Review: DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B - Mainboard - HEXUS.net

System Setup

Hardware

DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B, NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400, Socket A, dual DDR400
ASUS A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe, NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400, Socket A, dual DDR400
EPoX EP-4PDA2+, Intel i865PE (Springdale-PE), Socket 478, dual DDR400
AMD Athlon XP3200+, 11 x 200MHz, 512KB L2
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 'C', 15 x 200MHz, 512KB L2, HyperThreading
NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra
Corsair XMS3200LLPT, 2 x 256MB, 2-2-2-6 (2-2-2-5 for the EPoX and ASUS)
Enermax 431W PSU
Swiftech MCX478
Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80GB

Software

Windows XP Professional w/SP1 and current Windows Update patches (as of 17/11/03)
NVIDIA Detonator FX 52.16 WHQL
Intel Chipset Driver 5.00.1012
NVIDIA nForce2 2.43 Platform Driver
DirectX 9.0a Runtime
HEXUS Pifast benchmark
Lame v3.92MMX MP3 encoding
HEXUS SETI benchmark
3DMark 2001SE v330
Comanche 4
Serious Sam 2 Demo
X2 Rolling Demo
Realstorm 2003 Raytracing
UT2003 HEXUS benchmark

For some reason I couldn't make Tras=5 benchmark stable at the benchmarked settings on the DFI. Hmm, not entirely sure why. The EPoX based P4 platform and the ASUS nForce2 both get that luxury however, giving the DFI some stiff competition. The usual benchmark conditions apply. Three runs, the top and bottom discarded to leave the middle result as the reported one, all three redone should any recorded run deviate from the others.

So, high end AMD on the DFI and ASUS, versus high end 3.0C on a PAT enabled motherboard. Let's see how the DFI gets on performance wise.