Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on July 19, 2006 6:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
DFI Infinity 975X/G
Basic Features
One of the more anticipated boards we looked forward to after our Computex 2006 visit was the DFI Infinity 975X/G motherboard. Of course, we understood this would be an Infinity series and as such would be lacking the normal bells and whistles along with the almost legendary overclocking ability of the LanParty series. However, knowing DFI's ability to extract performance out of chipsets in just about any price range we expected some great things with this board. While the board did not disappoint us we were let down a little with its overclocking ability (based on expectations), but more importantly we're disappointed with its current street price of $249.
We know the Intel 975X chipset is expensive and the current lack of 975X Core 2 Duo capable boards from suppliers like MSI, Foxconn, ECS, and Abit are helping to keep the prices high. We believe DFI had a golden opportunity to bring this board to market around the $200 price point and really generate some price/performance excitement. Do not get us wrong, we really like the board but think the pricing structure needs adjustment just like the overclocking ability we will discuss shortly.
DFI's attention to detail is evident in the layout of the board and throughout the BIOS options and feature set. The board has the ability to run ATI CrossFire with dual X8 PCIe capability along with the fact that only one slot (PCI) is physically not available when installing a CrossFire solution. While DFI does not use a heat pipe solution to keep the MCH and ICH chipsets cool, we did not have any thermal issues with the board while overclocking or testing CrossFire. The BIOS options are not as extensive as the LanParty series, but they certainly provide more than enough choices for most performance or enthusiast users.
Basic Performance
The performance of the board was very good along with exceptional stability in all areas. In fact, with some additional BIOS tuning we are certain this board has the ability to hold a performance lead in most of the stock setting results. With this said, our issue or maybe our perception is that the board could have been much better in the overclocking area as we "only" reached a stable FSB setting of 383 with our X6700. Our X6800 with the multiplier dropped was only able to achieve a FSB of 385 before hitting the proverbial brick wall. Otherwise, we had no issues to report except that if you want to use RAID you need to lock SATA at 100MHz fixed or it will not work.
Overclocking
While an overclock to 383FSB is certainly nothing to sneeze at, we were hoping for at least a 400+ FSB capability on this board. Some users have had success with taking this board over 400FSB with a 4:3 memory ratio, but it seems a majority of boards are ending up around the 375FSB range. Our board would not boot at anything higher than a 385FSB with the current BIOS. We could not exceed a 334FSB at a 1:1 ratio due to the memory strap timings in the BIOS. While these numbers are very good, it is still disappointing as we know this board still has a lot of potential left in it.
The performance, stability, and BIOS features of this board are well worth a price around $200 and a premium over the mainstream P965 boards considering the current market situation. Let's just hope that DFI can lower the price and raise the FSB overclocking abilities as they do have a winner on their hands if they accomplish this task. UPDATE - This board is now available for around $190 making it a highly recommended choice for those users who are not into extreme overclocking.
Basic Features
| DFI Infinity 975X/G | |
| Market Segment: | High-End/Performance |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo |
| Chipset: | Intel 975X + ICH7R |
| Thermal Design: | 6-phase power Passive Northbridge/Southbridge Cooling |
| Bus Speed Support: | 1066/800MHz |
| Bus Speeds: | 266 to 533 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Ratios: | Auto, 400, 533, 667, 800 |
| PCIe Speeds: | Auto, 100MHz~200MHz |
| PCI: | Fixed at 33 |
| SATA Clock: | PCIe Clock, Fixed at 100MHz |
| Dynamic Tuning: | Manual, Default, Easy Overclock CPU Turbo Add-On - +1MHz to +30MHz PCIe Turbo Add-On - +1MHz to +15MHz |
| CPU VID Offset: | Default, +12.5mV to +787.5mV in +12.5mV increments |
| CPU VTT: | 1.20V, 1.25V, 1.30V, 1.35V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-50x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked |
| DRAM Voltage: | 1.90V to 2.65V in .05V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control: | Auto, 9 Options |
| NB Voltage: | 1.60V to 1.75V in .05V increments |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 2 - PCIe X16 (X8 for Multi-GPU) 1 - PCIe X4 1 - PCIe X1 2 - PCI Slots 2.3 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - Intel ICH7R (RAID 0,1,1+0,5,JBOD) 1 SATA 3Gbps Ports - JMicron JMB360 (e-SATA) |
| Onboard IDE: | 1 Standard ATA133/100/66/33 Port (2 drives) Intel ICH7R |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 8 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel 4 Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by VIA VT6307 - 1 I/O Panel 1 Header |
| Onboard LAN: | Gigabit Ethernet Controller Realtek RTL8111B |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC882 HD-Audio 8-channel CODEC |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EATX 12V, 4-Pin 12V Molex |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x e-SATA 1 x LPT 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x RJ45 1 x IEEE-1394 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x S/PDIF (Optical + RCA) 8-Channel Audio I/O |
| BIOS Revision: | AWARD 0707 |
One of the more anticipated boards we looked forward to after our Computex 2006 visit was the DFI Infinity 975X/G motherboard. Of course, we understood this would be an Infinity series and as such would be lacking the normal bells and whistles along with the almost legendary overclocking ability of the LanParty series. However, knowing DFI's ability to extract performance out of chipsets in just about any price range we expected some great things with this board. While the board did not disappoint us we were let down a little with its overclocking ability (based on expectations), but more importantly we're disappointed with its current street price of $249.
We know the Intel 975X chipset is expensive and the current lack of 975X Core 2 Duo capable boards from suppliers like MSI, Foxconn, ECS, and Abit are helping to keep the prices high. We believe DFI had a golden opportunity to bring this board to market around the $200 price point and really generate some price/performance excitement. Do not get us wrong, we really like the board but think the pricing structure needs adjustment just like the overclocking ability we will discuss shortly.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
DFI's attention to detail is evident in the layout of the board and throughout the BIOS options and feature set. The board has the ability to run ATI CrossFire with dual X8 PCIe capability along with the fact that only one slot (PCI) is physically not available when installing a CrossFire solution. While DFI does not use a heat pipe solution to keep the MCH and ICH chipsets cool, we did not have any thermal issues with the board while overclocking or testing CrossFire. The BIOS options are not as extensive as the LanParty series, but they certainly provide more than enough choices for most performance or enthusiast users.
Basic Performance
The performance of the board was very good along with exceptional stability in all areas. In fact, with some additional BIOS tuning we are certain this board has the ability to hold a performance lead in most of the stock setting results. With this said, our issue or maybe our perception is that the board could have been much better in the overclocking area as we "only" reached a stable FSB setting of 383 with our X6700. Our X6800 with the multiplier dropped was only able to achieve a FSB of 385 before hitting the proverbial brick wall. Otherwise, we had no issues to report except that if you want to use RAID you need to lock SATA at 100MHz fixed or it will not work.
Overclocking
| DFI Infinity 975X/G Overclocking Testbed |
|
| Processor: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core, 2.67GHz, 4MB Unified Cache 1066FSB, 10x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.525V (default 1.2V) |
| Cooling: | Tuniq Tower 120 Air Cooling |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GameXStream 700W |
| Memory: | Corsair Twin2X2048-PC2-8500C5 (2x1GB) (Micron Memory Chips) |
| Hard Drive | Hitachi 250GB 7200RPM SATA2 16MB Cache |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio) |
383x10 (3-3-3-9) 3830MHz (+43%) |
While an overclock to 383FSB is certainly nothing to sneeze at, we were hoping for at least a 400+ FSB capability on this board. Some users have had success with taking this board over 400FSB with a 4:3 memory ratio, but it seems a majority of boards are ending up around the 375FSB range. Our board would not boot at anything higher than a 385FSB with the current BIOS. We could not exceed a 334FSB at a 1:1 ratio due to the memory strap timings in the BIOS. While these numbers are very good, it is still disappointing as we know this board still has a lot of potential left in it.
The performance, stability, and BIOS features of this board are well worth a price around $200 and a premium over the mainstream P965 boards considering the current market situation. Let's just hope that DFI can lower the price and raise the FSB overclocking abilities as they do have a winner on their hands if they accomplish this task. UPDATE - This board is now available for around $190 making it a highly recommended choice for those users who are not into extreme overclocking.
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Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
I am surprised I did not see this posted on a news site somewhere announcing Intel has a X6600. ;-) The line was corrected this morning to (X6800, E6700, E6600) although late last night my mind was probably thinking unlocked E6600 equals X6600 for some reason. Thanks for the notice! :)
drarant - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
In recent months the memory market has moved from a 1GB kit to a 2BG kit being the common memory configuration.2GB*
Excellent article, I'm assuming the OCing results were default voltages on the chipsets and/or the cpu?
drarant - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
page 11, 2nd to last sentence*Patsoe - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
To be honest, I would say it's quite different!
The storage controllers have been changed a lot... there is now a port-multiplier type of SiI chip that connects to one of the ICH7 ports, which provides driverless (!) RAID. Also, the previous board had a Marvell SATA/PATA controller instead of the JMicron controller.
For another difference: the new board is missing the PCIe 4x slot, too.
Anyway, thanks for the great overview! And it's amazing how fast after launch you got this up.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Thanks for your comment. We added information to the P5W-DH page with a little more info on the differences from the earlier board.nicolasb - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
...is what is the actual impact on system performance of different memory speeds and timings? Possibly you guys actually derive a direct erotic thrill simply from knowing that your memory timings are 4-3-3-9 ;-) but what the rest of us care about is whether any given timings actually provide a tangible improvement to running applications. If I spend an extra £200 on memory, am I going to get an extra 10fs in a certain game, or just an extra 1fps if I'm lucky? That's what I want to know.Conroe is a new chip and it is by no means obvious (to me, anyway) whether the speed/latency of the memory will have a greater or lesser impact on the performance of the system than is the case for Netburst or A64 chips.
So, how about re-running some of your benchmarks on one particular board and producing results for different memory speeds and latencies?
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
The original plan was to publish a Conroe memory article prior to this huge motherboard and memory roundup. The move forward of the Conroe launch by two weeks shifted our schedule quite a bit, as we discussed in the Buying Guide. we have found the timings DDR2 memory can achieve give a rough idea of the performance hierarchy on Conroe. That is 1067 at 4-4-4 is a bit faster than 800 at 3-3-3 is faster than 667 3-2-3. 667 is generally faster than nything slower regardless of timings.With 13 DDR2 kits it was impossible to do proper and complete performance testing on all the memory on Conroe and still deliver an article when you want to read it. There will definitely be followup reviews of memory on Conroe anwsering your questions in detail. We knew there would be complaints from some, but we also hoped you could understnad the roundup is posting 4 days after an early Conroe launch - and you can't even buy Core 2 Duo until 7/27 or later.
We wanted to provide solid info as soon as possible for those planning a Conroe purchase. We thought our finding that almost any Elpida value DDR2 will do DDR2-800 4-3-3 at about 2.2v was big news you would want to know, we will fill in the rest of the performance data as soon as we can.
As it is the roundup is over 15,000 words and one of the largest articles ever published at AT - in word length - and we really tried to be brief in each review. We really like giving our readers exactly what they want, but sometimes the realities of time and volume shift our priorities.
Tanclearas - Thursday, July 20, 2006 - link
Although I can understand what you're saying, maybe the following should not have been included in the introductory page.I guess the only surprise was that the comparison wasn't there. :P
Honestly, I tried to jump right to that section only to find rather useless comparisons of ridiculously expensive memory (which I won't buy) and "value" (read cheap) memory (which I won't buy). Also, can you really tell me that it was much of a surprise that the expensive memory all topped out at roughly the same speed (~1100, 5-5/4-5-15)? Nor am I particularly surprised the value memory could overclock reasonably well, but how about tests of the memory that I think most of your readers are likely to buy? I've been looking at DDR2, and you can get memory rated at DDR2-800 for a little more than the DDR2-667/533 variety, and still a lot less than the DDR2-1000 modules.
I know that you were pressed for time, especially with the launch being pushed forward. I just think (and it is only an opinion) that other tests should have been given priority over the ones you've completed.
kmmatney - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
Also, what motherboard was used for the DDR tests? Often, value RAM is paired with a "value" motherboard. Value RAM may not look so well when paired with a value motherboard. I'm wondering how cheap we can go for reasonable peformance :)Gary Key - Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - link
We stated at the end of page 18 that we will be publishing performance results of the value memory roundup shortly. The amount of time required to test these seven modules at four different settings in several different applications was incredible and warrants a separate article update.