[H] should probably point out in their review that the DFI Expert is NOT 2x16 PCIe

I

InorganicMatter

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
15,461
I've seen several people assume that this board as 2 full x16 PCI-Express lanes (probably because it is an update to their original SLI board). The way it is printed in the [H]'s review (2x PCI-Express x16 slots), I could easily see uneducated people assuming it is dual X16 lanes. Should probably outright state somewhere that it run at x8 in SLI mode.
 
I think that there was a lot more that was wrong with the review. Looking at benchmark scores, I just kept shaking my head.. first, an expert oc'er is not gonna run 4 sticks but 2. Testing a mobo like this at 333 makes no sense! Using 4 sticks means less oc (slowest of 4 instead of 2), plus you have to run 2T. Second, ya, I understand it might be time for 2 gigs, but the way to do that is 2x1 gig sticks.. this renders all the benchmark useless as you are comparing apples to peaches. Shouldn't they compare like 4 nf4 amd mobos with same configs to see what mobo is the best as it is a mobo review?? And add maybe 1 intel system and one legacy system?

Also the board has been around for a while, usually HardOCP has the new stuff and has it first so I really don't know what are they doing.. although this IS the most popular mobo of choice for world class oc'ers and all the ones that wanna have a shot at being like them too..

And Kyle saying he's not [H] enuf,.. is just funny hehe
 
Kyle said:
Apparently I am not man enough for the DFI Expert board!
Click to expand...

Hehehe :D


I thought it was a good review. The ram thing did have me a little puzzled, but oh well. They were just trying to show a limitation of the board. However, one thing I think should have been elaborated more on, in both this reviews and future reviews, is overclocking. One paragraph on the overclocking features of a board made for overclockers? Sure you have the bios page which goes over all memory timings and crap that you can tweak, but I still think more depth should be put into the overclocking portion. How high you can get the FSB, how high you can clock a certain CPU compared to how high it clocked on another board, and same for memory, how high you can get it at what timings compared to another board. Just my thoughts...
 
Yeah, the memory testing in this review was pretty flawed. Very few enthusiasts will be using 2 gigs in a 4 x 512 configuration. Now, if they were wanting to test the ability of the board to handle that, that's fine. The problem is, none of the other boards in the review were configured with 4 dimms.

The A8N32 SLI, on the other hand, was reviewed using 2 x 1024 dimms. So was the EVGA board, and the ATI based ones. I love the [H], but I just think this review was a little bit unfair in this regard. At the very least, all boards should have to face 4x512 but it seems like a unique situation to the Expert, and it slants the review somewhat unfairly against the board. NF4 just won't run properly at 1t with 4 dimms, and that's a well known fact, and configuring it as such picked on this platform limitation, which would be fine if it was done across the board.

To be fair, though, this was pointed out (though not prominately) in the review, and they didn't make a HUGE deal of the memory limitation, and the board wasn't totally smeared because of it or anything.

Now, the SLI problems and the DFI jerkoff talking shit to Kyle is a completely different matter....
 
pointless GPU reviews (benching cards at their highest playable setting is rediculous and makes it EXTREMELY hard to compare apples to apples) and now this poor & nonplus review.

shouldn't this website be moving forward and providing unbiased reports? apparently not
 
mouawad said:
pointless GPU reviews (benching cards at their highest playable setting is rediculous and makes it EXTREMELY hard to compare apples to apples) and now this poor & nonplus review.

shouldn't this website be moving forward and providing unbiased reports? apparently not
Click to expand...
I think THAT'S a tad excessive...They're more unbiast than just about anyone out there. The only flaw with the review really was the memory configuration, and it wasn't a fatal one.
 
i don't think so - [H] is one of the biggest hardware sites in the world and they provide 1 (yes one) small paragraph in the overclocking section on this board. Being how the Expert is all about the o/c this is a tad strange in my books. Also seeing this mobo provides a few tweaks for those with low latency memory i would have thought it was a no brainer to run a comparison to the sli-d and show the improvements......perhaps this area is out of their depth? ;)

Add to that the 4dimm debacle and trouble opening the second PCI-E lane and you have a review with no meat but at least it provided a few laughs :)
 
Yeah it seems like the H is biased against DFI. They hadicapped this board with DDR333 memory speeds and couldn't even figure out how to enable SLI. Then they have the nerve to complain about it. Good thing they reviewed the board months after it came out otherwise some enthusiasts might have thought it was no good.

Just like the last DFI review where they complained about problems modding the Ultra-D to an SLI board.

However it seems that Asus and Abit can do nothing wrong.

They have done a good job when it comes to Videocards lately, it just seems like they are slanting the M/B reviews.

Also there are only 4 Sata 2 ports the one off of the Silicone Image chip are Sata 1.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top