DFI nForce4: SLI and Ultra for Mad Overclockers
by Wesley Fink on February 5, 2005 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
DirectX 9 Gaming Performance
How much praise do you heap on a board that tops all the DirectX 9 benchmarks and also tops every overclocking test that we have run? The DFI nForce4 boards are both exceptional performers at stock as well as incredible overclockers.
Those looking for SLI benchmarks should take a look at test results in Morphing nForce4 Ultra into nForce4 SLI. For SLI to have a major impact on gaming performance, the driver needs to be optimized for SLI. In the Ultra to SLI article, we have compared 3 games that are supported by the current SLI driver, and all 3 show tremendous performance gains with SLI. We are currently working on an SLI roundup that will compare performance of all the current nForce4 SLI boards. That roundup should be posted next week.
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LordConrad - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
It's been a year or two since the last time I researched motherboard features, so maybe I'm out of the loop. Isn't it unusual for a consumer level motherboard to offer RAID-5? This is certainly the first such board I've heard of. I wonder if the RAID-5 support is hardware or software based.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
#17"Few questions can you fit say a x1 pci-e card into a x4 pci-e slot??? "
Yes you can.
eetnoyer - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
#18 Would you consider a 100m sprinter who broke the old world record by 8% to have demolished the record? What you have to realized, is that these boards are performing at the very edge of what's possible today. While a compact car exceeding the Chevy Cobalt's top speed by 8% would make everybody yawn, a car that exceeds the Bugatti Veyron's top speed (252mph) by 8% would be pretty remarkable.Irregardless, this looks to be a very respectable board whether you want to OC or not. For the features that are on the board, $140 for an nforce4 board isn't all that bad. And just like the S754 board, I'm sure the price will come down significantly after a little while.
Trente - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Man, I remember we used to laugh at DFI back in year 2000; How was it possible for a low-end maker to became the best brand for all die hard overclockers? someone should write a book about it...Manzelle - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
*yawn*Where are the AGP/PCIe boards...better yet, where is DFI's nForce3 939 board...
arfan - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
1. why another board maker don't try to make motherboard likes DFI Ultra have ? Because it's a big oppurtunity to buy Ultra than SLI2. What do u think Nvidia do to make this board DFI Ultra not functionally likes SLI ? Just tweak driver or likes AMD in the past, change chipset in their factory ? so people can't do likes anand do.
Burbot - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I do not like this phrase from Final Words:We reached 318x9 at 1T Command Rate - performance that demolished our previous best of 295 1T with this same memory.
This is a gain of 8% over old result. Would you consider a car with maximum speed 8% higher than competitor model to be "demolishing" it? I don't think so. I consider this to be a "fair improvement" over previous result, and not a "demolishing" one.
1q3er5 - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Few questions can you fit say a x1 pci-e card into a x4 pci-e slot???4 volts for RAM but your going to need active cooling, and how do you manage that.
Bozo Galora - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I dont see what all the shouting is aboutSure its a nice board, but, unless you are an EXTREME overclocker the NF3 is plenty close enough, and the big surprise here is the Epox
johnson - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I was hoping for a look at results of other memory as well, besides only the ocz ddr400. Perhaps the upcoming round up will use various memory sticks.