Introduction

DFI has always been a company for the enthusiasts, their products are definitely targeted to that user group.

Their "LanParty" series are engineered to be an overclocker's dream.

When I saw the need to get a review platform for AMD Socket939, I asked a few people which board could be recommended. Most people said "get the DFI LanParty".

Since I'm not really into SLI I opted to save a few bucks and buy the DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D. This is the smaller brother of the SLI version. Technically the two boards are identical, except that the Ultra-D uses NVIDIA's nForce4 Ultra, instead of the SLI version.



The nForce4 is NVIDIA's latest chipset for the AMD64 platform. After the enormous sucess of the previous nForce chipsets the expectations were high, but NVIDIA was able to deliver another great chipset. It boasts with features like integrated Gigabit Ethernet and SATA-II support for a theoretical 300 MB/s HDD transfer rate. RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 are possible as well.

What I learned after I got this board, is that it can be modded to SLI by a simple chipset mod (article here).

Unfortunately DFI does not include an SLI bridge with the Ultra-D, so in order to be able to actually use SLI you will have to get a bridge somehow.

Features

Specifications from DFI

CPU

• AMD Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 / Sempron
• Socket 939

Chipset

• NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra

Front Side Bus

• 2000MT/s HyperTransport interface

Memory

• Four 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets
• Supports dual channel (128-bit wide) memory interface
• Supports up to 4GB system memory
• Supports DDR266, DDR333 and DDR400 DDR SDRAM DIMM

BIOS

• Award BIOS
• CMOS Reloaded
• CPU/DRAM overclocking
• CPU/DRAM/Chipset overvoltage
• 4Mbit flash memory

Power Management

• Supports ACPI STR (Suspend to RAM) function
• Wake-On-Events include:
  - Wake-On-PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
  - Wake-On-USB Keyboard/Mouse
  - Wake-On-LAN
  - RTC timer to power-on the system
• AC power failure recovery

Hardware Monitor

• Monitors CPU/system/chipset temperature
• Monitors 12V/5V/3.3V/Vcore/Vbat/5Vsb/Vchipset/Vdram voltages
• Monitors the speed of the CPU fan, Fan 2 and chipset fan
• CPU Overheat Protection function monitors CPU temperature during system boot-up

Audio

• Karajan audio module
  - Realtek ALC850 8-channel audio CODEC
  - 6 audio jacks
  - 1 CD-in connector
  - 1 front audio connector
• S/PDIF-in/out interface

LAN

• Dual Gigabit LAN - Vitesse VSC8201 Gigabit Phy and Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit PCI
• Fully compliant to IEEE 802.3 (10BASE-T), 802.3u (100BASE-TX) and 802.3ab (1000BASE-T) standards

IDE

• Two IDE connectors that allows connecting up to four UltraDMA 133Mbps hard drives
• NVIDIA RAID allows RAID arrays spanning across Serial ATA and Parallel ATA
• RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1

Serial ATA with RAID

• Four Serial ATA II ports
• SATA speed up to 3Gb/s
• RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1
• NVIDIA RAID allows RAID arrays spanning across Serial ATA and Parallel ATA

IEEE 1394

• VIA VT6307
• Supports two 100/200/400 Mb/sec ports

Rear Panel I/O Ports

• 1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
• 1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
• 2 S/PDIF RCA jacks (S/PDIF-in and S/PDIF-out)
• Karajan audio module (6 audio jacks)
• 1 IEEE 1394 port
• 2 RJ45 LAN ports
• 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports

I/O Connectors

• 2 connectors for 4 additional external USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• 1 connector for 1 external IEEE 1394 port
• 1 connector for 1 external serial port
• 1 front audio connector for external line-out and mic-in jacks (on the Karajan audio module)
• 1 CD-in internal audio connector (on the Karajan audio module)
• 1 S/PDIF connector for optical cable connection
• 1 IR connector
• 4 Serial ATA connectors
• 2 IDE connectors
• 1 floppy connector
• 1 24-pin ATX power connector
• 1 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
• 2 4-pin 5V/12V power connectors (FDD-type and HDD type)
• 1 front panel connector
• 5 fan connectors
• 4 diagnostic LEDs
• EZ touch switches (power switch and reset switch)

Expansion Slots

• 2 PCI Express x16 slots
• 1 PCI Express x1 slot
• 1 PCI Express x4 slot
• 2 PCI slots

PCB

• ATX form factor
• 24cm (9.45") x 30.5cm (12")