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DFI LANParty NFII ULTRA B

The NFII ULTRA B is a new revision of an old DFI favorite. The Lan Party series has a lot of extras to offer, but what about the performance and stability?

Introduction

DFI has always been well known among the OEM and system builder crowd for their quality solutions. With the release of their LANParty line of motherboards, DFI began their assault on the enthusiast crowd. Their blitzkrieg has paid off, since their LANParty boards are among the top contenders in the overclocking world.

The LANParty NFII ULTRA B is the latest addition to DFI’s enthusiast friendly LANParty line, sporting the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. The NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset supports all AMD socket 462 based processors including their performance line of 400 MHz FSB processors. The chipset also offers full support for PC3200 DDR memory running in Dual Channel mode. Like most current motherboards on the market, the NFII ULTRA B is a feature complete solution, requiring only CPU, DRAM modules, video card, and drives for a working system. The following components are integrated in to the board itself: 2 ATA 133 IDE ports; 4 SATA-150 ports with built-in RAID0, RAID1, and RAID0+1 support through the Silicon Image controller; integrated NVIDIA 10/100 Ethernet controller; integrated Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller; 6 total USB 2.0 capable ports(4 in rear panel, and 1 onboard header supporting 2 ports); 3 IEEEE 1394 capable ports (3 onboard headers); 6 channel audio featuring NVIDIA’s SoundStorm technology and S/PDIF input / output ports; bank of 4 diagnostic status LEDs; and the standard serial, parallel and PS/2 ports.

Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Mainboard Specification List:

Packaging

The NFII ULTRA B comes in the biggest motherboard box I have seen to date. The pictures really don’t do just to the sheer size of the box. The outside of the box is adorned with an animated picture of a LAN Party. Once you open the box, it becomes very apparent why the box itself is huge. DFI includes everything but the kitchen sink with this motherboard. There are a total of 5 boxes contained within the main box labeled Motherboard, FrontX, Accessory Kit, Round Cables, and PC Transport.

The Accessory Kit box contains the regular assortment of cables and such, including: 2 SATA 150 cables, 1 dual ended SATA power plug, the rear panel shield, and a bracket containing 2 IEEE 1394 ports. The UV reactive ATA-133 IDE and floppy cables are located within the Round Cables box. A plethora of documentation, CDs, and the motherboard itself are located with the Motherboard box. Inside the box labeled FrontX, there is a componentized drive bay kit that supports front audio ports, USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 ports, as well as a 4 LED Diagnostic display panel. Even more interesting than the FrontX panel are the contents of the PC Transport box. DFI includes a LAN bag kit to make it easier in transporting your mid tower case to your next LAN event. I was very impressed with all the included items, to say the least.

Board Layout

For such a feature rich board, the NFII ULTRA B has an amazing board layout. There are no real tight areas on the board, with most jumpers, headers and connectors well placed and out of the other's way. Notice that various components on the board were designed out of a UV reactive green plastic material. The board itself is a revision A board. Note that DFI chose to use capacitors manufactured by the following companies: Teapo Electronics (Taiwan), United Chemi-Con (USA, Japan), and Taiwan Ostor Corporation (Taiwan). The capacitors marked KZG are manufactured by United Chemi-Con, while those marked RLG are manufactured by Taiwan Ostor.

While the CPU socket area itself is clear of obstructions on all sides, its location could cause a bit of grief. If a larger CPU HSF unit is used on the board, the case fan usually located in the case above the rear panel may get in the way of the CPU HSF unit. That aside, you should have no space problems on the board with CPU HSF or waterblock mounting. DFI also chose to include the mounting holes surrounding the CPU, for an even more secure HSF mounting choice. Directly below the CPU socket is the ATX power connector and the BIOS monitored CPU_FAN header. Both the ATX power connector and the CPU_FAN header are in close proximity, but I found no problems using either connector with the other engaged. To the left of the ATX power connector is the Northbridge chipset. The chipset itself is passively cooled by a massive aluminum heatsink. While this solution is adequate while running at stock speeds, we noticed the heatsink to get rather hot during even minimal overclocking situations. It would not be a bad idea at all to add an active cooling solution to this. Note that the chipset heatsink uses 2 push pins that mount through the board, requiring access to the back side of the board in order to remove the unit. Just above the Northbridge is the CPU FSB select jumper, with the ATX12V connector above the jumper and to its left. The CPU FSB jumper can be used to force the board in to a failsafe mode, where the CPU FSB is statically set to 100 MHz.

The NFII ULTRA B was designed to support a total of 3 DIMM slots, with support for PC3200 DIMMs occupying all slots concurrently. The slots themselves are grouped in two sets, an upper set of 2 and a lower set of 1. While the sets themselves are not color coded, the grouping eases any confusion with enabling Dual Channel memory mode. Furthermore, the slots are positioned so that even the largest AGP card will not interfere with memory insertion or removal. In testing, the board was found to be most stable with DIMMs populating slots 2 and 3 while in Dual Channel mode. Just above the lower DIMM slot and towards its right edge is the DRAM Power LED. This LED illuminates when the board is powered on. Just below the lower DIMM slot are the board’s 2 ATA-133 IDE ports.

The NVIDIA MCP-T Southbridge chipset is located just below PCI slots 1 and 2. Notice that the Southbridge comes standard with a squat aluminum heatsink. While not required according to specifications, the Southbridge can get rather toasty during normal board operation and any cooling helps. Below the Southbridge and along the edge of the board is the floppy connector. The floppy connector itself has been rotated 90 degrees so that the connector is parallel to the plane of the board. This connector orientation can aid in the routing and hiding of the cable itself. To the left of the floppy connector are the BIOS chip, and the board’s 4 SATA 150 ports. The Silicon Image SATA controller chip is located just above the 4 SATA ports. The front panel connector is located in the lower left corner of the board, with built in reset and power buttons and an onboard speaker just above it. The built-in power and reset buttons are definitely a nice to have, especially when you run the board outside of a case. The CMOS battery is located just below PCI slots 3 and 4, with the on board diagnostic LEDs and front panel header directly to its left. The diagnostic LEDs are useful in troubleshooting BIOS related system boot up issues. The manual contains a full documentation on decoding the LED states. Just below the diagnostic LED front panel header is the USB 2.0 header.

The board comes standard with 1 AGP slot and 5 PCI slots. Notice that DFI designed the board with extra room between the AGP slot and PCI slot 1, in order to accommodate dual slot video card cooling solutions. Between PCI slot 5 and the board’s edge are two BIOS monitored fan headers, with the Standby Power LED located in between the two fan headers. The LED illuminates when there is an active power source connected to the board. The front panel audio connector is located just above and to the left of PCI slot 5. Note that the rear panel audio ports will not function unless pins 5/6 and 9/10 on the front panel audio header are jumpered as shown. The CD_IN and AUX_IN connectors are located above and between PCI slots 4 and 5, while the S/PDIF header is located to the right of both connectors. The 3 onboard IEEE 1394 headers are located just to the right of PCI slot 1, in between it and the AGP slot.

The NFII ULTRA B’s rear panel comes standard with the following connections: PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports; 1 parallel port; 1 serial port; 4 USB 2.0 ports; an NVIDIA 10/100 LAN Ethernet port; a Realtek Gigabit LAN Ethernet port; 5 audio ports; and S/PDIF input and output ports.