fix the problems.

We believe the issue lies with the 'auto' settings fixing to the presets for their first configuration, then remaining at these fixed values rather than readjusting when settings are changed.




CMOS reloaded allows you to store four custom profiles. However, we experienced stability issues when adjusting BIOS settings from profiles, due to the issue with auto settings outlined above, so it’s not a perfect solution - requiring each profile to be built from scratch. The ability to switch between saved profiles rather than manually adjusting the vast array of options once you've got your profiles down, though, is still useful.