PicturesNext, we arrive at the DFI, the second entry in our P35 motherboard round-up.
The box itself has a quite clean design, nothing fancy.
On the back, we can find a variety of information, going from the basics of the Intel P35 chipset to the 8 phases Digital PWM and dual gigabit LAN with teaming function. All in all, basic information.
When we open the box, we find the motherboard enclosed in a hard plastic cover (also seen with the Asus blitz series) to ensure the safety of the board.
The other two boxes contain the extra accessories and the TransPiper, but we'll discuss that feature later on this page. First of all: the accessories.
Just like MSI, DFI offer a very large packet of extra's
4 sata cables
1 molex to sata power converters
1 sata splitter
I/O backplate
Ide cable
Floppy cable
Sound card
Driver disk for both XP and Vista
Motherboards manual
A quick start guide
But of course, the motherboard itself has the leading role in this review.
As you can see, DFI chose to swap the yellow color it has used in the past for a green shade. Let me guide you through the different aspects of the motherboard, beginning with a clear shot of the socket area.
As you can see, digital PWM! One of the biggest advantages of this board when comparing the others should be this, as 8 phase digital PWM should keep the voltages very stable. For the subzero cooling users: this board is very easy to insulate, almost too easy. There's really nothing around the socket to worry about.
Let's move on to the external I/O connections.
We can clearly see that this is an enthusiast motherboard, everything obsolete was left out. What we have left is:
PS/2 keyboard and mouse
6 x USB 2.0
2 x Gigabit lan
IEEE1394
Note that the audio is delivered by a sound card which you need to plug in on the motherboard. While minimalism can be favorable for reducing cost and clutter, some useful extras were left out, like eSATA which can come in handy; the external I/O is limited in options, no Firewire either. The heatsink you see in the middle is part of the TransPiper system.
Next up, the PCIe area.
Three (3!) PCIe x16 slots for graphical power, of which 1 is really performing at x16, whereas the others perform at respectively 4x/1x and 1x. For the gamers, the system can provide 2 crossfire video cards and an extra physics card.
The internal I/O connections consist of:
Connector for an external COM port
Connector for an IEEE 1394 port
Connector for the Bernstein audio module
Front audio connector (on the Bernstein audio module)
CD-in connector (on the Bernstein audio module)
S/PDIF connector (on the Bernstein audio module)
IrDA connector
CIR connector
8 Serial ATA connectors
IDE connector
Floppy connector
Front panel connector
6 fan connectors
Diagnostic LED
EZ touch switches (power switch and reset switch)
Diagnostic led and EZ touch switches
Next up, the memory slots.
Nothing special to mention here, except for the limited space between the memory slots and the PCIe lane. If you have a long video card (such as the 8800Ultra), install you memory first.
Finally we arrive at DFI's newest addition : the TransPiper heatsink system.
The box consist of:
A quick install guide
The TransPiper heatsink
A tiny bit of cooling paste
The equipment to attach the TransPiper
There are two options: attach the TransPiper to the cpu through the heatsink system in the middle of the I/O connections, or attach it to the southbridge. We chose the last option.
The installation is really simple and very well documented in the quick install guide, so we won't spend time on how we installed it. Does it work? We didn't find any improvements using the southbridge attachment, however, we suspect that attaching it directly to the cpu could have a bigger effect.
Foxconn really works on their street cred with that board