Review: DFI Lan Party DK X58-T3eH6

Introduction​

May you live in interesting times: An old Chinese proverb that fits in with the computer industry these days. With the advent of the Intel ‘Core I7’ and its promising architecture, motherboard manufacturers have been eager to exploit this new technology to the fullest. Seven months ago Intel released the specifications of the X58 system boards in order to enable the public to utilise the new processor, then yes one could say that we do live in ‘interesting times’.

Over the last seven months manufacturers have been lining up for the public’s attention on their particular ‘spin’ of the X58 architecture. If one recalls correctly the first of the starting line was the MSI Eclipse followed by Asus and Gigabyte. Last but possibly not least was the product by DFI (Diamond Flower International). As usual, the aforementioned company has chosen to have two ‘flavours’ of board. The ‘UT’ and the ‘DK'. The former being the top of the range, whilst the latter being aimed towards the Gamer and the Overclocking enthusiast. This review shall focus it's attention towards the 'DK' model.

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PROS

• Great board layout and design
• Good Overclocking results
• CPU area clean (allows for a variety of third party solutions
• First PCIE slot is far away from the RAM slots allowing for third-party cooling devices
• Fast motherboard even at stock settings.
• Very stable even at high overclock speeds
• Northbridge Heatsink idea which allows for a third-party solution
• Onboard Firewire
• Plenty of USB ports
• Well designed BIOS
• ABS One stop overclocking tool
• CMOS reloaded
• UV Reactive colour scheme (DFI trade mark)
• Most of the heatsink array is bolted down

CONS

• PWM Sink (if its lack of air flow=bad foresight on DFI I.E watercooling solutions) or an issue with the heatsink itself
• Far too much thermal paste on the northbridge
• If a second VGA card is used then the last PCI slot is covered
• J-Micron controller for IDE and two of the SATA ports
• Cheap thermal paste on the southbridge and plastic clips

Score: 8/10

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