DFI NF4 SLI-DR Expert – Can the best get better?
by Randi Sica on November 25, 2005 12:05 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The new revision DFI LP UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert has indeed established itself to be a worthy successor to the original Ultra-D, SLI-D and SLI-DR boards. Refinements to the board in components, PCB redesign and layout, the upgrade to 4-phase power for the CPU section, and refinement of the memory power section have taken a formerly stable platform and made it into possibly the most stable overclocking platform in the industry. Benefits reaped from the 4-phase CPU power section and vDIMM power sections included a much cooler running board to go along with its increased stability. My previous experience with the SLI-D during overclocking endeavors, while using 1.6V+ to the CPU and particularly using its 5V jumper to increase the range of vDIMM, found that you could burn your fingers on any of MOSFET heat sinks, which also necessitated additional cooling to maintain stability. The Expert stays cool to the touch, even at extreme overclocks.
The updated board maintains all the same features and controllers as the previous generation, including dual Gigabit LAN controlled by Vitesse and Marvel controllers, Karajan 8 channel audio with S/PDIF, and the additional Sil3114 Sata1 controller. The continued use of the Silicon Image SIL 3114 SATA controller is a disappointment With the SIL 3132 available, it only made sense to upgrade to SATAII at the time of this revision, giving prospective buyers an option of 8 SATAII channels with multiple SATAII RAID configurations.
One more point to be made is that this board possibly should have included the next generation dual x16 SLI chipset. Though there may not be a major windfall in 3D performance going from x8 x8 to x16 x16, the time could have been now to put the “Total” package out there as the complete motherboard to beat.
Those points aside, the SLI-DR Expert scored a coup de grace in this reviewer’s opinion as a premier overclocker’s board. It’s hard to argue with overclocking success, and when you couple it with the utmost in stability, you have just set the standard higher in this class.
Should you replace your original generation DFI NF4 Ultra-D, SLI-D or SLI-DR with this board? It’s not a necessity, in my opinion, unless you are living on the extreme edge and won’t settle for less.
If you are an enthusiast looking to upgrade from your current setup, this is the board that will take you to places that you’ve never been before.
The new revision DFI LP UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert has indeed established itself to be a worthy successor to the original Ultra-D, SLI-D and SLI-DR boards. Refinements to the board in components, PCB redesign and layout, the upgrade to 4-phase power for the CPU section, and refinement of the memory power section have taken a formerly stable platform and made it into possibly the most stable overclocking platform in the industry. Benefits reaped from the 4-phase CPU power section and vDIMM power sections included a much cooler running board to go along with its increased stability. My previous experience with the SLI-D during overclocking endeavors, while using 1.6V+ to the CPU and particularly using its 5V jumper to increase the range of vDIMM, found that you could burn your fingers on any of MOSFET heat sinks, which also necessitated additional cooling to maintain stability. The Expert stays cool to the touch, even at extreme overclocks.
The updated board maintains all the same features and controllers as the previous generation, including dual Gigabit LAN controlled by Vitesse and Marvel controllers, Karajan 8 channel audio with S/PDIF, and the additional Sil3114 Sata1 controller. The continued use of the Silicon Image SIL 3114 SATA controller is a disappointment With the SIL 3132 available, it only made sense to upgrade to SATAII at the time of this revision, giving prospective buyers an option of 8 SATAII channels with multiple SATAII RAID configurations.
One more point to be made is that this board possibly should have included the next generation dual x16 SLI chipset. Though there may not be a major windfall in 3D performance going from x8 x8 to x16 x16, the time could have been now to put the “Total” package out there as the complete motherboard to beat.
Those points aside, the SLI-DR Expert scored a coup de grace in this reviewer’s opinion as a premier overclocker’s board. It’s hard to argue with overclocking success, and when you couple it with the utmost in stability, you have just set the standard higher in this class.
Should you replace your original generation DFI NF4 Ultra-D, SLI-D or SLI-DR with this board? It’s not a necessity, in my opinion, unless you are living on the extreme edge and won’t settle for less.
If you are an enthusiast looking to upgrade from your current setup, this is the board that will take you to places that you’ve never been before.
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Hardass1 - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
Another well done review Sir.Hardass.
lopri - Saturday, November 26, 2005 - link
If you had to pick one, which one would you pick? A8N32-SLI or Expert? Please don't tell me "Both are good", "They're different animals" or anything in that sense. Most of us have to pick ONE and that exact question is what we want to know. I'd venture to say what matters are following two:1. Overclockability
2. Stability
Fetures, layouts, etc... yeah.. they are all good and nice, but what really matters are whether the overclock is stable. And that's what brought DFI here today. Could you comment on it? If you had a choice to pick JUST ONE, which one would you pick?
Great review anyway. I'm actually happy that AT is becoming more enthusiast-friendly and looking forward to the next review. (Possibly Opteron Overclocking review?)
Thanks.
lop
RSica - Sunday, November 27, 2005 - link
Hi Lop:)I'll be honest in telling you I have not had my hands on the Asus board to know it's full overclocking abilities, so I really can't give you an opinion on which board to choose. Wesley could give you full insight on that one.
I go way back in the overclocking business, having hooked up with my best buds OPPAINTER and DDTUNG back in the day. At that time we were modding and overclocking each generation of Abit AMD based boards starting with the KG7 and culminating with the NF7-S, which we were pre-production testing prior to it's retail release. I've also had a play with Epox, Gigabyte, and the famous Shuttle A64 board.When I recieved the original SLI-D back in January it was an overclockers dream come true.All the voltage and overclocking/memory options and it overclocked way easy compared to the norm.(Thank you Oskar Wu:))
The Expert is more of the same but much better. I am a bit biased on a personal level about the board, and if you had just asked about it, I'd have given a thumbs up.
Thanks for your comments !
Randi
Scrith - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Does this use the same chipset as the A8N32-SLI? If not, why not, and where are the competitors for that board?Heckler 5th - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
how come the box the reviewer received already has that "anandtech gold medal" sticker on there? hmmm, kinda fishy... LOLcbkia - Saturday, November 26, 2005 - link
Under the extreme oc page, the pic showing the HTT @ 400MHz and RAM @ 300MHZ 2.5-3-3-8 but the sisoft is only 6674 MB/s? 300MHz should be displaying something near 8GB/sRSica - Sunday, November 27, 2005 - link
That would be true if not running at 2400Mhz.All HTT and Memory overclocking tests were done at a reduced multiplier. Each multiplier also has an effect on system bandwidth in the way the A64 responds to them.If I had chosen to run 7 and a total CPU Mhz of 2800, you would have most likely seen the 8000mb/s figure.In contrast, the stock 4000+ at 12x200Mhz with tight timings will average 5600-5700mb/s.
Another consideration is that with the bios used which made it more ram overclocking friendly, that there was possibly a relaxation of some of the bios register settings, which can also reduce bandwidth a bit in the name of pushing the memory higher in Mhz.
Thanks for your comments !
Randi
RobFDB - Saturday, November 26, 2005 - link
What i'm really interested in is if this board suffers from the same problem as my Ultra-D with PC4000 VX memory (the infamous cold boot issue)?I don't really want to pick this board up and have it suffer from the same problem. Not that i've tried my VX with the latest beta bios, but that's besides the point.
RobFDB - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Can anyone confirm or deny that the cold boot issue exists with this board?yacoub - Saturday, November 26, 2005 - link
If it had passive cooling like the A8N32-SLI I'd be more interested.