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DFI LanParty UT 790FX Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Conclusion
As many of you have noticed AMD has been relatively quiet for the entire year, granted they did have a few product releases but almost everything had been dwarfed by the Intel side of things. First it was nVidia with their 680i chipset and later the Intel Series 3 chipset line all supporting the new Core 2 processor line. The lack of news does not mean AMD has been slacking off. The new "Spider" platform promises to be the first leg in an AMD comeback tour that will in effect combine the latest Athlon64 and Phenom processors with the ATI crossfire technology.
The skillful hands at DFI have taken the high-end 790FX chipset and created a highly configurable motherboard that not only looks good but performs as well. These days overclocking is a major selling point to the enthusiast and DFI has been renowned for going the extra few steps to ensure their products are ready for all sorts of performance tuning. The Genie BIOS contains a variety of useful overclocking tools and even some settings reserved for the most advanced of users. Of course after you have tweaked for the best performance you can save your settings using the CMOS Reloaded feature.
The majority of the features found on the LanParty UT 790FX are integral to the 790FX chipset however DFI has always expanded on the basic design. Some of the notable additions would be the Silicon Image RAID controller and Bernstein audio module. Silicon Image is a popular choice for onboard RAID and with the 3132 having a PCI Express interface you can be assured it will be speedy. The Bernstein audio module is another key feature that gives you the feel of an addon audio card without having to install one. Plus if you're like us and rarely use onboard audio it can be removed completely without any problems.
The skillful hands at DFI have taken the high-end 790FX chipset and created a highly configurable motherboard that not only looks good but performs as well. These days overclocking is a major selling point to the enthusiast and DFI has been renowned for going the extra few steps to ensure their products are ready for all sorts of performance tuning. The Genie BIOS contains a variety of useful overclocking tools and even some settings reserved for the most advanced of users. Of course after you have tweaked for the best performance you can save your settings using the CMOS Reloaded feature.
The majority of the features found on the LanParty UT 790FX are integral to the 790FX chipset however DFI has always expanded on the basic design. Some of the notable additions would be the Silicon Image RAID controller and Bernstein audio module. Silicon Image is a popular choice for onboard RAID and with the 3132 having a PCI Express interface you can be assured it will be speedy. The Bernstein audio module is another key feature that gives you the feel of an addon audio card without having to install one. Plus if you're like us and rarely use onboard audio it can be removed completely without any problems.
Glamour shots
We always like to comment on the overall look of a motherboard and we are extremely impressed that DFI has retained the UV reactive expansion slots and black PCB, the combo looks sharp under both natural and UV light.
Now for the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things. 
Good Things
3-Way CrossFire Support
AMD Overdrive Support
Supports Phenom
6 SATA ports with RAID
Super Easy Overclocking
Unique Heatpipe Cooling system
Removable Transpiper
AMD Overdrive Support
Supports Phenom
6 SATA ports with RAID
Super Easy Overclocking
Unique Heatpipe Cooling system
Removable Transpiper
Bad Things
Removable Transpiper doesn't seem to work very well
Board will not support the allowable Quad CrossFire
Board will not support the allowable Quad CrossFire
Ninjalane Rating
I would like to thank DFI Inc. for helping to make this review possible.
