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DFI LANParty UT RDX200: ATI’s Crossfire AMD for the Bleeding Edge

 by Wesley Fink on October 18, 2005 11:03 AM EST
48 Comments | Add A Comment
48 Comments
Basic Features: DFI LANParty UT RDX200

 DFI LANParty UT RDX200
CPU Interface Socket 939 Athlon 64
Chipset ATI RD480 Northbridge - ATI SB450 Southbridge
Bus Speeds 200 to 500MHz in 1MHz Increments
Memory Speeds DDR200, 240, 266, 280, 300, 333, 360, 400 (433, 466, 500 with Rev. E AMD)
PCIe Speeds Fixed
PCI/AGP Fixed at 33/66
Core Voltage Auto, 0.8V to 1.55V in 0.025V increments
PLUS 0.0V to 0.56V in 0.02V increments
(Maximum vCore 2.11V)
CPU Clock Multiplier 4x-25x in 0.5X increments
DRAM Voltage Auto, 2.5V to 4.03V in .02V to .05V increments
HyperTransport Frequency 1000MHz (1GHz)
HyperTransport Multiplier Auto, 1X to 5X
HyperTransport (LDT) Voltage 1.2V , 1/3V , 1.4V, 1.5V
Xpress 200 (NB) Voltage 1.2V, 1/3V, 1.4V, 1.5V
NB Analog 1.2 Voltage 1.2V, 1/3V, 1.4V, 1.5V
SB PCIe 1.8 Voltage 1.8V, 1.9V
Memory Slots Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots
Dual-Channel Configuration
Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total
SUPPORTS 4 DS DIMMS AT 1T
Expansion Slots 2 PCIe x16
1 PCIe x1
3 PCI Slots
Onboard SATA/RAID 4 SATA Drives by SB450 (RAID 0, 1, JBOD)
PLUS 4 SATA Drives by Sil 3114
Onboard IDE/IDE RAID Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives)
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by SB450
2 1394 Firewire by VIA VT6307
Onboard LAN 2 Gigabit Ethernet
PCIe Ethernet by Marvel 88E8053
PCI Ethernet by Marvel 88E8001
Onboard Audio Azalia HD Audio by Karajan Module
with Realtek ALC882 Codec
BIOS Revision Award (7/28/2005)

The DFI nForce4 Ultra and SLI boards quickly developed a reputation for offering the enthusiast every imaginable BIOS option. The DFI RDX200 goes even further.

Memory voltage extends to 4.03V without the need to resort to jumpers to add voltage from the 5v line. Memory controls are even more extensive than those that DFI provides on the nForce4. When we reviewed the ATI Crossfire Reference Board, we commented that ATI has worked with some leading enthusiasts in refining the Crossfire AMD. DFI has built on the depth and breath of the huge array of options available on that board.

A good example of this is the options available for memory speeds at stock speeds. Not only can you choose 200, 266, 333 and 400, but you can choose and fine tune with in-between speeds like 240, 280, and 300. Beyond the standard 400, you can choose 433, 466, and 500. This allows those who would never think of overclocking their CPU the ability to run their memory at DDR500 for example. For those who do overclock, this increases the ability to fine-tune the CPU and memory for the absolute best performance.

Oskar Wu, the Engineer behind DFI's legendary nForce4 series, is also the designer of this DFI RDX200. With so much already available in ATI's Reference design, Oskar concentrated on adding the "impossible" option of running 4DS DIMMs at 1T Command Rate and a working CAS 1.5 option in BIOS.


DFI LANParty UT RDX200: Board Layout Overclocking: DFI LANParty UT RDX200
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  • bigtoe36 - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    having tested the RDX200 at the same time as Wesley I am able to confirm that i was able to run cas1.5. Now on the NF4 LP boards oskar enabled what seemed to be cas1.5, infact this option gave no performance increase over the cas2 option. On RDX200 he has though found a significant speed increase by using the 1.5 option.

    Running OCZ PC4800Plat's with drive srength at 9 and 1.5-2-2-5 timings a 100MB/s increase in available memory bandwidth was seen over setting 2-2-2-5. I was however forced to use 3.1Vdimm to achieve this at 200fsb 1:1. Another point is that BH5 and VX (UTT CH5) would not do cas1.5, it seems to be a samsung TCCX tweak only.

  • mongoosesRawesome - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    thanks for the info

  • Leper Messiah - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    Used to be buy an nVidia mobo and an ATi graphics card. Funny how things have changed...but 4DS at 1T is awesome if you aren't OCing your RAM, but 250-2-2-2-7 2T is going to be faster than 203 2-2-2-7-1T.

  • Madellga - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    Thanks for the good review Wesley. One thing I always missed on your reviews was what kind of BIOS settings you used.

    It took me a long time to get my DFI-NF4 up and running. You know better than anybody that tweaking is time consuming - specially with so many settings on the BIOS.

    Make this an habit and keep posting the BIOS settings used on the reviews.

  • mongoosesRawesome - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    quote:
    A good example of this is the options available for memory speeds at stock speeds. Not only can you choose 200, 266, 333 and 400, but you can choose and fine tune with in-between speeds like 240, 280, and 300. Beyond the standard 400, you can choose 433, 466, and 500. This allows those who would never think of overclocking their CPU the ability to run their memory at DDR500 for example. For those who do overclock, this increases the ability to fine-tune the CPU and memory for the absolute best performance.


    Isn't that integrated into the A64 memory controller and don't the Nforce 4 DFI boards support those DDR speeds?

  • Wesley Fink - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    The additional ratios are available in the AMD Athlon64 Rev. E Memory Cntroller and can be implemented on any Socket 939 motherboard. However, the BIOS writer has to implement these choices. AMD made them a part of their Reference Board and they will likely find their way to many retail boards. DFI implemented them on the RDX200, but you rarely if ever see these finer ratios actually implemented on nForce4 boards.

  • jr9k - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    quote:
    The surprise, however, is the new DFI option of 4DS DIMMs at 1T. Not only is there no performance loss – the scores are 2,000 points higher than 4DSx2T. (...)


    2000 points.
    Impressive...
    until you do some math. 4 dimms at 1T are 2.3% faster than 4 dimms at 2T.

    Don't get me wrong, the achievement of running four dimms at 1T is impressive, but the results are not (as we already knew). It's the way of showing things.

    Anyway, it is good to see some competition from ATI.

    Nice review and nice board

  • mongoosesRawesome - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    Yea, I agree. A lot of times a big deal is made over only a few percentage points. I would have rather seen FPS in some games. I truly doubt we'd even see 2% in some cases.

  • Spacecomber - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    I had the same sort of reaction to the signifigance of the 1T vs 2T scores. I translated the Aquamark score back into FPS got this.

    2 DIMM 1T 91fps
    4 DIMM 2T 90fps
    4 DIMM 1T 92fps

    While this capability certainly says good things about DFI's engineering team, I'm not sure that I'd spend a $100 premium on a motherboard just to get this feature.

    Overall, this is a board with very good potential, but I wouldn't want to rush out and buy this first release. It sounds like the revision with a different south bridge will be worth waiting for. Hopefully, the price will be mroe in line with the comparable nforce4 boards by then, too.

  • ksherman - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link

    I am particularly impressed with the ability to use 4DS DIMMs @ 1T. That is a really nice little feature! Too bad you have to stay near stock speeds... is it possible to do some overclocking, but use divides to keep the memory at 406? or is overclocking the memory the better thing to improve system performance?
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