New DFI Mini-ITX MI P55-T36

Decent amount. It's very tempting with the new Core i7s, etc., since it is very easy.

The i7 I have now is currently at 3.6GHz.
 
mrmylanman said:
Decent amount. It's very tempting with the new Core i7s, etc., since it is very easy.

The i7 I have now is currently at 3.6GHz.
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Well, the bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with this motherboard. If overclocking is more important than "small" than perhaps this isn't the board for you but for those that love small this is a dream come true.
 
I was able to get my i7 up to 150 bclock on stock voltages, so if I could do that on this rig, I am sure it wouldn't hurt gaming much (at all). Throwing this and a 5850 or something inside a Lian Li PC-Q08 would be a very slick rig.
 
mrmylanman said:
I was able to get my i7 up to 150 bclock on stock voltages, so if I could do that on this rig, I am sure it wouldn't hurt gaming much (at all). Throwing this and a 5850 or something inside a Lian Li PC-Q08 would be a very slick rig.
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Not only would you be able to do this but you have to. The i7 is maxed at 150 bclk and stock voltages (board restriction that is).

The PC-Q08 is a fairly big case unless you just want lots of hard drives for some reason. Otherwise i suggest the SG05 or SG06. These things are SMALL. I don't know what I'll do when the SG07 comes out...probably cry because it got bigger.

I was shocked how small the DFI board was by the way. You have dimensions but once I saw my hand was bigger than the motherboard I was...like I said..shocked :)

The SG06 and SG05 I have get eaten by the SG01 and my Qmicra V1 I have.

I just wish GPUs would go down in size. 7" max PCB :) Come on!
 
Yeah I have a GTX260 I would like to use (would like to upgrade to Fermi, or perhaps a 5850 or something), as well as buying an H50, would that all fit in an SG05?
 
Steeeeve said:
From what I can tell the board isn't responsible for USB wifi issues...instead, Windows 7 is. Basically the lack of drivers is killing.

I've gotten a few reports from people that have Windows 7 64 bit who are using USB wifi. All of them said they are using devices that have a compatible driver.

DFI doesn't believe a problem exists as the USB code in BIOS is basically standard.
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Ok so this board just might work for me because I plan on using Win XP, Now I just need to find a good usb wifi adapter that will work with a D-Link wireless router.

Thanks for the reply. I have heard alot of good reviews on this mobo and the usb wifi trouble had me worried, Did not know it was win7 related.
 
i wanted to do this board and and i5 650 will max bclk be 180 if so toooo bad thats way to low.
 
Put the DFI on the kill-a-watt for a day and watched the numbers...

Idle: 96 watts
Web Browsing: 102-112 watts
Gaming: 145 watts, with spikes up to 172 watts when the action got heavy in COD:MW2

My last matx rig based on an XFX motherboard, e8400, XFX GTX 260 and dual V. Raptors idled at 112 watts, 330-350 watts gaming...

I have a hard time believing an SSD and a 5770 would make such a difference over two V. Raptors and a GTX 260 on the top end...

Liquid Cool
 
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Liquid Cool said:
Put the DFI on the kill-a-watt for a day and watched the numbers...

Idle: 96 watts
Web Browsing: 102-112 watts
Gaming: 145 watts, with spikes up to 172 watts when the action got heavy in COD:MW2

My last matx rig based on an XFX motherboard, e8400, XFX GTX 260 and dual V. Raptors idled at 112 watts, 330-350 watts gaming...

I have a hard time believing an SSD and a 5770 would make such a difference over two V. Raptors and a GTX 260 on the top end...

Liquid Cool
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Yeah, they do suck up some serious power over the 5770. The DFI board has about the same power consumption as a mATX board.
 
Liquid Cool said:
Idle: 96 watts
Web Browsing: 102-112 watts
Gaming: 145 watts, with spikes up to 172 watts when the action got heavy in COD:MW2
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Your idle's kind of high.

Pretty similar specs to yours except that mine has a 5850 and a water pump and it's drawing only 76W at idle which is a lot lower than my other rig with the Asus Maximus III Gene.

Did you use an over sized PSU (i.e. 600W and above) as they aren't as efficient at low loads ? Mine's a Seasonic M12II 500W 80Plus Bronze.
 
elpibe10...

Thanks for pointing this out. I had to clear my CMOS once and I forgot to reset a few items in BIOS. I did get it down to 84 watts at idle after changing fan management options to auto instead of - full on. Still hunting around to see if I can shave a few more...

I'm using a Corsair HX 520. It's been a pretty good PSU...very quiet.

Liquid Cool
 
Liquid Cool said:
elpibe10...

Thanks for pointing this out. I had to clear my CMOS once and I forgot to reset a few items in BIOS. I did get it down to 84 watts at idle after changing fan management options to auto instead of - full on. Still hunting around to see if I can shave a few more...

I'm using a Corsair HX 520. It's been a pretty good PSU...very quiet.

Liquid Cool
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I guess the difference could be down to 2 things :

1. Mine's on 240V here. Is yours at 110V ?

2. Seasonic M12II 500W (80Plus Bronze) is very efficient at low load. According to the test report at 80Plus, it's 86% at 20% load. I believe the efficiency for Corsair HX520 is around 80% at the same load.
 
elpibe10...

I'm on 110 here in the States...

I went through the BIOS and made sure I had every setting exactly the way I think it should be set...I've been primarily using Intel(Bad Axe variants) motherboards for the last 4 years so I'm not used to extensive choices. Rather nice, especially on a small motherboard. I didn't expect much...

I'm happy with the wattage as it stands...I found 8 more watts in this product here that I plug my pc into...I didn't think it was taking up wattage and have never tested it. Once I plugged the pc directly into the wall, it was 76 watts. I have three of these, so I tested them all, they we're all drawing 8 watts. Interesting, I thought it was a passive unit.

<Click Here>

Coming from mostly full size pc's with multiple video cards to a short stint with an M-ATX set up, I now have a rig that burns up 150w or less and it's faster than I need for my use...not to mention, dead silent.

I'm all :D,

Liquid Cool
 
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I just bought this board and I'm thinking about sticking some small heatsinks on the power chips.

mip55t36.jpg


Those are the ones right?
 
Those ar the ones, however there are also some on the back. I wonder, if you're careful enough you might be able to stick something to the chassis itself and use that as a heatsink. Like a piece of aluminum or something.
 
Liquid Cool said:
elpibe10...

I'm on 110 here in the States...

I went through the BIOS and made sure I had every setting exactly the way I think it should be set...I've been primarily using Intel(Bad Axe variants) motherboards for the last 4 years so I'm not used to extensive choices. Rather nice, especially on a small motherboard. I didn't expect much...

I'm happy with the wattage as it stands...I found 8 more watts in this product here that I plug my pc into...I didn't think it was taking up wattage and have never tested it. Once I plugged the pc directly into the wall, it was 76 watts. I have three of these, so I tested them all, they we're all drawing 8 watts. Interesting, I thought it was a passive unit.

<Click Here>

Coming from mostly full size pc's with multiple video cards to a short stint with an M-ATX set up, I now have a rig that burns up 150w or less and it's faster than I need for my use...not to mention, dead silent.

I'm all :D,

Liquid Cool
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Your board draw is normal...don't worry about it :)
 
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I'd wait for it to be back in stock...newegg is the distributor for DFI in the US.
 
I bought mine at eWiz(SuperBiiz), with Bing and their coupon, it's about $20 cheaper...although currently out of stock there as well.

Liquid Cool
 
Nice review.

You say at the end of the article that the SG05/6's 300W PSU can handle this board and a 5850, but your test setup is with a 5770. Did you confirm that the PSU could handle, at full load, the DFI board and a 5850, or is that information second hand? I'm wondering if the PSU can handle an overclocked 860 to 150 bclk + 5850 card, without any instability whatsoever.
 
forumator said:
Nice review.

You say at the end of the article that the SG05/6's 300W PSU can handle this board and a 5850, but your test setup is with a 5770. Did you confirm that the PSU could handle, at full load, the DFI board and a 5850, or is that information second hand? I'm wondering if the PSU can handle an overclocked 860 to 150 bclk + 5850 card, without any instability whatsoever.
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I get people emailing me all the time about things and a number of them have overclocked with the 5850. I didn't have a 860 to test with but oh well. SilverStone has said the PSU is designed for it and since it is working for a number of folks I see no reason not to trust them :)

Apparently Silverstone advises against using other PSUs for the very reason that this was designed in a special way..probably something to do with the amp distribution...I dunno :).

Anywho, there will be more on this in my SG05 review coming out in a few weeks so no worries ;)

You all can email me questions too by the way...steve (at) sffclub (dot) com
 
DFI told me it is selling better than they thought
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.

That tells you how truly out of touch the current hardware sellers in the market are. Gone are the old days when it was acceptable for a PC to just be "another piece of furiture". Small is in, and it should be.

For most of the market ITX or DTX format is fine. Most casual users will have *at most* a vid card and a wireless card, although that wireless could be a USB dongle. At DTX case at least allows a dual slot vid card to plug into an ITX board.

For most everyone else, mATX is generally more than enough, even for dual vid card configurations. You have to be a hard core tinkerer or have very special needs to need more slots than what mATX provides.

I wish this board woudl have been available earlier. In october I travelled out of country and brought an matx i860 system in a cardboard box with me for work (no case).

That being said, the ITX/DTX format is still pretty weak for available cases and power supplies. Now you can get micro cases with very good airflow for very cheap (<$50). I really don't see that for ITX just yet.
 
Quick question for y'all. What the highest stable OC anyone's got with this board?
 
bnolsen said:
.

That tells you how truly out of touch the current hardware sellers in the market are. Gone are the old days when it was acceptable for a PC to just be "another piece of furiture". Small is in, and it should be.

For most of the market ITX or DTX format is fine. Most casual users will have *at most* a vid card and a wireless card, although that wireless could be a USB dongle. At DTX case at least allows a dual slot vid card to plug into an ITX board.

For most everyone else, mATX is generally more than enough, even for dual vid card configurations. You have to be a hard core tinkerer or have very special needs to need more slots than what mATX provides.

I wish this board woudl have been available earlier. In october I travelled out of country and brought an matx i860 system in a cardboard box with me for work (no case).

That being said, the ITX/DTX format is still pretty weak for available cases and power supplies. Now you can get micro cases with very good airflow for very cheap (<$50). I really don't see that for ITX just yet.
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It's hard to convince people that their $1.5k machine is not real world better than my $700 DFI mini-itx machine. Not everyone on these boards is a graphic designer :p
 
Sometimes ATX is kind of a definite plus, although there are some new cases out there that is helping to fix that. I bought ATX because I wanted my PC to be a home server and gaming all in one, and that just didn't work out so well.

I think having a few mATX computers or an mATX and a MITX case will be a much better solution.

I only say that because I have a lot of crap I hold on to, and that amount of stuff is only going to get larger. I might start archiving stuff off to disks but I don't really want to do that until I hop on board with the Blu Rays.

That new Zotac board is looking like my new home server to me. It looks like it has 6 SATA ports (whoa!) and that'll be a perfect match to that Lian Li PC-Q08. But that's getting off-topic...
 
Does the H55 chipset have any hinderances to performance or anything like that? I noticed the Zotac's socket is extremely close to the socket, but having Wifi and all those SATA ports is a definite plus.
 
DFI easily, because:
1) P55.
2) High overclocking/general BIOS abilities. Zotac and their past boards are known to have low-end features, including the 9300-ITX sitting in my garage.
3) As mentioned before, socket room.
4) Brand name & support. DFI (enthusiast) vs Zotac (who?).
 
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