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ASUS's A8N-SLI Deluxe vs DFI's LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D
[Abstract]
ThoughtsThe performance of both boards considered, you'd be surprised that two boards with the same feature sets could turn out so differently. The ASUS is the board for the user that wants a ...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D | DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D | | CPU Support | All Socket 939 Athlon 64 and Athlon FX processors | | Memory Support | 184-pin DDR, 4 slots, 2GB maximum, DDR400, no ECC | | Core Logic | NVIDIA nForce4 SLI | | Audio | Realtek ALC850, 8-channel from nForce4 SLI AC'97 feed
Optical and coax digital output on I/O backplane | | AGP | None | | PCI Express Graphics | 2 x PEG16X electrical slots, 8 + 8 remap, nForce4 | | PCI Express | 1 x PCI Express 1X electrical slot, 1 x PCI Express 2X electrical slot, nForce4 | | PCI Conventional | 2 x PCI 2.2 32-bit, 33MHz, nForce4 | | Network Connectivity | Simply Vitesse VSC8201 GigE Phy. NVIDIA nForce4 with Firewall
Marvel 88E8001 discrete GigE with Phy. 32-bit PCI PCI Conventional
Both on ATX I/O backplane | | Firewire | VIA VT6307/a> FireWire400, 32-bit PCI PCI Conventional
1 6-pin on ATX I/O backplane, header for one more | | USB | 10 USB2.0 FullSpeed ports, 6 backplane, headers for 4 more NVIDIA nForce4 | | IDE | 4-device, 2-port ATA133-able on mainboard nForce4, RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, JBOD support | | SATA | 4 ports on mainboard nForce4; RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, JBOD support
| | Other I/O | PS/2 for keyboard and mouse on ATX backplane
Floppy port on mainboard
3.5mm jacks for 8-channel I/O on Karajan snap-on audio module, containing CODEC | | Size | Full ATX, 9-hole mount, 12"x9.4.5" (HxW) |
It's mostly similar to the ASUS in terms of specification, but there a few key differences. Small differences are made up by the use of a different physical layer chip for the on-bridge NVIDIA networking controller and a different chip for the FireWire400. Both use the same PCI-based Gigabit Ethernet controller chip for the second port. On the DFI they couldn't escape making it PCI-based, with no spare lanes of PCI Express, as you'll see.
The larger differences lie in the PCI Express slots. DFI uses a system of jumpers to remap the lane bundles to the slots, rather than a continuity connector card like the ASUS. DFI's approach affects the capability of the peripheral slots too, of which there's one 1X slot and one 4X slot.
In single-GPU mode, the topmost slot (PCIE2, 4X electrical) has one bundle mapped to it, the next slot (PCEI1, PEG16X electrical) has a full sixteen lanes, the next (PCIE3, 1X electrical) has its full one lane and the last slot (PCIE4, PEG16X electrical) has two lanes mapped to it. So from top to bottom, in single-GPU mode, your lane allowance is 1-16-1-2 (20 total).
In SLI mode, the topmost slot gets 4X, the next (PEG16X) slot gets 8X, the next slot (in between the two PEG16X electrical slots) is unmapped (sensible if you're running two graphics boards around the slot, really), and the final slot (the second PEG16X) gets its 8X. So that's 4-8-0-8 (20 total).
So unlike ASUS, DFI are clever and let you get access to all 20 available PCI Express lane bundles on their SLI boards, in both modes. You can't use the slot in between the PEG16X slots in SLI mode (a pain if you switch SLI on and off as needed, as I tend to do), but that's a fine tradeoff. So the mainboard has appeal even for the non-SLI user, due to its PCI Express slot layout and lane allocation. There's 2GB/sec to that top slot in single-GPU mode. It'll all make proper sense when you see the board on the next page.
There's no Sil3114 on the SLI-D, like the ASUS, but it's present on the SLI-DR version (it's the only difference between the two DFI variants). Otherwise, everything that's on the ASUS in terms of features (even though they might be implemented by different chips) is on the DFI board too.
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