New to DFI

I was wondering if anyone has any input on these boards.
NFII U400S-AL
NFII U400SG-AGF
NFII ULTRA-AL
I think they are pretty much the same but experiences tell all, so..
I see the obvious lan, sound.
Is there really a difference between these and the LanParty or the Infinity boards as far as OCing and performance?

I am currently running a A7N8X-E/AXP-M combo and I plan to put together another system using another mobile barton. I have everything but the mobo and started thinking about testing new waters. The ASUS setup hit 236 @ 2T and 231 @ 1T with nothing more than a bios flash. From looking over post the DFI boards appear to take some work to get them cranked up, which doesn't bother me, but do they pay off. Does DFI actually offer a performace gain and are the NF II boards still as buggy as previous posts have shown.

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

Did not try those but had a couple of the nF2 Infinity Ultra boards that were excellent.

the lanparty ultra b is supposed to be the better socket a dfi mobo for overclocking - http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_pr....jsp?PRODUCT_ID=2320&CATEGORY_TYPE=MB&SITE=US

but many will say this one is too - http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_pr....jsp?PRODUCT_ID=1524&CATEGORY_TYPE=MB&SITE=US

Thanks guys I'm going to check those out. I had about given up on an answer. lol

Part of what I was wanting to know is, is there a performance gain over the ASUS. Such as my old Dragon board benched better/ out performed my ASUS board but just wasn't any good for OCing so needless to say @ 2.6-2.7 the Asus beat down the Soyo which was stuck at 2225 but at similar clocks the Dragon produce better marks. Being as that the DFI and the ASUS are both nForce2 which would most likely set the boards on par with each other. Although the DFI I am being led to believe will produce higher fsb speeds producing better over all performance, yes?

When I checked before Christmas there were Infinity boards available at ZipZoomfly. Since all but those you list are discontinued they may become hard to find. You might also check the classified.

Since the nForce2 chipset appeared, DFI has lead the pack in terms of overclocking. They would be the board to buy in that regard. ASUS still makes a solid board and some like the Epox (the nForce4 boards from Epox seems to be good from what I hear).

I already found the Ultra and the Ultra B for sale. I a in kind of a rush to decide on this bacause fo the same thing you mentioned, they are getting discontinued. I had planned on getting a ASUS back up board and now it is pretty hard to find. From reading through posts I get the idea that the Infinity boards are alittle more on the iffy side. Yes?

I also am getting the idea one could automatically assume an Ultra B will hit 250fsb with good ram.

Anyone have any results on the Ultra B fsb running 2x1024? My fsb went down the tubes when I upped to 2gigs on my ASUS. Can't get a good OC on the bus even at 2T.

I already have 2 XP-M sitting here, besides the one I am using, and the AGP cards so I would like to get some use out of them and with AMDs next socket coming out shortly I can't see forking over the bucks now when I will probably be stepping up every thing in 4-6 months.

If you're using 2*1G then my guess is that any of the nF2 boards will limit the memory timings to 2T. The boards were designed prior to the arrival of these 1G memory stickes. Only a guess, I certainly haven't tried it.

I understand fully your desire to use your existing parts. I've several AGP graphics cards setting here and with the high price of PCIE graphics cards I'm pieceing together a couple AGP systems for the family. They only need working computers, not the lateset and greatest bells and whistles that cost an arm and a leg.

I can still do 1T no problem I figured switching to 2T would have given me my 230 bus back while using the 1g sticks. Not. The new one I am planning to build with the DFI board will probably have two g.Skill 512 sticks. Unless it takes to the gig sticks better than the ASUS did. I'm hoping the higher available voltage settings for the North will help the cause.

You hit it right on the head with the family comps. I have to put another PC worthy of gaming together to get mine "back" and the OC'd socket A can't be beat for a cost effective unit.

Thrasher_Z said:

I can still do 1T no problem

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Interesting, I wouldn't have guessed that, live and learn.

I am just wondering why you are looking at mobile bartons? I mean sure, they're amazing chips, and were the best bang-for-buck in their time, but why not get a cheap cheap sempron s754 system? They OC like mad as well, and you can even get a s754 mobo with and exchangable zif socket, which will support M2!!! You can put together a complete system for next to nothing, and it will support all AMD chips in the next few years (theoretically - BIOS support and full feature implementation may be questionable)

Stoanhart said:

I am just wondering why you are looking at mobile bartons? I mean sure, they're amazing chips, and were the best bang-for-buck in their time, but why not get a cheap cheap sempron s754 system? They OC like mad as well, and you can even get a s754 mobo with and exchangable zif socket, which will support M2!!! You can put together a complete system for next to nothing, and it will support all AMD chips in the next few years (theoretically - BIOS support and full feature implementation may be questionable)

Click to expand...

First you said "which will support M2!!!" and you backed it up with "Theoretically". lmao. Theoretically is funny.

You must have missed #9. All I am short is a ~$100 mobo. The rest of the parts (ram , agp cards, cases, ect ) are laying around here. To top that off my CPU marks are in the same range as the 3200-3500 A64 according to futuremark comparisons. I am sure that those are 754 and not 939 processors but it works and it will be about half the cost of a 754 upgrade that is going to be as out of date as my socket A systems soon. Besides that buying a cheap mobo right from the get go isn't going to fly just because it isn't going to do what I want which will lead to another board so I can get something more out of the system and if I am going that far might as well upgrade to a PCI-e vid card and it never ends. Next real rig I am going to do will be for me and it will be all or not. I have wasted so much money in the past making unsatisfactory purchases "just to get it going". The one I want to get together now will make 3 capable PCs for my wife and three kids to tear up and I'll do my full upgrade later this year.

How can you support a M2 on exsisting boards? Isn't M2 DDR2? I really haven't looked into the new AMD's coming out , just know they are coming. Ask yourself if you would by a morphadite that supports multiple style socket processors when these mobo manufacturers can't even get the Ram they support correct half the time. lol. Fully supports spec XXXX except.....

Yeah, that makes sense. I did miss the part where you alredy had everything. If I was going to do a full upgrade, I wouldn't bother with the s754 either.

As to the upgrade, I got two similarily named boards confused. There is an Asrock mATX board called the k8-UPGRADE which goes from s754 to s939, then there is the ECS k8-800M2, which actually has nothing to do with M2. I think I read about them both at the same time, and got them confused. I was under the impression that there was a board that could go from s754 -> s939 Funny too because I was thinking the same thing about the RAM.