"Official" DFI nF4 Ultra-D / SLI-DR Thread

Page 17 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

TJmoney

Member
Nov 22, 2004
51
0
0
Originally posted by: ^Sniper^
So this board has problems with Corsair Value Select PC3200? Could it be a BIOS problem that can be fixed later? I currently have 1gb of the value select and I hate to buy new memory when I buy a DFI.



I'm wondering if one of the "auto" settings that I don't know what they are defaults to a too aggressive value. I'l going to look into this and set some conservative settings to see if I can get to run a lower voltage. My value select is really confusing me because is actually won't run at 3-4-4-8, but will run at 2.5-3-3-8, which makes no sense at all. Somthing else is going on.
 

Sniper82

Lifer
Feb 6, 2000
16,517
0
76
Originally posted by: TJmoney
Originally posted by: ^Sniper^
So this board has problems with Corsair Value Select PC3200? Could it be a BIOS problem that can be fixed later? I currently have 1gb of the value select and I hate to buy new memory when I buy a DFI.



I'm wondering if one of the "auto" settings that I don't know what they are defaults to a too aggressive value. I'l going to look into this and set some conservative settings to see if I can get to run a lower voltage. My value select is really confusing me because is actually won't run at 3-4-4-8, but will run at 2.5-3-3-8, which makes no sense at all. Somthing else is going on.


Report back if you find anything out. Sounds to me like its a BIOS issue somewhere. Don't know though.
 

unpossible

Member
Jan 18, 2005
26
0
0
What temperatures are you guys getting with this board? I just want to make sure mine are well within reason.

My Athlon 64 3200+ is idle @ 26C, which seems pretty good, but my System temp (as displayed by nTune) is at 39C. That seems high.
 

TJmoney

Member
Nov 22, 2004
51
0
0
Originally posted by: unpossible
What temperatures are you guys getting with this board? I just want to make sure mine are well within reason.

My Athlon 64 3200+ is idle @ 26C, which seems pretty good, but my System temp (as displayed by nTune) is at 39C. That seems high.

If system temp means chipset, thats pretty good. Mine stays around 40-45 if there is load or not.
 

macachia

Junior Member
Jan 9, 2005
24
0
0
before i order the dfi, do the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR and DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D differ by the extra thingies (sleeving kit, bag, fromtx, etc) and the 4 extra sata ports?

do they share bios?

thanks
 

fr333zin

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2005
6
0
0
Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
Originally posted by: fr333zin
Originally posted by: fr333zin

Please follow this link to see the pics Text "Zalman CNPS7700Cu does fit, but 2 x Leadtek 6800GT won't"

Thats pretty strange that won't fit, but nice to know. Thanks for the pics.

And BTW .... i'll take either of those cards off your hands if you want :D.

Edit: im not sure about this ... but it looks like if you removed the plastic thing from the back of the second card both leadtek's would fit.

The thot plickens, I received this today from Leadtek:

Dear Customer,

We will redesign the heatsink in the Q'2 but this product has passed the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard that you can think about it.

Thanks!
Best regards,
Marketing Department, Leadtek Research Inc.

E-Mail: service <mailto:service@leadtek.com.tw> @leadtek.com.tw
<http://www.leadtek.com.tw/> < ftp://ftp.winfast.com.tw/>

TEL: +886 (0)2 8226 5800
FAX: +886 (0)2 8226 5801
18F, 166, Chien Yi Road, Chung Ho City,
Taipei County, Taiwan (235), R. O. C.

Certified under ISO-9001. We make Dreams a Reality !!! J

Thanks for the offer, CheesePoofs - but I'm not ready to give up trying yet:cool:

Looks like all of the plastic shroud would have to be removed from first card as well but leaving only 2mm for airflow to the first card's fan. I have the VF700s on order so I'll update on progress with both ideas, with temps if I can get them.
 

DaFOBulous1

Diamond Member
Sep 5, 2004
4,065
0
71
I know this is a newbie question...I apologize but are the batches currently from Monarch and ChiefValue still have the modable Ultra-D boards? Also, what is the is the differences between the two except for the SLI thing. I dunno, I was JUST going to get a 2800+ Sempron with AMD mobo for $189.99 at Fry's. Next thing I know, I might spend $425 on an AMD 3500+ with Ultra-D board.

-_-
 

TJmoney

Member
Nov 22, 2004
51
0
0
This is preliminary as I haven't tested much yet, but I'm posting this with my memory (corsair value select) at 2.6V now, which it woulden't even boot at before. With default settings I needed 2.8 to run stable. I changed the Max async latency setting to 8ns. I saw in a post at dfistreet that it should be set to 6 normally, 7 if overclocking, and I decided to be a little more conservative. Also I manually set my cpu mult to 10X, and TRAS to 8, fsb to 200. I'v been prime95ing for around 10 mins now, so its definately not completely unstable. Looks like I got my memory problems partially under control.
 

TJmoney

Member
Nov 22, 2004
51
0
0
I'v now been priming for a few minutes with ram at 2.5V (software reporting a slight undervolting), cpu mult to auto tras 8, Max Async Latency at 7 and fsb200. It looks like that max async setting is the key to getting memory to work at a reasonable voltage. It may not be completely stable, since its barely been tested, but before it would not boot with anything less than 2.7V. Memory bandwidth doesn't appear to have suffered either from that setting. Woot!
 

mi1stormilst

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2001
1,640
0
76
So this NOTICE: UPDATE 2/05/2005: nVidia has acted to prevent, or at least make it more difficult, to mod the Ultra board to SLI. First, DFI has advised us, and posted on their website, that they will NOT sell the SLI bridge to buyers of the Ultra board. Second, nVidia has advised us that future shipments of the Ultra chipset have been modified so that the mod to SLI will no longer be possible. An additional side effect of this second action is that the "Dual Video" mode, which performs at about 90% of SLI performance levels, will only work with nVidia SLI drivers 66.75 or earlier. If you do a quick check of web driver postings you will see it is now very difficult to find 66.75 drivers. With a chipset modded to SLI the "Dual Video" mode worked through 70.xx versions of the nVidia driver. nVidia also made it clear they will continue to make driver changes to prevent functioning of any "non-standard" (8X/8X) operation of their SLI driver. This also throws into question whether the VIA "dual graphics" mode on the 894 Pro chipset will ever work with nVidia graphics cards. If you are interested in the current UT Ultra-D we suggest you buy one now if you can find it. Future versions of the UT Ultra-D will not have the same capabilities as a result of these actions.

Didn't piss anyone off from buying the cheaper version?
 

Vedder323

Member
Nov 1, 2004
136
0
0
Originally posted by: macachia
before i order the dfi, do the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR and DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D differ by the extra thingies (sleeving kit, bag, fromtx, etc) and the 4 extra sata ports?

do they share bios?

thanks


Are they in stock anywhere that ships US???
 

Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
12,145
0
76
Originally posted by: fr333zin
Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
Originally posted by: fr333zin
Originally posted by: fr333zin

Please follow this link to see the pics Text "Zalman CNPS7700Cu does fit, but 2 x Leadtek 6800GT won't"

Thats pretty strange that won't fit, but nice to know. Thanks for the pics.

And BTW .... i'll take either of those cards off your hands if you want :D.

Edit: im not sure about this ... but it looks like if you removed the plastic thing from the back of the second card both leadtek's would fit.

Thanks!!!

The thot plickens, I received this today from Leadtek:

Dear Customer,

We will redesign the heatsink in the Q'2 but this product has passed the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard that you can think about it.

Thanks!
Best regards,
Marketing Department, Leadtek Research Inc.

E-Mail: service <mailto:service@leadtek.com.tw> @leadtek.com.tw
<http://www.leadtek.com.tw/> < <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="ftp://ftp.winfast.com.tw/>">ftp://ftp.winfast.com.tw/></a>

TEL: +886 (0)2 8226 5800
FAX: +886 (0)2 8226 5801
18F, 166, Chien Yi Road, Chung Ho City,
Taipei County, Taiwan (235), R. O. C.

Certified under ISO-9001. We make Dreams a Reality !!! J

Thanks for the offer, CheesePoofs - but I'm not ready to give up trying yet:cool:

Looks like all of the plastic shroud would have to be removed from first card as well but leaving only 2mm for airflow to the first card's fan. I have the VF700s on order so I'll update on progress with both ideas, with temps if I can get them.
 

Mr. Lennon

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2004
3,492
1
81
Originally posted by: AthlonAlien
MY DFI ULTRA-D ARRIVED!!! :)

I ordered it from NewEgg on Thursday and my invoice said it would arrive on Tuesday. I was kind of hoping it would come a day early (Monday), because with NewEgg it usually does. TO MY SURPRISE, it came on SATURDAY!!! WOW!!! 2 days total!!! It arrived in MINT condition. No smashed boxes, bent corners, etc. Everything was VERY well packaged. It is revision A02. Some people were complaining about the chipset fan, "wobbling". I pressed up and down and side to side on it... and it doesn't hardly budge. Needless to say, I am very pleased with NewEgg and DFI. Now if my X850XT PE would get off back order :)

-LaTeR


I just received mine today from newegg. It didnt come with the SLI bridge connector though :( . Did yours come with one?
 

Tripp17

Member
Jan 24, 2005
90
0
0
Your not supposed to get a SLI bridge with a Ultra chipset.......i still have mine from my "old" A8N-SLI".......but wont do me much good as im selling my 6800GT w/nvsilencer5 for 350.00 to buy a X850 XT.
 

Mr. Lennon

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2004
3,492
1
81
Originally posted by: Tripp17
Your not supposed to get a SLI bridge with a Ultra chipset.......i still have mine from my "old" A8N-SLI".......but wont do me much good as im selling my 6800GT w/nvsilencer5 for 350.00 to buy a X850 XT.


I dont think an asus bridge connector would work with a DFI...maybe im wrong though. I just got a X850XT PE myself, but I wanted the bridge connector incase I ever go SLI in the future.
 

Tripp17

Member
Jan 24, 2005
90
0
0
Originally posted by: Zeppelin2282
Originally posted by: Tripp17
Your not supposed to get a SLI bridge with a Ultra chipset.......i still have mine from my "old" A8N-SLI".......but wont do me much good as im selling my 6800GT w/nvsilencer5 for 350.00 to buy a X850 XT.


I dont think an asus bridge connector would work with a DFI...maybe im wrong though. I just got a X850XT PE myself, but I wanted the bridge connector incase I ever go SLI in the future.

No, you might be right......the space between the cards i think is too little on the DFI boards compared to the A8N-SLI, i havent tried it as i only have a single GT. Oh, and i hate you for getting that card...lol.....ive always been an ATI guy, and i cant wait to go back!!
 

Tripp17

Member
Jan 24, 2005
90
0
0
Originally posted by: Tripp17


Originally posted by: PascalT
I am aiming for memory, not speed. I do heavy graphic design and 2gb could help me. Besides, ocing memory on an amd64 platform doesn't do much.


Doesnt do much huh.......im not gonna get into it because i know it will start a flame war, but having dualchannel memory at its highest bandwith does more than you think for games. I am into heavy gaming and i go for speed. The difference between say ddr 400 at 2T and 550 at 1T in gamming is ALOT. Maybe an extra resolution, of another notch in AA or AF.....you would be surprised, thats the reason people dont go out and buy generic memory and run it at 2T. If your doing graphic design, thats cool i have a bunch of friends who are into that, but dont tell me that extra bandwith doesnt do anything cause your wrong, it totally does. Not every app. will benifit, but most will. Good day to you sir.

 

CheesePoofs

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2004
3,163
0
0
That difference is because your running the memory at 2t instead of 1t. Thats the only memory setting that makes any real difference on the athlon 64's. As long as you keep the memory running at 1T, almost all speeds will have equal performance.
 

CheesePoofs

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2004
3,163
0
0
Originally posted by: TJmoney
This is preliminary as I haven't tested much yet, but I'm posting this with my memory (corsair value select) at 2.6V now, which it woulden't even boot at before. With default settings I needed 2.8 to run stable. I changed the Max async latency setting to 8ns. I saw in a post at dfistreet that it should be set to 6 normally, 7 if overclocking, and I decided to be a little more conservative. Also I manually set my cpu mult to 10X, and TRAS to 8, fsb to 200. I'v been prime95ing for around 10 mins now, so its definately not completely unstable. Looks like I got my memory problems partially under control.

Try running memtest to test the memory, it can detect memory errors better than prime can.
 

Sniper82

Lifer
Feb 6, 2000
16,517
0
76
Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
Originally posted by: TJmoney
This is preliminary as I haven't tested much yet, but I'm posting this with my memory (corsair value select) at 2.6V now, which it woulden't even boot at before. With default settings I needed 2.8 to run stable. I changed the Max async latency setting to 8ns. I saw in a post at dfistreet that it should be set to 6 normally, 7 if overclocking, and I decided to be a little more conservative. Also I manually set my cpu mult to 10X, and TRAS to 8, fsb to 200. I'v been prime95ing for around 10 mins now, so its definately not completely unstable. Looks like I got my memory problems partially under control.

Try running memtest to test the memory, it can detect memory errors better than prime can.


Yeah report back and let us know. Its really gonna suck if the Corsair doesnt work good on this board as I hate to buy more memory.
 

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
if you guys want SLI get SLI. the ultra board is not made for SLI

and stop asking if the boards in stock are modable. noone knows. and it doesnt matter anyway until you get a DFI SLI connector.
 

bob661

Senior member
Oct 20, 2004
425
0
0
And no one's gonna sell those officially because that would cut into their SLI board sales.