I have been considering this mobo for some time and I read the reviews here and at Tomshardware. Both seem to be based on boards tweeked by the mfgr. I also looked at the forum at Amdmb.com recommended by Angry Games. What a mess. This board, like so many others using Nforce2, seems to be extremely fussy about memory timings. Several brands of memory strips lock up during posts. I say the reviews should be redone with retail versions after initial bios fiddling has settled down. And the question of stability at various timings should have as much importance as performance speed.
i myself was skeptical about the whole raid 15 deal, that just seems like marketing scheme to me as well. this does seem to be the case doesnt it? well i do believe these benchmarx are quite abbreviated, being that they lack a a7n8x! and a few others, and while on this topic, very disappointed with the whole video card fiasco...please review and update this article guys....
I could be wrong, but this comment board is for the review on the mainboard, not the performance/build of the AnandTech.com website itself. Send those comments to the webmaster instead, and do the respectable thing and post constructive comments about the review here.
Just another anonymous post... I think he did a fairly decent job of reviewing the board, and the choice of an Radeon for the benchmarking due to directx 9 compatability is understandable. If you wanted to wait longer for them to dig out all of the other mobos, rebuild them in to systems, then retest each one again so that you could have your nice little benchmarks... sorry. Just wait, either they will re-do the other benchmarks again, or do the new benchmarks using this card. I've already seen tomshardwares guide showing 10 mobos with this chipset, and the bechmarks between them were so similar that they didn't make any difference in my buying descision. next to last: I agree with the previous plugin complaint, as I also use Mozilla. Is there ANY advantage in using flash over JPG of GIF for the benchmark results? Also the flash banners are annoying as... but I guess they pay the bills. Finnally, I know I'm not spelling well either due to no spell check, stiff keys on this keyboard, and I ran out of give a care juice about 45 minutes ago. Anandtech is still all good.
just to add to my comment in 37 if you had a post for pics i could have placed a pic on just to show you i does look smart and others have started making enqiries to my tower AND LANPARTY motherboard tower from www.thermaltake.com take a look if u dont know the case im talking about thermaltake tower + lanparty motherboard = 1 smart looking system
hey wesley 1 point of interest for u m8 when you made the board why didnt u make the IDE cables longer as i have a thermaltake tower so when i saw your board and read the speck i was impressed and imediately boutght it only to be dissapointed in the cables as i cannot connect from the raid connectoins to my HD=2off + dvd rom and dvd-re writer as the cables are too short this post is for ALL u tech wizzards that make motherboards GIVE US LONGER CABLES FOR GOD SAKE now im stuck with using normal IDE connections AND NO im not reverting back to the old cable strips it takes the look away from a promissing motherboard when you add in a uv light to light up the inside
why is everyone going nuts over this,this is a Nforce2 ultra400 chipset so its new the asus a7n8x deluxe its a Nforce2 chipset so its old why compare an old MB with a old chipset with the new chipset,i own both boards and the DFI its 12% faster than asus and its the best overcloking board for the athlon that i have used. OH and xtras lots of Xtras for the price, with this board i was able to clock my 2500+ to 2466 MHZ no problem with the asus and same proc i only reach that # and it would not boot at all and if U where wondering i got version 2.0 of the asus. peace
#34, did you read the review or any of the comments from the editors? You'd have to be stupid to think that DFI's nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboard would show anything different from the many nForce2 and KT600 motherboards AT has reviewed here. Look at any of the past few motherboard reviews and you'll clearly see nForce2 is faster than KT600, and that all nForce2 boards are no faster than each other, varying in performance by no more than 1%.
Jeez, why should AT even bother posting reviews for such clueless readers with an ignorant attitude.
It does not matter how new he is to Anandtech, there must be an editor responsible enough to make the call as to whether or not this review was worth putting up. In my opinion, I see little or no value to this review because there is no comparison worth mentioning. Come on! A Ti4600 on 3 motherboards but the review board has a 9800!
When I finally got the the benchamrks and realized what was being done, I was through taking this article seriously. What is to be gained by reading this? You must compare it to a comparable system with the same components.
What gives with the two different hard drives listed in the setup? Was the DFI using the faster drive while the others used the slower setup?
Its free, and Anand would never accept any type of bribe from the companies. Its not the easiest thing running a FREE to view website, and doing a multitude of benchmarks on THEIR free time. Just chill a bit guys, we dont want to become completely cynical. AT says the DFI mobo is the best deal out there, and I think im gonna pick one up. I bought a Chaintech and have had horrible experiance with the drivers especially for audio, it comes out all scratchy and the provided driver doesnt even work! Even worse is the horrible chaintech website which does shit for letting u contact support.
Posting an email i sent here but didn't get any response to regarding this article:
"Please correct me if I am wrong but from what I understand Soundstorm is a certification given to a motherboard that guarantees it meets certain specification set by Nvidia/Dolby guys. I also understand that it's a money issue a lot of manufacturer don't pay to be certified, the sound might be as good but it's not Soundstorm. So in the article when you say:
"On boards using the MCP-T Southbridge, sound is provided by the excellent nVidia SoundStorm digital audio controllers built into the MCP-T. The manufacturer provides a compliant audio codec for the front-end that interfaces to Sound Storm. DFI uses the excellent cMedia codec • the same codec used on all three LanParty boards."
It's for me very confusing, and I believe mislead potential buyer, especially that I remember earlier Nvidia clarifying this issue and stating that at the time Abit was the only certified motherboard http://www.nvidia.com/object/motherboards.html. It also doesn't seem to make sense to say that SoundStorm is built into the MCP-T since it is a certification process that applies to the entire motherboard once complete not only to a chipset. Same logic says that anything interfaces with SoundStorm seems also flawed. As a buyer for me it's the same thing when I go to the movies and specifically go to the THX certified screens only, I mean I pay the same price so why not have a peace of mind that sound quality has been inspected and certified by a team of expert. Personnally I don't care about sound in motherboard but I would think if someone did the same logic would apply and they might rather go with Abit, or other SoundStorm certified motherboard, for peace of mind. That's just my understanding and opinion."
why didn't you just go back and rebench the gigabyte board with the 9800? that would make a lot more sense and certainly would have been what AT did back in the day...
The Aperture Size makes very little difference in the performance of the ATI 9700/9800 series video cards because of the way the architecture handles textures. For the sake of consistency we have used 128MB Aperture Size and will use it with the 9800PRO in the future.
However, these are game benchmarks run with the ATI 9800 PRO at the same settings - except 32mb and 128mb apertures - with UT2003 and GunMetal 2 DX9:
I'm sure thats what most of us wanted to see. I don't even know if you can use ANY data from a past benchmark and compare it accurately with a new test. Unless you are sure NOTHING has cnaged with the test setup (no driver or windows updates, no programs installed or removed) even just surfing the web with the "test" pc for a couple weeks might skew the results.
Fresh OS install > Test > Swap parts Fresh OS install > Test > Repeat
Review conclusions were NOT based on comparisons made with different video cards. I HAVE compared the Gigabyte and DFI nForce2 Ultra 400 boards - both with a 9800 PRO 128Mb card. But my Gigabyte review is posted on a website I used to write for, www.bleedinedge.com, and can not be fairly quoted here since Evan Lieb reviewed the Gigabyte board here at Anandtech. I would never draw conclusions based on differences in benchmarks run with cards performing as differently as the Ti4600 and 9800 PRO.
We have moved to the 9800 PRO as our new standard for reviews, and there is never a good time to make such a switch. I considered not even posting earlier benchmarks run with the Ti4600, but there are benchmarks - Media Encoding being one - that are not affected by the video card. I also thought the benchmarks, clearly identified as different video cards, would also help our readers see the changes our new video standard would make in test scores.
This will all make more sense as new reviews are published using the ATI 9800 PRO.
Without using the same video card, you can NOT compare the DFI and the Gigabyte nForce2 motherboards. Moreover, you can NOT say that the DFI is the best performing AMD motherboard.
This review is useless for someone who wants to buy an nForce2 motherboard and wants to compare these two.
This article is useless because it doesn't help anyone that is looking for a high-end board.
1.Readers want to see how it compares in games! Even though it is stated that different video cards are used, these numbers do not help anyone.
2.Readers want to see how it compares against other top of the line boards! (why not compare it against a P3, it would be just as usefull!)
3."Performance tests for the DFI NFII Ultra LanParty were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 32MB" AGP Aperture set to 32MB??? Most people would set this to 128MB! Is there a compatibility problem that should of been stated?
This article should either be fixed or removed from AnandTech's website as it is damaging to their reputation.
If nothing is done about this article then it shows how much AnandTech listens to it's readers.
This article is a bit low on quality. Visiting the forums I know there are tons of qualified guys/gals that would love, including myself, to write/work at anand. I can't believe that this new guy was the best thing they found. I agree with other comments posted. I also hate with a passion the new benchmark result that are used in some of the article, some were flash... I restrict what runs on my browser because I hate to see a woman f****** a cow when I browse. What happened to the plain jpeg/gif of the past? Would much prefer that since otherwise no point of reading the article
just wanted to respond to number 18, who quoted one of my comments.
Actually man, I have been a NVIDIA fan and own several NVIDIA products. However as with most of us gamers you have to go where the speed, performance and quality is. I do own a 9700 pro and currently use it for my main gaming, but then again why not? does NVIDIA produce anything that compares?
NVIDIA has had their last 2 product lines fail, along with there cheats and shortcuts to produce good numbers. I seem to remember another company that did those things, can we say 3DFX? Who baught them???? NVIDIA.
my point was not that i am biased, but that ATI is currently the top of the line for speed, quality and performance, besides the fact it supports the new directx9.
which is better to do tests on after all, outdated and slow technology, or up to date top of the line technology?
There is an explanation about the scores, at the bottom of the preformance test configuration page you can read this
"Many benchmarks show widely different results with different video hardware, so we have indicated benchmarks run with the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO with an asterisk. Benchmarks without an asterisk were run with the nVidia Ti4600."
Iam glad to see the move to the ATi 9800 Pro, this eliminates any video bottleneck and allowes for 8X AGP compatibility testing.
I'm not saying your numbers are wrong, I'm saying your description seems wrong. As #21 points out, that description makes absolutely no sense, and as far as I've read, it's wrong. RAID 1.5 is a RAID 1 mirror with "optimized" reads; nothing more. Check Tom's Hardware, I believe they have a good article on this.
ok i wont comment the different video cards used, im sure you realise this isn't right... especially for the games benches. hopefully you'll make up, testing the other boards with this raddy too... also all tests that were done on just this board shall be done to the rest of the boards in time... when you fix all these things i hope you'll put up some notice on the main page.
i got a major complaint however... the idea to use flash for displaying the graphs isn't good at all. the newest flash plugins for mozilla are incredibly slow, and almost make my pc freeze as i open multiple tabs with your articles(with at least 2 flash adds on each page) so i prefer to disable my flash plugin. i know i dont represent the majority of your readers here, so i'm not important... but yet i think you should consider simple gifs for your graphs.
now another thing... why does the forum open in such a weird window? i mean, no addressbar and toolbar, etc. thats kinda annoying.
now a question about the test results... i find some specview results quite weird. in a couple if tests the dfi scores quite less than the rest, and then there's that test where dfi scores 5 times more than the rest.... i'd like to read your comment on these tests, hopefully you have some explanation.
bye folks, and forgive my bitching :) inspite it, i do like your site and thank you for the articles. you're doing a great job
hey guys as wesley stated, he's knew to AT...let's give him some constructive criticism - preferably in as nice a way as possible ;)
to wesley, please don't take the comments here the wrong way - i think everyone here just wants to see quality reviews here and really are trying to be constructive, even if it doesn't really sound like it all the time ;) you have high standards to live up to at anandtech and when ya slip, they're gonna let ya know ;)
I think you guys are being a bit hard on this review. Granted posting benchmarks comparing 2 different motherboards with 2 different video cards is just wrong but give them a chance to fix it.
I completly agree with number 8 above, there are a few primary boards that are the most popular, ASUS and EPOX being the main ones. I personally do not know anyone that uses a gigabyte nforce2 based board for their AMD chips. Heck that Gigabyte board you tested with was not even a consideration when I was looking for my nforce board.
Besides the proofing issues involved in this article, it just would have been nice if you used the top tier of nforce boards as a comparison.
Also, why on earth are you guys still using nvidia based video cards for testing purposes????
In your attempt to keep us up to date and advised properly on new products and specially benchmarks, you should atleast keep your hardware up to date. Besides, nvidia is no longer the standard for performance, in fact they are becoming the (Trident) of the video card market.
It's already been proven that nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards are faster than KT600 motherboards. This DFI review wasn't meant to prove that again.
Yes, this review used the 9800 Pro instead of our usual Ti4600. We're sorry about that, as we're currently transitioning our motherboard testbeds. Be patient and you'll find data comparing KT600 and nForce2 Ultra 400 boards using a 9800 Pro like we normally do.
Once again, we have fluff on the PCI bus that doesn't belong there... Why not just put a PHY that implements the 3Com MAC on the southbridge, instead of stealing PCI bandwidth and adding extra componentry.
As awful ad 3com drivers might be, they still beat the processor hogging "win-NIC" that is Realtek.. The only saving grace is the use of the Cmedia codec for the Soundstorm. While not on par with Asus' implementation of the A7N266-C (ACR card with Sigmatel codecs, as far away from the motherboard as possible), it at least beats the godawful ALC650..
(Before you jump on me with the Dolby encoding. DD is LOSSY as well, if you read 3dsoundsurge review of the Soundstorm audio, you'll find out that in DD encoding mode, you lose all frequencies over 18,000).. Granted, with all the fans yer average overclocker has, they don't really have the hearing to experience 18,000 hz, but it's still nice to know it's there :)
I would like to add a point about the exclusion of gigabit lan on the DFI NFII Ultra LanParty mainboard. Although gigabit lan would be a nice feature for an enthusiast, adding gigabit lan in place of dual megabit lan would alter nVidia's original marketing strategy for the NForce 2 chipset. Remember nVidia was touting "DualNet" as a great feature of NForce 2? Well, here is a reminder:
"DualNet Part of the nForce2 Digital Media Gateway. DualNet is integrated support for an NVIDIA Ethernet Mac and for a 3Com® Ethernet Mac—allowing a PC to serve as a home gateway, managing traffic between two separate networks and ensuring rapid transfer of data from WAN to LAN without any added arbitration or latency."
So, DFI was just following along with the nVidia strategy. Besides, where are you going to put gigabit lan on this board? On the pci bus? You would saturate it. You need some bus which can handle a minimum of 133 MB/s throughput, like CSA, to get the full benefit of gigabit lan.
I'm not impressed by this article. Comparing 4 motherboards huh? Don't strain yourselves over there guys. How bout throwing in a couple of the most popular motherboards for AMD rigs? Like the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and Epox 8RDA+ Seems like that would be the smart thing to do since people would be able to relate the performance a lot easier.
"Many benchmarks show widely different results with different video hardware, so we have indicated benchmarks run with the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO with an asterisk. Benchmarks without an asterisk were run with the nVidia Ti4600."
So you didn't use the same video card to compare both the NF2 Ultra boards? That is just bad form. Gee I wonder if the motherboard with the 9800 will be a little faster? DUh.
We described the Raid 1.5 feature in this review, because many readers of our earlier DFI 875PRO review have asked questions about how this feature is supposed to work. We did not test the performance of Raid 1.5, so we did not comment on how it actually performs compared to other RAID configurations.
Are you sure about RAID 1.5 too? I've seen several reports that it's nothing more than RAID 1(mirroring) with data being simultaniously read off both drives, which is in turn something a good RAID 1 controller should do anyhow, making RAID 1.5 marketing fluff.
Corrections are in process right now. When a review is written it is spell-checked, emailed, and then actually posted by a Managing Editor who is located thousands of miles from my location. The graphs are also created from formatted raw data at that point. Since I am new to Anandtech, then these kinds of errors do happen, and we take them very seriously.
I sincerely apologize, but the errors will be corrected very soon. Since I am learning the Anandtech procedures, the fault is mine.
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46 Comments
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Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
I have been considering this mobo for some time and I read the reviews here and at Tomshardware. Both seem to be based on boards tweeked by the mfgr. I also looked at the forum at Amdmb.com recommended by Angry Games. What a mess. This board, like so many others using Nforce2, seems to be extremely fussy about memory timings. Several brands of memory strips lock up during posts. I say the reviews should be redone with retail versions after initial bios fiddling has settled down. And the question of stability at various timings should have as much importance as performance speed.Anonymous User - Friday, September 19, 2003 - link
I'm having a hard time figuring out the difference between the NFII Lanparty Ultra and the NFII Ultra-AL.The Ultra-AL seems to go for about half the price.
Do they perform/overclock the same?
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Its a cool mobo...whats all the fussLonyo - Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - link
640x480 for game tests would make most sense, then it's mostly CPU limted not GPU limited.1024x768 is silly if you're comparing motherboard using different graphics cards.
And doing a graph showing one board is pointless.
You should have delayed this review until you'd done another one with the same testbed setup.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 17, 2003 - link
i myself was skeptical about the whole raid 15 deal, that just seems like marketing scheme to me as well. this does seem to be the case doesnt it? well i do believe these benchmarx are quite abbreviated, being that they lack a a7n8x! and a few others, and while on this topic, very disappointed with the whole video card fiasco...please review and update this article guys....sryque
ATConundrum - Saturday, August 16, 2003 - link
I could be wrong, but this comment board is for the review on the mainboard, not the performance/build of the AnandTech.com website itself. Send those comments to the webmaster instead, and do the respectable thing and post constructive comments about the review here.Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - link
Anonymous User - Monday, August 11, 2003 - link
Just another anonymous post...I think he did a fairly decent job of reviewing the board, and the choice of an Radeon for the benchmarking due to directx 9 compatability is understandable. If you wanted to wait longer for them to dig out all of the other mobos, rebuild them in to systems, then retest each one again so that you could have your nice little benchmarks... sorry.
Just wait, either they will re-do the other benchmarks again, or do the new benchmarks using this card. I've already seen tomshardwares guide showing 10 mobos with this chipset, and the bechmarks between them were so similar that they didn't make any difference in my buying descision.
next to last: I agree with the previous plugin complaint, as I also use Mozilla. Is there ANY advantage in using flash over JPG of GIF for the benchmark results? Also the flash banners are annoying as... but I guess they pay the bills.
Finnally, I know I'm not spelling well either due to no spell check, stiff keys on this keyboard, and I ran out of give a care juice about 45 minutes ago.
Anandtech is still all good.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 10, 2003 - link
just to add to my comment in 37 if you had a post for pics i could have placed a pic on just to show you i does look smart and others have started making enqiries to my tower AND LANPARTY motherboard tower from www.thermaltake.com take a look if u dont know the case im talking aboutthermaltake tower + lanparty motherboard = 1 smart looking system
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 10, 2003 - link
hey wesley 1 point of interest for u m8 when you made the board why didnt u make the IDE cables longer as i have a thermaltake tower so when i saw your board and read the speck i was impressed and imediately boutght it only to be dissapointed in the cables as i cannot connect from the raid connectoins to my HD=2off + dvd rom and dvd-re writer as the cables are too short this post is for ALL u tech wizzards that make motherboardsGIVE US LONGER CABLES FOR GOD SAKE now im stuck with using normal IDE connections AND NO im not reverting back to the old cable strips it takes the look away from a promissing motherboard when you add in a uv light to light up the inside
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 10, 2003 - link
why is everyone going nuts over this,this is aNforce2 ultra400 chipset so its new the asus a7n8x deluxe its a Nforce2 chipset so its old why compare an old MB with a old chipset with the new chipset,i own both boards and the DFI its 12% faster than asus and its the best
overcloking board for the athlon that i have used.
OH and xtras lots of Xtras for the price, with this board i was able to clock my 2500+ to 2466 MHZ no problem with the asus and same proc i only reach that # and it would not boot at all
and if U where wondering i got version 2.0 of the asus. peace
Anonymous User - Tuesday, August 5, 2003 - link
#34, did you read the review or any of the comments from the editors? You'd have to be stupid to think that DFI's nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboard would show anything different from the many nForce2 and KT600 motherboards AT has reviewed here. Look at any of the past few motherboard reviews and you'll clearly see nForce2 is faster than KT600, and that all nForce2 boards are no faster than each other, varying in performance by no more than 1%.Jeez, why should AT even bother posting reviews for such clueless readers with an ignorant attitude.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 3, 2003 - link
It does not matter how new he is to Anandtech, there must be an editor responsible enough to make the call as to whether or not this review was worth putting up. In my opinion, I see little or no value to this review because there is no comparison worth mentioning. Come on! A Ti4600 on 3 motherboards but the review board has a 9800!When I finally got the the benchamrks and realized what was being done, I was through taking this article seriously. What is to be gained by reading this? You must compare it to a comparable system with the same components.
What gives with the two different hard drives listed in the setup? Was the DFI using the faster drive while the others used the slower setup?
Cashmoney995 - Sunday, August 3, 2003 - link
Its free, and Anand would never accept any type of bribe from the companies. Its not the easiest thing running a FREE to view website, and doing a multitude of benchmarks on THEIR free time. Just chill a bit guys, we dont want to become completely cynical. AT says the DFI mobo is the best deal out there, and I think im gonna pick one up. I bought a Chaintech and have had horrible experiance with the drivers especially for audio, it comes out all scratchy and the provided driver doesnt even work! Even worse is the horrible chaintech website which does shit for letting u contact support.Anonymous User - Saturday, August 2, 2003 - link
Posting an email i sent here but didn't get any response to regarding this article:"Please correct me if I am wrong but from what I understand Soundstorm is a
certification given to a motherboard that guarantees it meets certain
specification set by Nvidia/Dolby guys. I also understand that it's a money
issue a lot of manufacturer don't pay to be certified, the sound might be as
good but it's not Soundstorm. So in the article when you say:
"On boards using the MCP-T Southbridge, sound is provided by the excellent
nVidia SoundStorm digital audio controllers built into the MCP-T. The
manufacturer provides a compliant audio codec for the front-end that
interfaces to Sound Storm. DFI uses the excellent cMedia codec • the same
codec used on all three LanParty boards."
It's for me very confusing, and I believe mislead potential buyer,
especially that I remember earlier Nvidia clarifying this issue and stating
that at the time Abit was the only certified motherboard
http://www.nvidia.com/object/motherboards.html. It also doesn't seem to
make sense to say that SoundStorm is built into the MCP-T since it is a
certification process that applies to the entire motherboard once complete
not only to a chipset. Same logic says that anything interfaces with
SoundStorm seems also flawed. As a buyer for me it's the same thing when I
go to the movies and specifically go to the THX certified screens only, I
mean I pay the same price so why not have a peace of mind that sound quality
has been inspected and certified by a team of expert. Personnally I don't
care about sound in motherboard but I would think if someone did the same
logic would apply and they might rather go with Abit, or other SoundStorm
certified motherboard, for peace of mind. That's just my understanding and
opinion."
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
why didn't you just go back and rebench the gigabyte board with the 9800? that would make a lot more sense and certainly would have been what AT did back in the day...Wesley Fink - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
Regarding the post about the 32MB Aperture Size:The Aperture Size makes very little difference in the performance of the ATI 9700/9800 series video cards because of the way the architecture handles textures. For the sake of consistency we have used 128MB Aperture Size and will use it with the 9800PRO in the future.
However, these are game benchmarks run with the ATI 9800 PRO at the same settings - except 32mb and 128mb apertures - with UT2003 and GunMetal 2 DX9:
UT2003 1024x768
Flyby 32MB Aperture 217.08, 128Mb 217.36
Botmatch 32Mb Aperture 81.16, 128Mb 81.28
Gun Metal 2, Benchmark 2 DX9, 1280x768
32Mb Aperture 31.47, 128Mb 31.47
As you can see, the real difference between 32Mb and 128Mb Aperture is negligible in these game benchmarks on the 9800 PRO.
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
I'm sure thats what most of us wanted to see. I don't even know if you can use ANY data from a past benchmark and compare it accurately with a new test. Unless you are sure NOTHING has cnaged with the test setup (no driver or windows updates, no programs installed or removed) even just surfing the web with the "test" pc for a couple weeks might skew the results.Fresh OS install > Test > Swap parts
Fresh OS install > Test > Repeat
Nightmare
Wesley Fink - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
Review conclusions were NOT based on comparisons made with different video cards. I HAVE compared the Gigabyte and DFI nForce2 Ultra 400 boards - both with a 9800 PRO 128Mb card. But my Gigabyte review is posted on a website I used to write for, www.bleedinedge.com, and can not be fairly quoted here since Evan Lieb reviewed the Gigabyte board here at Anandtech. I would never draw conclusions based on differences in benchmarks run with cards performing as differently as the Ti4600 and 9800 PRO.We have moved to the 9800 PRO as our new standard for reviews, and there is never a good time to make such a switch. I considered not even posting earlier benchmarks run with the Ti4600, but there are benchmarks - Media Encoding being one - that are not affected by the video card. I also thought the benchmarks, clearly identified as different video cards, would also help our readers see the changes our new video standard would make in test scores.
This will all make more sense as new reviews are published using the ATI 9800 PRO.
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
Without using the same video card, you can NOT compare the DFI and the Gigabyte nForce2 motherboards. Moreover, you can NOT say that the DFI is the best performing AMD motherboard.
This review is useless for someone who wants to buy an nForce2 motherboard and wants to compare these two.
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
This article is useless because it doesn't help anyone that is looking for a high-end board.
1.Readers want to see how it compares in games! Even though it is stated that different video cards are used, these numbers do not help anyone.
2.Readers want to see how it compares against other top of the line boards! (why not compare it against a P3, it would be just as usefull!)
3."Performance tests for the DFI NFII Ultra LanParty were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 32MB"
AGP Aperture set to 32MB??? Most people would set this to 128MB! Is there a compatibility problem that should of been stated?
This article should either be fixed or removed from AnandTech's website as it is damaging to their reputation.
If nothing is done about this article then it shows how much AnandTech listens to it's readers.
-no insult intended towards anyone-
Anonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
This article is a bit low on quality. Visiting the forums I know there are tons of qualified guys/gals that would love, including myself, to write/work at anand. I can't believe that this new guy was the best thing they found. I agree with other comments posted. I also hate with a passion the new benchmark result that are used in some of the article, some were flash... I restrict what runs on my browser because I hate to see a woman f****** a cow when I browse. What happened to the plain jpeg/gif of the past? Would much prefer that since otherwise no point of reading the articleAnonymous User - Friday, August 1, 2003 - link
just wanted to respond to number 18, who quoted one of my comments.Actually man, I have been a NVIDIA fan and own several NVIDIA products. However as with most of us gamers you have to go where the speed, performance and quality is. I do own a 9700 pro and currently use it for my main gaming, but then again why not? does NVIDIA produce anything that compares?
NVIDIA has had their last 2 product lines fail, along with there cheats and shortcuts to produce good numbers. I seem to remember another company that did those things, can we say 3DFX? Who baught them???? NVIDIA.
my point was not that i am biased, but that ATI is currently the top of the line for speed, quality and performance, besides the fact it supports the new directx9.
which is better to do tests on after all, outdated and slow technology, or up to date top of the line technology?
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Jeez, why would anyone even bother writing articles for such ungrateful SOBsAnonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I may have missed it, but how much is this thing gonna cost?justly - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
There is an explanation about the scores, at the bottom of the preformance test configuration page you can read this"Many benchmarks show widely different results with different video hardware, so we have indicated benchmarks run with the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO with an asterisk. Benchmarks without an asterisk were run with the nVidia Ti4600."
Iam glad to see the move to the ATi 9800 Pro, this eliminates any video bottleneck and allowes for 8X AGP compatibility testing.
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
This article really needs fixin!First major complaint is the use of old graphics cards. Compare apples to apples. Not apples to oranges to peaches.
Second, the Asus A78NX was not tested either. This IS the gold standard with AMD enthusiasts. How can we make a good comparison?
Third, where are the game tests and 3D Mark scores?
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
In response to #6(Wesley):I'm not saying your numbers are wrong, I'm saying your description seems wrong. As #21 points out, that description makes absolutely no sense, and as far as I've read, it's wrong. RAID 1.5 is a RAID 1 mirror with "optimized" reads; nothing more. Check Tom's Hardware, I believe they have a good article on this.
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Umm....Striping and mirroring with 2 drives only?OK...Let's look at this the way he explained it:
Take 2, 80 GB drives...
Half of each contains is striped, the other half used to mirror the stripe.
In what way is this useful? If 1 drive fails, you've lost the stripe AND the useless mirror...
Please explain to me why this is a good thing, Anandtech....
-Phil Green
LM Information Systems
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
ok i wont comment the different video cards used, im sure you realise this isn't right... especially for the games benches.hopefully you'll make up, testing the other boards with this raddy too... also all tests that were done on just this board shall be done to the rest of the boards in time... when you fix all these things i hope you'll put up some notice on the main page.
i got a major complaint however... the idea to use flash for displaying the graphs isn't good at all. the newest flash plugins for mozilla are incredibly slow, and almost make my pc freeze as i open multiple tabs with your articles(with at least 2 flash adds on each page) so i prefer to disable my flash plugin. i know i dont represent the majority of your readers here, so i'm not important... but yet i think you should consider simple gifs for your graphs.
now another thing... why does the forum open in such a weird window? i mean, no addressbar and toolbar, etc. thats kinda annoying.
now a question about the test results... i find some specview results quite weird. in a couple if tests the dfi scores quite less than the rest, and then there's that test where dfi scores 5 times more than the rest.... i'd like to read your comment on these tests, hopefully you have some explanation.
bye folks, and forgive my bitching :) inspite it, i do like your site and thank you for the articles. you're doing a great job
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Anyone else having a problem seeing the images containing benchmark results? The Gigabyte board review had the same problem.Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
>Besides, nvidia is no longer the standard for performance, in fact they are becoming the (Trident) of the video card market.Can you say "drooling ATI fanboy"? I knew you could!
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
errr that should be "new" not "knew" in comment 16....i'm sure i misspelled some other things too, which y'all are welcome to point outAnonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
hey guys as wesley stated, he's knew to AT...let's give him some constructive criticism - preferably in as nice a way as possible ;)to wesley, please don't take the comments here the wrong way - i think everyone here just wants to see quality reviews here and really are trying to be constructive, even if it doesn't really sound like it all the time ;) you have high standards to live up to at anandtech and when ya slip, they're gonna let ya know ;)
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I think you guys are being a bit hard on this review. Granted posting benchmarks comparing 2 different motherboards with 2 different video cards is just wrong but give them a chance to fix it.Sammual
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Anandtech is starting to lose my respect! Were you guys payed to make the board look good?If the video cards aren't the same then there should be no gaming benchmarks!
Peace
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I completly agree with number 8 above, there are a few primary boards that are the most popular, ASUS and EPOX being the main ones. I personally do not know anyone that uses a gigabyte nforce2 based board for their AMD chips. Heck that Gigabyte board you tested with was not even a consideration when I was looking for my nforce board.Besides the proofing issues involved in this article, it just would have been nice if you used the top tier of nforce boards as a comparison.
Also, why on earth are you guys still using nvidia based video cards for testing purposes????
In your attempt to keep us up to date and advised properly on new products and specially benchmarks, you should atleast keep your hardware up to date. Besides, nvidia is no longer the standard for performance, in fact they are becoming the (Trident) of the video card market.
Evan Lieb - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Jeff7181,It's already been proven that nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards are faster than KT600 motherboards. This DFI review wasn't meant to prove that again.
Yes, this review used the 9800 Pro instead of our usual Ti4600. We're sorry about that, as we're currently transitioning our motherboard testbeds. Be patient and you'll find data comparing KT600 and nForce2 Ultra 400 boards using a 9800 Pro like we normally do.
Take care,
Evan
Odeen - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
Once again, we have fluff on the PCI bus that doesn't belong there... Why not just put a PHY that implements the 3Com MAC on the southbridge, instead of stealing PCI bandwidth and adding extra componentry.As awful ad 3com drivers might be, they still beat the processor hogging "win-NIC" that is Realtek.. The only saving grace is the use of the Cmedia codec for the Soundstorm. While not on par with Asus' implementation of the A7N266-C (ACR card with Sigmatel codecs, as far away from the motherboard as possible), it at least beats the godawful ALC650..
(Before you jump on me with the Dolby encoding. DD is LOSSY as well, if you read 3dsoundsurge review of the Soundstorm audio, you'll find out that in DD encoding mode, you lose all frequencies over 18,000).. Granted, with all the fans yer average overclocker has, they don't really have the hearing to experience 18,000 hz, but it's still nice to know it's there :)
Anonymous User - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I would like to add a point about the exclusion of gigabit lan on the DFI NFII Ultra LanParty mainboard. Although gigabit lan would be a nice feature for an enthusiast, adding gigabit lan in place of dual megabit lan would alter nVidia's original marketing strategy for the NForce 2 chipset. Remember nVidia was touting "DualNet" as a great feature of NForce 2? Well, here is a reminder:"DualNet
Part of the nForce2 Digital Media Gateway. DualNet is integrated support for an NVIDIA Ethernet Mac and for a 3Com® Ethernet Mac—allowing a PC to serve as a home gateway, managing traffic between two separate networks and ensuring rapid transfer of data from WAN to LAN without any added arbitration or latency."
So, DFI was just following along with the nVidia strategy. Besides, where are you going to put gigabit lan on this board? On the pci bus? You would saturate it. You need some bus which can handle a minimum of 133 MB/s throughput, like CSA, to get the full benefit of gigabit lan.
Jeff7181 - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
... and another thing.What the hell is with showing ONE benchmark results for the Gun Metal DX9 tests? What a complete waste of time those were!
Jeff7181 - Thursday, July 31, 2003 - link
I'm not impressed by this article. Comparing 4 motherboards huh? Don't strain yourselves over there guys.How bout throwing in a couple of the most popular motherboards for AMD rigs? Like the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and Epox 8RDA+
Seems like that would be the smart thing to do since people would be able to relate the performance a lot easier.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - link
You are F-ing kidding me right>?!"Many benchmarks show widely different results with different video hardware, so we have indicated benchmarks run with the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO with an asterisk. Benchmarks without an asterisk were run with the nVidia Ti4600."
So you didn't use the same video card to compare both the NF2 Ultra boards? That is just bad form. Gee I wonder if the motherboard with the 9800 will be a little faster? DUh.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - link
We described the Raid 1.5 feature in this review, because many readers of our earlier DFI 875PRO review have asked questions about how this feature is supposed to work. We did not test the performance of Raid 1.5, so we did not comment on how it actually performs compared to other RAID configurations.Anonymous User - Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - link
Are you sure about RAID 1.5 too? I've seen several reports that it's nothing more than RAID 1(mirroring) with data being simultaniously read off both drives, which is in turn something a good RAID 1 controller should do anyhow, making RAID 1.5 marketing fluff.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - link
Corrections are in process right now. When a review is written it is spell-checked, emailed, and then actually posted by a Managing Editor who is located thousands of miles from my location. The graphs are also created from formatted raw data at that point. Since I am new to Anandtech, then these kinds of errors do happen, and we take them very seriously.I sincerely apologize, but the errors will be corrected very soon. Since I am learning the Anandtech procedures, the fault is mine.