Intel 925X Roundup: Creative Engineering 101
by Wesley Fink on August 12, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
DFI LANParty 925X-T2: Features and Layout
| DFI LANParty 925X-T2 Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 775 Pentium 4 (Prescott) |
| Chipset | Intel 925X/ICH6R |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI Speeds | To CPU, 33.33, Auto |
| PCI Express Speeds | Auto, Fix 100-140 |
| DDR2 Speeds | Auto, 400, 533 |
| Core Voltage | 0.8375V to 1.85V |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.8V to 2.5V in 0.1V increments |
| Northbridge Voltage | 1.5V to 1.8V in 0.1V increments |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 PCIe x16 Slot 3 PCIe x1 slot 3 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/IDE RAID | 4 SATA 150 drives by ICH6R Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, Intel Matrix |
| Onboard IDE | One Standard ATA100/66 (2 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports 2 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports by VIA VT6307 |
| Onboard LAN | 2 Gigabit LAN - Marvel 88E8053 PCIe and Marvel 88E8001 PCI |
| Onboard Audio | Karajan Module with Realtek ALC880 Codec with Independent Variable Sampling 8-Channel with SPDIF in/out |
| Tested BIOS | 925LC803 |
When DFI first introduced the LANParty boards a little over a year ago, they were not a name with which many Enthusiasts were familiar. However, since that time, DFI has earned a solid reputation as a maker of some of the best-performing and most sought-after boards available in the Enthusiast market. The 925X-T2 is DFI's second design for the Intel socket, following the highly regarded LANParty boards for socket 478.
The LANParty 925X-T2 keeps all the bells and whistles that made the original LANParty series so unique. This includes UV slots and ports, matching UV sensitive round cables, a flexible FrontX port box that will fit in a 5-1/4 bay and organize your ports, and the completely unique PC Transpo for carrying your desktop system to LAN parties.
There are also a couple of new additions to generation 3 of LANParty. DFI included coordinated UV sleeving for the other cables in your rig, and High-Definition audio is provided by a plug-in Karajan module. DFI tells us that the plug-in audio module allows the electrical isolation of the audio codec, resulting in a lower noise than you might experience with an on-board audio codec.
The rest of the features are a complete implementation of the 925X/ICH6R chipset, with the added benefit of two Gigabit LAN controllers. One LAN controller sits on the faster PCI Express bus and the other is on the PCI bus.
In overclocking, the DFI offers the widest range of voltages that you will see on any of the boards in the roundup. It is the only 925X with DDR2 memory voltage adjustments to 2.5V and a CPU voltage adjustment to 1.85V. These values should even put smiles on the faces of users who plan to use water-cooling or phase-change cooling. Northbridge voltage is also adjustable. Instead of making all the PCIe decisions for you, like boards that only offer Auto adjustments, or forcing extensive manual trial and error- like manual only controls, the DFI offers both options. You can let the board make the sliding ratio adjustments for you with Auto, or you can dial your own with manual PCI fix adjustments.
DFI also continues CMOS reloaded, which was introduced with the second generation LANParty and Infinity boards. This feature allows you to save several different custom BIOS set-ups so that you can easily recall custom BIOS settings for a particular overclock or settings for a different OS. Overclockers and users who run multiple operating systems will really find CMOS Reloaded to be a useful feature.
In general, the DFI is well-laid out for most cases, since it is a board that was designed to be seen in a side window case. One of the more annoying things about the layout is the board edge connector for IDE and the bottom edge floppy connector, which are only a little better located than the Abit. However, the diagnostic LEDs on the DFI are better located than the Abit. They are clear of obstructions so you can actually see the LEDs during boot. The 24-pin and 4-pin power connectors are both near board edges to the right of the CPU and are probably the best located of any board in this roundup. You don't even have to snake the 4-pin around the CPU as you do in some other 925X designs in the roundup. The Karajan audio module was a little flimsy in our early board, but DFI told us when we got the board that shipping boards would have a bracket to secure the module. That should take care of that issue.
As we have come to expect with LANParty boards, DFI continues to innovate with their flagship line of boards. The LANParty is clearly aimed at the computer Enthusiast who wants to show off their rig, and it makes no apologies for being brash and showy. No matter how much it glows, the LANParty boards wouldn't sell unless they also delivered top-notch Enthusiast-level performance, and DFI continues to lavish most of their attention on how the LANParty boards actually perform.
Asus P5AD2 Premium: Overclocking and Stress Testing
DFI LANParty 925X-T2: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
On the Gigabyte 8ANXP-D:Page 10
Memory Slots Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots
Gigabyte provides 6 DIMM slots, but the total memory and number of sides that can be used is the same as the other boards in the roundup.
JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Typo page 5:"The memory stress test measures the ability of the Abit AA8 to"
should read Asus P5AD2. :)
only on page 5, may be more.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
allright, point taken. howabout testing lower lga775 cpus and combining the results with 939 scores?Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#5 - You're welcome.We also ran and reported the rest of our standard motherboard tests, which included Business and Multimedia Content Creation Winstones and Media encoding (which Intel won by a small margin).
As we stated in the review the only reason we did not include our standard SPECviewperf 7.1.1 benchmarks is because we have seen variations of up to 100% in SPECviewperf results with certain 925X boards. We don't believe these results are real, and we are trying to find answers for these variations in benchmark results. Until we find some answers, publishing the workstation benchmark results would not really reveal anything about the performance of the 925X boards we are testing.
The FX53, Intel 925X, and Intel 915 results are included for reference and completeness. We are comparing five 925X motherboards in performance, and we do not mean to detract from that comparison with AMD Socket 939 benchmarks. Please consider the 939 results to be a frame of reference.
AnnoyedGrunt - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
From what I can see, the P4 560 is about $750, so that puts it right between the 3800+ (about $650) and the FX-53 (about $850) in price. It would be nice to add the 3800+ scores (if you have any) to that review just so we could see how the price/performance of the 560, 3800+, and FX-53 compare.-D'oh!
Shimmishim - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#2 - Achieving a 4 ghz overclock on a pentium is nothing to sneeze at... i think 3.8 may be possible on air but 4.2 is really pushing.As much as a lot of us would love to see overclocked processor results, i think it's best that they only show stock clock results as they are easier to compare...
#3 - Its hard to say how fair it is to use a FX-53 against the 3.6 ghz 775 chip... but if you think about it, they are comparing the top end pentium 775 skt (new pin count) vs. the top of the line A64 939 skt (new pin count)..
Both are also 1 megs of L2 even though the extra cache doesn't help the A64 greatly.
Maybe a 3800+ would have been better comparison but i think he was trying to make things as easy to compare as possible...
Even if he had used a 3800+ or even a 3700+ i don't think the gaming results would have been that much different... we all know that the A64's dominate in gaming.
maybe some more tests besides gaming would have been better...
but all in all...
thank you Wes for a good article!
Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#3 - The 3.6 is the fastest Intel processor. If you will check our launch reviews you will see the 3.6 outperformed the 3.4EE. We are indeed comparing the best performing Intel - the 3.6 - to the best performing AMD - FX53.Prior to the 3.6, the 3.4EE was the fastest Intel CPU.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
lately i've been noticing unfair comparisons between intel and amd, in this article, high end processors are being compared with the top of the line from amd. this isnt really helpful to anyone, so please go back to the old anandtech way.Anemone - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice article !If I could have had one extra wish it would have been to show a set of test charts with a moderate oc on them, think that would put the FX @ 2.6-2.7 and the P4 560's @ 4.2-4.3.
If the boards can overclock, and the 939's can too, where does it all land for those using just normal or at most water oc'ing.
No worry, these wishes do not detract from a very nice article.
Thank you
stickybytes - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice to see asus get a award but unfourtanetly the word "prescott" mentioned in any sentence will probably scare away 80% of AT'ers.