[Overclockers.com]

[caption id="attachment_12369" align="alignleft" width="100" caption="Image courtesy: Diamond Flower International Inc."]<a href="http://www.overclockers.com/?attachment_id=12369" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.overclockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/dfi_logo.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>[/caption]

Anybody following the new product releases of motherboard manufacturer DFI these past months had to be wondering what was happening with their consumer line of product. The Taiwanese company that has made a name for itself among enthusiasts and overclockers has failed to release a single ... Return to Article

[AlucardCasull]

Its expensive to make a high quality, featured packed board. Then to have to compete in the market, not very surprising. At least companies like Asus have other forms of income.

[KonaKona]

As the old saying goes, "And nothing of value was lost."

I had one of these back in the day, it was alright. They did have good boards but with the likes of EVGA, ASUS and GIGABYTE nowadays, there isn't much room for a company with lowercase letters.... oh wait.

[OnDborder]

Ah the memories..
Their 939,p35 and x38 were smokin' boards.
Too bad. I liked their bios options.

[petteyg359]

I bought a DFI board in classies here, then sold it in classies, and the person who got it told me it set itself on fire.

[dostov]

They sure had many absolute bests at one point. They produces some less great boards though...

It is a hard market to be in these past few years. As is goes, less and less space is available for smaller players to compete. A couple years back it was Abit, and now DFI. The sad thing is that the consumer is just being left with less choices than before... soon enough the day will come that we will all be left to choose from only two manufacturers.

Cheers!

[petteyg359]

Originally Posted by dostov

soon enough the day will come that we will all be left to choose from only two manufacturers. Cheers!

I'm placing a $1000 bet that when that happens, the two left will be Asus and MSI.

[Bobnova]

I have a hard time seeing Gigabyte dying, personally.


I missed Abit when they shut down, they made great boards.
Course after they did i was forced to look for a new company and found Asus.

[wingman99]

I think Gigabyte is doing fine, who ever talks about DFI lanparty anymore.

[slavik]

I had their nforce2 board back in the day. During that time, they really did have more options than other makers. Then they simply went down because nobody wanted a regular board with UV reactive components of different colors. At first it was a gimmick and then nobody cared.

The old dfi forum days on amdmb.com were awesome. Then dfi spun it's own forum and that was fun in the beginning, then it wasn't fun anymore.

I believe that DFI gave the motherboard industry/segment a kick which is why we have awesome boards made by ASUS/eVGA/etc.

I also believe the original designer of lanparty boards worked for Abit as a previous job.

[deathman20]

Ah remember the days when of Abit and DFI boards where the ways to roll. Went to Asus I've had my issues with, though I do love my eVGA board.

[Nhut Pham]

My friend that works at a company that sells computer parts actually tells me Gigabyte has far more RMA's than the other manufacturers, I'm betting mostly because they do have very strong enthusiast support, which in turn means more people who don't know what they're doing with these boards. I think we all appreciate what Gigabyte has brought to the table the last few years, I hope they will keep doing better.

I remember going to the DFI "street" forums, where the numbered mods there would try to be the customer support for the countless people messing around with the overclocking features.

[wingman99]

Originally Posted by Nhut Pham

My friend that works at a company that sells computer parts actually tells me Gigabyte has far more RMA's than the other manufacturers, I'm betting mostly because they do have very strong enthusiast support, which in turn means more people who don't know what they're doing with these boards.

From all the forms on the internet, it's about Gigabyte boards squealing and not posting and post looping, it has nothing do with users, there just putting out more defective produces, that's all there is to it.

You can't say more people are bad at using Gigabyte boards. If there having more RMA's then there doing something wrong, the worst thing to do is blame the public for product failures. Gigabyte needs to get the message to increase there quality control, more efficient engineering saves money.

[Nhut Pham]

As a victim of motherboard squeal, I can't argue with you there.

I should clarify though, I meant to say Gigabyte has more RMA's at the company my friend works at, not for Gigabyte as a corporation. They did say the difference was significant though.

I still hope DFI does well in their industrial products, although I would have liked to have seen their crazy yellow boards in the new Antec Lanboy case.

[SolidxSnake]

Oh the memories.

[chop_wood]

theres just some external ninja force where certain brands either work or dont work for specific people.. at my business we basically use gigabyte/asrock exclusively. very very few problems... everytime we try asus we regret it, although i still hold them as a market best. i had an evga and it will probably be my next.

I STILL have my DFI and it pwns all cause it has pretty UV reactive uber 1337|\|3ss. everytime i look at it i think about the days of modding my ultra d to sli, putting mad stupid voltage into bh-5 sticks, pruisin the dfistreet forums, and rocking the dfi case bag carrier to lan parties..

[wingman99]

Originally Posted by chop_wood

theres just some external ninja force where certain brands either work or dont work for specific people

+1 on that every time I buy a new board I don't care what company sells it it's like a crapshoot, I spend 30 days testing as much as I can so I don't have to RMA to the company because they miss things, they just See if it boots into windows and send it back to you.

Usually I find the problems in just 3 days however sometimes they show up later.

I miss the days we could RMA the board for the first year to the retailer, and get a new one.

[benbaked]

Originally Posted by slavik

I also believe the original designer of lanparty boards worked for Abit as a previous job.

Yeah, IIRC it was Oskar Wu, the man behind the legendary abit BP6.

[Aynjell]

Originally Posted by KonaKona

As the old saying goes, "And nothing of value was lost."

I had one of these back in the day, it was alright. They did have good boards but with the likes of EVGA, ASUS and GIGABYTE nowadays, there isn't much room for a company with lowercase letters.... oh wait.

eVGA boards are meh compared to DFI. Nothing beat the control of the SLI-DR, and quite frankly, I chose the DFI board over any others because of the good balance of features, looks, etc. It was the best p55 board on the market.

I wouldn't expect you to appreciate it, you're probably too young to have been with DFI in the hayday... this is a big loss for me. 2 of my 3 currently running boxes are DFI based. I've never been happy with an asus board, and the only friend I have that buys asus has constant rma issues with them. DFI was always the place to go for me. I waited for a P55 board from DFI, and was rewarded.

I had an eVGA board for a few days. Wasn't impressed. Or should I say foxconn.

[xoke]

DFI was epic "back in the day", I remember wanting a Socket A Lan-Party soooo bad...had to settle for an EPOC (which was also a good mobo). You young fellas got to realize...it wasn't always like this, with every mobo manufacturer making overclocking features standard and such...vendors bragging about what their motherboards could do and stuff.

Back in the day, you were happy to have a voltage adjustment without having to solder something...DFI was key in bringing OCing to the mainstream. Hell, we had to do a frickin pencil trick to get more voltage! You kids are spoiled! ha ha

I haven't been a DFI fan for a while, mainly because their neon pastel color schemes kill me (looks like the radioactive Easter Bunny took a dump in my case) but still, DFI should be respected for what they did for our industry.

They lead by example for many years. xoke