Motherboard for new build

Shamikebab · 1 May 2006 at 17:15

Im planning a new build in the summer, for the motherboard i was considering the following:

DFI Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D

The thing is, I won't be using dual graphics at any point in the future. So what justifies spending the extra 50 quid on the expert? Are there any other differences between the boards apart from SLI support?

Thanks in advance

Mekrel · 1 May 2006 at 17:48

The boards layout is different in terms of where the dimm slots and CPU socket is positioned.

Another difference is the DR has 8 Sata ports (4 nvidia chipset, 4 Si1334)

The expert has also got better DRAM tweaking apparently.

Shamikebab · 1 May 2006 at 17:55

Would you recommend spending the extra money? my planned spec is:

Athlon 64 X2 3800
2 gig ram (maybe OCZ Gold)
Hitachi Deskstar 250Gb Hard Drive
ATI Radeon 1900 XTX

I've never tried overclocking but i'd like to with this build.

Mekrel · 1 May 2006 at 20:16

Well, eliminate the boards this way:

Do you need the extra 4 SATA ports? The Silicon image controller is only SATA and not SATAII

If not then you will not need the DR version of the DFI boards.

Oh also the expert has a bios controlled SLI switch instead of physical jumpers on the motherboard.

A good point I have just thought of, is I have not seen a review which compares the Expert against the normal SLI-DR to see if you can actually push your chip further.

As for DRAM tweakability being better on the Expert, I've always found this as a less important feature due to the A64 memory controllers ability of not losing performance with memory deviders.

I suppose you could say if you want the best out of the two posted you would buy the Expert, but any gains I would say are probably only noticable in synthetic benchmarks, and is the added expenditure worth that for you? Being as this is your rig and no one elses.

Either boards should not be the limiting factor in overclocking, they will both let your chip reach its maximum overclock.

Shamikebab · 1 May 2006 at 20:35

Thanks for the help mate, i think i'll go for the Ultra-D then