Legit Motherboard Reviews
DFI NF4 SLI & Ultra Infinity Motherboard Reviews
| Manufacturer: | DFI |
| Product: | DFI Infinity NF4 Ultra and SLI motherboards |
| Date: | Sun, Sep 25, 2005 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Rich Caporali |
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Layout
Looking at the Infinity Ultra and SLI side by side there doesn't appear to be much difference other than the obvious extra PCI-E x 16 slot. Both boards are distinctly different from the LANParty Series in look as well as layout. The Infinity Series sports almost an "OEM" look with its plain brown PCB and PCI/PCI-E slots.
The first thing I noticed upon opening the packages was how small the Infinity Ultra was. While the Infinity SLI measured in at 9.6"(W) x 12"(L), the Infinity Ultra came in at 8.66"(W) x 12"(L). This is a noticeable difference from most "standard" ATX boards. My only concern here is that this might cause issues while mounting the Ultra board in some cases.
I used the Cooler Master Aquagate Mini for testing, it has a very large CPU block which I was able to mount without issue. Just be aware that some wide based cooling solutions might have issues with these boards.
The Infinity SLI is fitted with a pair of x1 PCI-E slots, a pair of x16 PCI-E slots (which run at x8 while in SLI mode), as well as three PCI slots. I mounted an ATI X850 XT without any issue as well as a pair of XFX 6600GTs.
The Infinity Ultra features a single x16 PCI-E slot, a pair of x1 PCI-E slots as well as three PCI slots. Like most boards the Ultra will have issues fitting most video card coolers and allowing usage of the top PCI slot.
Both the Infinity SLI as well as the Ultra feature the same memory layout supporting up to 4GB of 184 pin DDR in dual channel. The memory configuration on both boards allows you to run dual channel in a variety of configurations. (Due to the different possibilities, I'm not going to go through the list, but rest assured that you will have no problem running 1,2, or 4 memory modules in dual channel mode.
Next Page - Layout continued
| Review Index |
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Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Layout Page 3 - Layout continued Page 4 - BIOS Page 5 - Test Setup Page 6 - Benchmarking Page 7 - Benchmarking continued Page 8 - Overclocking Page 9 - Final Thoughts |
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