AM2 + NF4 Platform, The Product Review of DFI Infinity ULTRA II-M2

[windwithme]

After AMD announced its new product, AM2 processors to the market on 2006/5/23,
NVIDIA also released NF5 550/570/590 chipsets to the market.


Comparing NF4 and NF5 platform,
NF4 platform is equipped with 2 IDE/4 SATA connections, and Socket 939 with DDR.
NF5 platform is equipped with 1 IDE/6 SATA connections, and Socket AM2 with DDR II.
NF5 590 products come with new DRAM EPP technology, but we see no big change in other aspects


DFI lately announced its new low cost AM2 NF4 motherboard solution to media.
Following, we will show you what this new AM2 could do on NF4 platform.

Now let us take a look of this new DFI NF Ultra II-M2:







The lower left hand corner of this motherboard:
This new product is equipped with NF4 Ultra chipset, but it come with two of PCIE slots.
Does that mean users could modify this motherboard to SLI mode?








The lower right hand corner of this motherboard:
Now the low cost products line “Infinity” also started to have built-in Power/Reset button. This will make any type of test much easier without chassis.









The upper right hand corner of this motherboard,
NF4 has two built-in IDE channels, in my personal opinion, it is more sufficient than only one built-in IDE channels on NF5 chipset.
Most of the capacitors near CPU are Japanese made; some of small capacitors were made by OST.

[windwithme]

PCIE express pipeline setting still use the well known unique Jumper blocks.
And this time, DFI also put the Chinese words of “Infinity” on PCB printing.









Rear IO connectors:









Test environment
CPU:AMD AM2 Althon64 X2 4800+
MB: DFI INFINITY ULTRAII-M2
DRAM:Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3
VGA:ELSA 6800Ultra
HD:Seagate 7200.7 80GB
POWER:AcBel 550W
Cooler:Tower112


DDR II 800 1T 3-3-3-9 2.1V stable,
AM2’s performance on NF4 platform is just as good as it could be on NF5.
The new hardware monitoring utility.
Chipset temperature over 60 degrees? The temperature used to be just over 50 degrees on Lanparty NF4 series.
We were told Infinity Ultra II- M2 thermal sensor is located much closer to chipset, which means the temperature reading would be more accurate.
But it seems both NVIDIA NF4/NF5 platforms are quit “hot”.







On this below 100 U.S dollar motherboard, Infinity Ultra II-M2,
We saw a trend of improvement on many aspects, including better design, better overclock capability, and better material selection. It is obviously a great news to market competition.


Introduction about BIOS setting, SLI modification and 3D ultimate performance of this new product will be the contents in our next review.

[windwithme]

BIOS Setting Introduction:
Genie BIOS Setting Page:







On this page,
The PCI eXpress Configuration is changed to SLI 8x + 8x









CPU FSB:
Range from 200Mhz to 450Mhz







0.800V~1.850V
CPU Voltage:
Range from 0.800V to 1.850V

[windwithme]

DDRII support from 400, 533, 677 to 800








1.8~2.5V
DRAM Voltage
Range from 1.8V to 2.5V.








DFI’s strength on BIOS Setting:
DRAM Configuration







More setting on DRAM Configuration.

[windwithme]

PC Health Status page:
Hardware monitoring function and programmable thermal control options.





Test Environment
CPU:AMD AM2 Althon64 X2 4800+
MB: DFI INFINITY ULTRAII-M2
DRAM:Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3
VGA:ELSA 7300GT SLI
HD:Seagate 7200.7 80GB
POWER:AcBel 550W
Cooler:Tower112


DDRII 900 CL3 4-3-9 2T 2.5V
DDRII 900 CL3 4-3-9 2T 2.5V
The type of tight setting normally could only be done on Intel platform.











DDRII 1149 CL4 4-4-12 2.5V stable.








DRAM bandwidth reached 11213MB/s in our test.
DDRII reached extremely high frequency and bandwidth also performed with excellent result.

[windwithme]

3DMARK2003&7300GT SLI

After the completion of SLI modification,
The performance of 3DMARK 2003 with 7300GT is showed below:










Strength:
1. AM2 M/B with less than 100 U.S. dollars of price.
2. The potential possibility of SLI modification.
3. Various BIOS overclock setting options.
4. DRAM bandwidth and 3D performance
5. NF4 built-in with 2 IDE channels, and M/B also built-in with Power and Reset buttons.
6. Stable on both DDRII 1150 CL4 2T and DDRII 800 CL3 1T.









Drawback:
1. The speed of chipset fan is too high, chipset cooler should be replaced.
2. OST capacitors should be changed to Japanese made capacitors.







This DFI NF4 AM2 motherboard,
Not only comes with superb overclock capability but also make SLI possible by DIY modification, plus less than 100 U.S. dollar of its sweet price.
All of those make this AM2 M/B a perfect budget solution apart from other NVIDIA NF5 platform M/Bs.