Whatever happened to DFI?

[George Powell]

I remember when all the best overclocks were on DFI boards.

Just wondering if anyone knew what had happened to them.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Too expensive. Not much difference in performance (+/-2%) between the Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI boards except for bells and whistles. You can get a good 500MHz FSB P35 board for $70. No need to spend 2 to 3x the price for DFI.

The DFI may be able to hit 530MHz FSB, but how many Intel chip would be able to clock that high? The sweet spot is 430 to 490MHz.

 

[Heidfirst]

They are around but Intel wasn't their strength & since C2D took over the enthusiast space they've been learning/catching up.
Their 965 was late to market (pretty much arrived at the same time as the first P35s) & suffered a lot of problem with noisy mobos.
Their P35s & 680i were late to market too.

 

[Miramonti]

I would have gladly gone with DFI instead of what I chose, an Abit ip35, Pro if they had their p35 boards out much sooner. But they weren't available and reviews weren't posted until after the July 22 round of c2d's came out. I'm getting more than my moneys worth imo from the ip35 pro but its money that DFI could have easily had in their pocket instead of in abit's.

 

[T2k]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Too expensive. Not much difference in performance (+/-2%) between the Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI boards except for bells and whistles. You can get a good 500MHz FSB P35 board for $70. No need to spend 2 to 3x the price for DFI.

Man, this crap is very boring now... you keep pushing this silly '$70 gets you aaaaaalllllll' story - it's simply a VERY LIMITED, EL CHEAPO board you're fancying here for some time now, period. Ever heard of anything other than fuckin' FSB (and even that doesn't show crazy high stuff)? isgust; Your $70 board lacks even such basic thing as second x16 slot.

The DFI may be able to hit 530MHz FSB, but how many Intel chip would be able to clock that high? The sweet spot is 430 to 490MHz.

[/quote]

Ouch. Xtremesystems is down now but there are higher results - IIRC including 600MHz - with X38-based Asus Maximus boards. So much for your IP35-E...

 

[T2k]

Originally posted by: jjsole
I would have gladly gone with DFI instead of what I chose, an Abit ip35, Pro if they had their p35 boards out much sooner. But they weren't available and reviews weren't posted until after the July 22 round of c2d's came out. I'm getting more than my moneys worth imo from the ip35 pro but its money that DFI could have easily had in their pocket instead of in abit's.

That's their usual problem: they are VERY SLOW yet expensive. I'm running a CFX3200-DR here and while it runs fine I don't think my board will be DFI again - most likely Asus Maximus FOrmula SE; a little extra over the price of a comparable DFI and I get heatpipe/WC combo by default..

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: T2k

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Too expensive. Not much difference in performance (+/-2%) between the Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI boards except for bells and whistles. You can get a good 500MHz FSB P35 board for $70. No need to spend 2 to 3x the price for DFI.

Man, this crap is very boring now... you keep pushing this silly '$70 gets you aaaaaalllllll' story - it's simply a VERY LIMITED, EL CHEAPO board you're fancying here for some time now, period. Ever heard of anything other than fuckin' FSB (and even that doesn't show crazy high stuff)? isgust; Your $70 board lacks even such basic thing as second x16 slot.

The DFI may be able to hit 530MHz FSB, but how many Intel chip would be able to clock that high? The sweet spot is 430 to 490MHz.

Ouch. Xtremesystems is down now but there are higher results - IIRC including 600MHz - with X38-based Asus Maximus boards. So much for your IP35-E...[/quote]

Okay, Troll...perhaps you can educate the community about the DFI? I can buy a quality RAID card for $50. Firewire and eSATA shouldn't cost more than $30. And I can move them to another PC. How may Intel chip can hit 600MHz and be able to pass Orthos/S&M/Memtest? Put up or shut up.

 

[Timecop1967]

Serpent Royal where can I find the Abit IP35-E board for 70$. I've seen it on New Egg for 100$ I'm looking to upgrade my AX8 for the Abit IP35-E or maybe even the Pro.

Yes don't need the Wifi or even the firewire so the IP35-E may be the one.....just want a good stable board without the extras.

If I go with the 6750 or 6850 duo core, this motherboard and my 8800GTS BFG 640meg video card....... will my Fortron power supply of 550 watts be enough juice or will a new supply be needed? Seems to run everything in my sig now just fine....not sure how much more power the new cpus and motherboards require. thx

 

[SerpentRoyal]

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/vie...a=BA23929&RSKU=BA23929

$71 AR. Price went up $1. You can read more about this board plus installation/overclocking tips at MB forum under my Abit IP35-E review.

I've overclocked my E4300 up to 3.49GHz with Antec SP350. Suspect you'll be fine.

The key is to use JEDEC 1.8V DDR2 667 or 800 RAMs if you want the best chance of booting with default BIOS settings. I'd recommend E2160/E2180 ($80). These should hit +3.2GHz with $15/GB HP DDR2 667 (@ hot deals forum). Wait for another year or so to engage 45nm Peryn quad.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2063989&enterthread=y

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2099932&enterthread=y

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: T2k

Your $70 board lacks even such basic thing as second x16 slot.

A 2nd x16 slot is unnecessary for the vast majority of people, even gamers.

Originally posted by: T2k

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyalThe DFI may be able to hit 530MHz FSB, but how many Intel chip would be able to clock that high? The sweet spot is 430 to 490MHz.

Ouch. Xtremesystems is down now but there are higher results - IIRC including 600MHz - with X38-based Asus Maximus boards. So much for your IP35-E...

He's right though in that usually higher fsb= eased latencies= reduced performance.
Very high fsbs are only really useful for people who have low multis (e.g. 7x) or stupendous cooling & that's only if they have a CPU that's capable of high fsb too (& there don't seem to be too many 600fsb capable CPUs so far).

 

[CP5670]

Not only are the DFI enthusiast boards too expensive for what they offer, but they are also consistently coming out several months later than the competition. I think this has been the case for almost all of their releases since their nf4 line and has probably put off a lot of people from buying them.

My experience with DFI has been great and I would generally prefer them over any other brand if the boards were at a similar price, but there isn't much difference between the P35 motherboards these days. The DFI LP P35 looks like it might be the best board around, but I don't see much reason to buy it given that boards costing a third of the price can max out most processors available. A motherboard in general is not worth spending a lot of money on unless you have already maxed out everything else in your rig.

 

[brencat]

The DFI Infinity P35 T2RL Blood Iron ~ $129 seems like a really nice board. It has been observed that it is a great OCer for dual core CPUs, but less so for quads. Also, there are many reports of the NB getting very hot -- and replacing it and breaking the label in the process voids your warranty. Lastly, DFIs are not for novices IMO due to the littany of BIOS options available for tweaking. Factoring all these points in, the sub $100 alternatives by Gigabyte and Abit for example are the better P35 choices and much simpler to use for most people.