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DFI LanParty NFII Ultra Rev B Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Friday, January 16, 2004
Board Layout and Features
The nVidia nForce2 comes standard with a dual channel DDR interface with official support for DDR400 and below. Unlike Intel chipsets the nForce2 will run asynchronous to the FSB meaning that you can run in DDR400 mode even if you only have a 266Mhz AthlonXP.
Northbridge chips tend to run a little hot especially under overclocking. This rather large passive heatsink works great under most overclocking situations up to 200Mhz FSB. After that it is advised that you find an alternative cooling method.
As you can see plenty of thermal grease has been provided, a little to much IMO but in this case having more is better than not having any at all. Notice the black areas at the edges of the heatsink. This is a visual indicator of the high spots found on the Northbridge. As always the stock thermal grease was cleaned up and replaced with a fair amount of Artic Silver 3.
DFI has started using a different style of powersupply on their high-end motherboards, the phases are the same but the Mosfets are quite a bit smaller. These are said to be of a higher quality and don't produce as much heat. Not much is known about powersupply design though many of us are led to believe that more power phases are better, this is simply not the case.
The LanParty NFII Ultra supports all socket A Athlon processors up to 3200+ but with the wide range of overclocking options it is hard to tell how high you can go. Notice that DFI has brought back the heatsink mounting holes; just imagine the possibilities that this unfolds.
