DFI LanParty UT SLI-M2R/G

Rob Williams

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One finally arrived at my door this morning... will probably hook it up tomorrow. Essentially, this is to the AM2 what the SLI-DR was for 939. Expect a review Monday after next :techgage:
 

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Jakal

Tech Monkey
That's pretty sweet Rob. I await the details of your experience! It'll be cool to see how DFI enters the AM2 market, and the performance it brings!
 

Rob Williams

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First impressions:

First off the BIOS is quite similar to the Ultra-D, but that's not to say there is no learning curve. In fact, there is quite a big one. Things are placed differently and far more in-depth. There is a LOT of tweaking potential here though, it's rather incredible. Especially when dealing with voltages. Most motherboards offer vcore increments of 0.125v, but this board allows 0.0625v, from 1.000v all the way up to 1.600v.

What's rather scary is how high the voltage can go without any sort of modding. The Vdimm goes up to 3.0v, which is a lot for DDR, let alone DDR2. The Vcore is another story... if you chose 1.6v and then the 21.25% increase, that will give you effectively 1.94v :eek:

One problem that I found to plague the Ultra-D was the fact that if you failed an overclock, you would be forced to use the BIOS reset switch to get things going again. With the ASUS P5WD2-E and M2N32-SLI, all it would take is a shutoff, wait a second, and turn back on. Sadly, I have already had to use the BIOS reset switches a few times. That's a huge pain in the ass.

So far... I am enjoying the board though. I can't find any real problems yet, but I have only used it today.

Back to some overclocking...

Oh, and check this out:
 

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Jakal

Tech Monkey
Oh wow! I, personally, would have liked to see smaller voltage increases with my Expert board. I'm glad they've included finer adjustments in the new release. I like the fact that there's more to fine tune. That should allow for better and higher overclocks, while retaining stability.

2v for a cpu is just killer, anyone even thinking of doing that has more money than sense. LN2 testing?

Is that an EC-VR I see? HOW ODD? :D XD It would just make sense that the favorite chipset cooler would make it's way to the new Lanparty edition. Does it light up?
 

Rob Williams

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Yes, the variable voltages are amazing... extreme tweaking ability. It's a true enthusiasts board... which only tells me it should be better capable of handling bad overclocks. ASUS seems to have mastered that...

As for the chipset cooler... I was trying to point out the fact that the GPU sits right atop it.. with less than 1mm of space in between. Actually, it felt like the PCB -was- touching the cooler, but the photo shows otherwise. The fan doesn't light up, sadly, but here's a better shot of it, and the northbridge heatsink.
 

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Jakal

Tech Monkey
Ah, I saw the card, but it didn't sink in, til now, what you were trying to show me. Yeah, that is very close to the heatsink. Closer than my Expert. I know they test the boards before production, but somebody should mention things like that. That really could cause a problem.
 

Rob Williams

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It would only cause a problem if the heatsink got VERY hot, which chances are it won't. The PCB resting on it won't do much, but it's still rather needless imo.
 

Jakal

Tech Monkey
It can also depend on the heatsink the video card has. I know with the AC coolers I have on my 7800s, things are quite tight there. I doubt people with no pc experience by this board, but it is something I think the makers could have fixed rather easily. Airflow is always a major factor when putting together a performance based pc.
 
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