DFI "Infinity" motherboards

[Zap]

Hello all, anyone with experience on the latest DFI "Infinity" branded boards? I've read that they are almost like the LANPARTY series, minus the goofy colors and extras such as rounded cabling and carrying strap, but including the build quality and overclocking features. They seem to sell for 10-20% less than the LANPARTY series, which would make for a nice, budget overclocker (for snobs who refuse to use Chaintech/Epox boards ).

Anyone have experience with these lastest boards, specifically ones for s754/s939?

 

[rise]

i did a quick search on dfi.street the other day but i kinda have my mind set on the sapphires when they come out.

from what rgone said in one thread its the same as the dagf but the early model was called "dagf". which is enough for me to conclude i'd get the ultra-d if i get another dfi nf4.

 

[Zap]

Looking into it a bit more, here's a comparison between the low end Nforce4 chipset (non-ultra/SLI) socket 939 Infinity and LANPARTY boards:

Different PCB layout. Seems like ALL of the LANPARTY series boards come with pseudo-SLI slots plus heatsinks on power stuff.

The price difference is $33. (advantage Infinity)

The cheaper Infinity board has Firewire and coaxial S/PDIF, LANPARTY does not. (advantage Infinity)

LANPARTY has ALC850 chipset audio with that audio "module," Infinity has ALC650. (advantage LANPARTY)

Infinity has one PCI-E 16x, two PCI-E 1x and three PCI slots. LANPARTY has two (one pseudo) PCI-E 16x, one PCI-e 1x and two PCI slots. (advantage Infinity)

For overclockability, this is from a user review of the Infinity:

This board doesn?t have all the multitudes of BIOS options that the DFI Lanparty boards have but it still has quite a few, epscially compared to the other nF4 boards in this price range.

DDR voltage 2.5v-3.2v, memory dividers and frequency controls 200mhz-450mhz. DFI also does a good job with BIOS updates. The board has been very stable, and was easy to setup and get going. And there?s plenty to tinker with for fine tuning and overclocking for all but the hardcore enthusiasts.

Looks like no 4v VDIMM. No mention of HTT dividers or VCORE yet. Still, VDIMM of 3.2v sounds pretty good compared to other brands.

 

[rise]

i may get the ultra infinity tonite. looks to be worth a shot after reading this-

http://forum.overclockersonline.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=63689&

 

[Zap]

Looks good. Verification that the Infinity series has decent OC options and I see the reviewer got 300MHz HTT. I guess DFI was tired of losing sales to Epox/Chaintech for the "budget overclocker" folk.

 

[rise]

mine will be here friday so i'll be installing it over the weekend and let you know if you're still undecided.

depending on how important sound is to you, you may or may not find this useful.
http://www.futurelooks.com//?m=show&id=184&page=8

frankly i'm kinda at a loss as to how it could perform so poorly in 3d sound.

 

[Fozzik]

I read somewhere that the Ultra-Infinity is not as wide as a normal ATX mobo, and that this caused some of the slots and sockets to be crammed together a little bit tight, especially near the CPU socket. I'll be interested to hear your impressions of it...I've been eyeing it for a couple weeks myself.

The tall capacitors are pretty close to the CPU retention mechanism, and there's an inductor coil right up against the 24 pin power connector. (Just as examples)

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Fozzik
I read somewhere that the Ultra-Infinity is not as wide as a normal ATX mobo, and that this caused some of the slots and sockets to be crammed together a little bit tight, especially near the CPU socket. I'll be interested to hear your impressions of it...I've been eyeing it for a couple weeks myself.

The tall capacitors are pretty close to the CPU retention mechanism, and there's an inductor coil right up against the 24 pin power connector. (Just as examples)

I have read many reviews on this board and NONE of what you syaye has come up on any of the reviews?

You have a particular review that comes to mind?

Please share it with us.

They say talk without substance or proof is just heresay and enuendo!

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Fozzik
I read somewhere that the Ultra-Infinity is not as wide as a normal ATX mobo, and that this caused some of the slots and sockets to be crammed together a little bit tight, especially near the CPU socket. I'll be interested to hear your impressions of it...I've been eyeing it for a couple weeks myself.

The tall capacitors are pretty close to the CPU retention mechanism, and there's an inductor coil right up against the 24 pin power connector. (Just as examples)

I have read many reviews on this board and NONE of what you syaye has come up on any of the reviews?

You have a particular review that comes to mind?

Please share it with us.

They say talk without substance or proof is just heresay and enuendo!

yeah, heres one.

the board is more narrow than normal. about an inch i'd guestimate. kinda strange. i didn't find any problems with the size so much as, lets see-

- the chipset fan is the worst. if you thought the ultra-d's was bad ( i found it acceptable), this thing is rotten to the core. loud and whiney. iirc this can't be sped down. i dunno, gotta look more.

- bios are odd but thats coming from an ultra-d and sli-dr. its odd the bios defaults the vcore to 1.5v on a venice though.

- 2 borked installs. had 0 with 4 sli-dr and ultra-d's. memory passed an hour of memtest after i bumped the volts up .2v to compensate for some undervolting. so its not the ram. and of course i'm installing at stock so i dunno.

i'll have more time to play with it on sunday but i'm wishing i had spent the extra $20 and got another ultra-d.

 

[Fozzik]

I have read many reviews on this board and NONE of what you syaye has come up on any of the reviews?

You have a particular review that comes to mind?

Please share it with us.

They say talk without substance or proof is just heresay and enuendo!

If you look at a picture of the motherboard, the things I mentioned are fairly obvious.

yeah, heres one.

the board is more narrow than normal. about an inch i'd guestimate.

Yep.

DFI nF4 Ultra Infinity - 12.0" x 8.7"
Most of the other Nforce 4 Ultra boards (full ATX) - 12.0" x 9.6"

Thanks for the review, I guess I'll remove this one from my short list. =)

 

[Anubis]

i have the NF4 Ultra Infinity and yes it is narrow, and its really odd, makes it REALLY easy to snap the mobo when putting in IDE and SATA cables as there are no screws on the edges, aside from that it seems fine, il gonna attempt some OCing on it in a bit, just updated it to teh latest bios,

im a total a64 ocing noob so we shall see how it goes

 

[Novercalis]

any update on this MOBO?

 

[biostud]

After a BIOS update it runs my X2 3800+ stable @ 2650Mhz 1.5V

The manual is the least informative I've ever seen, only buy this board if you know how to assemble and troubleshoot a computer.

 

[tomt4535]

I just bought one of the Infinity NF4 Ultra boards over the weekend, it should arrive in a few days. Im going to put my X2 3800+ in there, Ill let you guys know how it works out when I get it.

 

[Zap]

There's been a few web site reviews of the Infinity series boards lately. So far so good. One site even said that DFI told them the Infinity should clock as high as the LANPARTY.

 

[tomt4535]

I got my Infninty NF4 Ultra in the other day. Im running a watercooled X2 3800+. It posted and got into windows at 2.75Ghz 1.475v, but just after I took a screen shot in CPU-Z, it rebooted. 2.7ghz, 1.5v is pretty stable for me. This is probably the best motherboard Ive ever had.

EDIT: Just tried to flash the bios on my board, and I killed it. Still a good board, but be careful when flashing the bios. DFI tech support was awesome and within minuties I had a new bios chip on its way out to me.

 

[mamisano]

Good to hear, just ordered an Infinity NF4 Ultra and Opteron 165 from NewEgg, should be here tomorrow

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: mamisano
Good to hear, just ordered an Infinity NF4 Ultra and Opteron 165 from NewEgg, should be here tomorrow

How'd this combo go? I'm about to order this exact same thing... it was either this, or the SLI-DR... i need 3 PCI slots, and i'll rather get the Infinity if it OCs well.

 

[robertk2012]

Youll like it

 

[Diasper]

The DFI mATX RS482 board will be one to watch.

It could be the board that finally brings a solid enthusiast board to the mATX segment.

 

[Avalon]

I bought this board for a friend because there was a one day special on ZZF for $79.99 for it. I had heard it was like the Ultra-D, except without the UV colors, rounded cables, mosfet heatsinks, etc.

The system we built for him was as follows:

AMD X2 3800+
DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity s939
2x1GB G.Skill 2.5-3-3-7 PC3200
eVGA 7800GT OC PCI-express
Enermax 460w 24pin PSU 33A/12v rail
NEC 3550A black dual layer burner
Maxtor 300GB ATA133 7200RPM 8MB HDD
Standard black ATX case

Put everything together, and noticed right away that the board seemed smaller than a regular ATX, had no heatsinks on the mosfets, and had a very dinky HSF for the chipset. Install went smoothly, and Windows installation went smoothly.

Installed all the latest Windows fixes, chipset drivers, Nvidia drivers, sound drivers, USB drivers, AMD dual core driver, etc. Here are a few things I noticed:

1) The audio does not work.
2) Using a USB device causes the system to lock up
3) Going past 215HTT results in no boot, have to clear CMOS
4) System runs dual instances of Prime95 + RTHDRIBL for 6 hours no issue at stock
5) Throwing the X2 3800+ into my Ultra-D results in a 2.6ghz overclock

My friend went out and bought an Audigy 4 while I was gone, so I guess that sort of solves the sound problem. However, I have to say I'm very disappointed in this board. I'm thinking I should have gone with Epox, or maybe that Biostar Tforce 6100 mATX board. One of my other friends just recently got the Biostar and he loves it. No issues there. Better yet, I should have probably just gotten an Ultra-D.

 

[6shiw1]

I've read that the mobo fan is very noisy, and that the board itself runs very hot normally, so if you lower the rpm you'd fry your board. The fan/heatsink is also very close to the pci-e socket. Is this a big problem?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

I own an Infinity SLI. Works perfectly. The chipset bios is kinda generic, and the sound is not the Karajan module (I used X-FI anyway). Got great overclocks. OCed a 3500+ to 2.7 Ghz.

It's no the prettiest board out there but it has SLI (which I also used) and has DFIs OCing capabilities @ a low price. Is it worth it? Maybe. If you REALLY need to cut costs. I'd go straight to a A8R32, though ;-)