DFI NFII Ultra: Mean Green Dream Machine
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2003 6:25 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
If you are looking for an AMD Athlon motherboard, the DFI NFII Ultra LanParty is without equal. For the gaming, case-modding, or LAN Party enthusiast, there is no Athlon motherboard that we have tested which comes close to the package provided by the DFI NFII Ultra LanParty. For those building with the popular side-window cases, the glow-under-black-light UV-reactive slots and cables make the NFII stand out from the competition. The multitude of cables and adapters that come stock with the NFII provide all the game, USB, firewire, sound, and front I/O ports any gamer could want.However, we found there was much more to the NFII than attention-grabbing eye-candy. The NFII is also the best-performing AMD Athlon board that we have tested. It overclocks further than any other Athlon board we have seen, and it performs better at all speeds in gaming benchmarks. The board was clearly designed and tweaked for gaming performance.
The available Performance BIOS we tested on this motherboard is icing on an already impressive cake. The very wide range of voltages and adjustments available will appeal to the computer enthusiast who will be excited at the ability to squeeze all the performance possible out of the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset.
Even though the DFI is the best Athlon board that we have tested, it isn’t perfect. Those planning to use SATA hard drives will have to decide if the single on-board SATA connector, which disables Primary IDE, is a configuration they can live with. If it isn’t, then they would be forced to add a SATA IDE controller, or should look to other top-performing nForce2 boards, such as the Gigabyte 7NNXP. And while there are two LAN connections on the DFI NFII Ultra, neither provides a Gigabit LAN connection. If these faults are not very important to you, then this is the board to own. If you are looking for the best IDE RAID options available on any Athlon board, then it is hard to overlook this unique board with RAID 1.5, which allows both striping and mirroring with just two drives.
DFI has clearly succeeded in putting together a package that will excite many target groups. The NFII Ultra succeeds on many fronts, and will please many buyers. It's a unique board in a unique package with top-notch performance, and tweaking options to make any enthusiast drool. With all of the accessories and options in the package, at its current price, it is also a GREAT value.
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Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
I have been considering this mobo for some time and I read the reviews here and at Tomshardware. Both seem to be based on boards tweeked by the mfgr. I also looked at the forum at Amdmb.com recommended by Angry Games. What a mess. This board, like so many others using Nforce2, seems to be extremely fussy about memory timings. Several brands of memory strips lock up during posts. I say the reviews should be redone with retail versions after initial bios fiddling has settled down. And the question of stability at various timings should have as much importance as performance speed.Anonymous User - Friday, September 19, 2003 - link
I'm having a hard time figuring out the difference between the NFII Lanparty Ultra and the NFII Ultra-AL.The Ultra-AL seems to go for about half the price.
Do they perform/overclock the same?
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Its a cool mobo...whats all the fussLonyo - Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - link
640x480 for game tests would make most sense, then it's mostly CPU limted not GPU limited.1024x768 is silly if you're comparing motherboard using different graphics cards.
And doing a graph showing one board is pointless.
You should have delayed this review until you'd done another one with the same testbed setup.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 17, 2003 - link
i myself was skeptical about the whole raid 15 deal, that just seems like marketing scheme to me as well. this does seem to be the case doesnt it? well i do believe these benchmarx are quite abbreviated, being that they lack a a7n8x! and a few others, and while on this topic, very disappointed with the whole video card fiasco...please review and update this article guys....sryque
ATConundrum - Saturday, August 16, 2003 - link
I could be wrong, but this comment board is for the review on the mainboard, not the performance/build of the AnandTech.com website itself. Send those comments to the webmaster instead, and do the respectable thing and post constructive comments about the review here.Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - link
Anonymous User - Monday, August 11, 2003 - link
Just another anonymous post...I think he did a fairly decent job of reviewing the board, and the choice of an Radeon for the benchmarking due to directx 9 compatability is understandable. If you wanted to wait longer for them to dig out all of the other mobos, rebuild them in to systems, then retest each one again so that you could have your nice little benchmarks... sorry.
Just wait, either they will re-do the other benchmarks again, or do the new benchmarks using this card. I've already seen tomshardwares guide showing 10 mobos with this chipset, and the bechmarks between them were so similar that they didn't make any difference in my buying descision.
next to last: I agree with the previous plugin complaint, as I also use Mozilla. Is there ANY advantage in using flash over JPG of GIF for the benchmark results? Also the flash banners are annoying as... but I guess they pay the bills.
Finnally, I know I'm not spelling well either due to no spell check, stiff keys on this keyboard, and I ran out of give a care juice about 45 minutes ago.
Anandtech is still all good.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 10, 2003 - link
just to add to my comment in 37 if you had a post for pics i could have placed a pic on just to show you i does look smart and others have started making enqiries to my tower AND LANPARTY motherboard tower from www.thermaltake.com take a look if u dont know the case im talking aboutthermaltake tower + lanparty motherboard = 1 smart looking system
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 10, 2003 - link
hey wesley 1 point of interest for u m8 when you made the board why didnt u make the IDE cables longer as i have a thermaltake tower so when i saw your board and read the speck i was impressed and imediately boutght it only to be dissapointed in the cables as i cannot connect from the raid connectoins to my HD=2off + dvd rom and dvd-re writer as the cables are too short this post is for ALL u tech wizzards that make motherboardsGIVE US LONGER CABLES FOR GOD SAKE now im stuck with using normal IDE connections AND NO im not reverting back to the old cable strips it takes the look away from a promissing motherboard when you add in a uv light to light up the inside