The LanParty has a pair of PCIE x16 slots to accommodate a pair of nVidia SLI cards, a x1 and x4 PCIE slot, and a pair of conventional PCI slots. Between the x16 slots and behind the x1 slot are a set of jumpers to select single VGA or SLI mode. In SLI mode the cards will run at 2x8, and in single VGA mode the slot will run at 1x16. I've seen plenty of bashing about the use of jumpers to change the mode but I think it was a very smart decision. For one thing, if you do carry your computer around to various LAN parties you don't have to worry about a daughtercard falling out, which is what some other manufacturers use. Also, if you are running SLI it is highly unlikely that you would want to switch back to single mode very often.

Here are a couple of features that are targeted directly towards folks like us. If you are like me, my main rig is rarely completely put together and often runs on my Senfu bench outside the case. DFI included a power and reset switch directly on the board so tweakers don't have to use their modded adapters to power up or reset the board. Another seriously wicked overclocking feature is a jumper that allows for extreme RAM over volting. The BIOS allows you to take your RAM up to 3.1V, but by enabling the jumper you can take it all the way up to 4V. Whether or not your RAM survives that over voltage is on you, but DFI gives you the ability to take a chance. The RAM slots are color coded so you can easily select the right combo for DDR and it will take accept a 1 Gb stick in each slot so you can run up to 4 Gb if you wish. Slots 2 and 4 (the Orange slots) are used for DDR.

The chipset fan is made of aluminum and the fins are curved which helps in cooling by keeping the air on the fins a little bit longer than straight fins. The fan itself is a magnetic levitation fan which should cut down on chipset fan failures. The magnetic levitation method raises the fan off the sleeve when it rotates and reduces friction which means longer fan life. The apparatus itself has a very low profile due to necessity since it resides directly behind the graphics card slots. Pulling the chipset heatsink and looking underneath reveals that DFI decided to use a thermal pad instead of thermal grease. There is a foam square outside of the pad to provide stability for the heatsink. Usually I would scrape all that crap off and re-apply the thermal compound myself, but I was rather curious to see how well the DFI solution works so I left it as is. I don't know if the engineers planned it this way or it was pure dumb luck, but when the graphics cards are installed and seated fully, they just touch the top of the chipset fan. It doesn't seem to affect the fan at all, and the vid card is fully inserted, so it really isn't a problem.

On the back of the board there are plenty of things going on. DFI decided to continue to include standard PS2 ports for a mouse and keyboard, but I believe those will soon be disappearing from high end boards like this one. There are six, yes six USB 2.0 ports on the back with the option for another two via on board connectors. A Firewire port is present and another is available on board. The LanParty features dual Gigabit LAN controlled by a Vitesse VSC8201 and a Marvell 88E8001 for true high speed connection capability. There is also a SPD in/out interface.

The on board sound isn't really on board, it is provided by a daughtercard that plugs into a 14 pin connecter. This may be due to space constraints on the board since it has so many options, but I would like to think that it is to reduce EMI while reproducing sound. The module that DFI uses is a Karajan audio module which provides sound via a Realtek ALC850 chip. The mounting is stabilized with a plastic piece that slips over the bottom part of the module, then the whole piece plugs into the audio slot and two stabilizing holes on the board. The ALC850 is pretty common in today's boards and with a motherboard that is so over the top in other features, I would have liked to see DFI use a better audio option. Not to say that the 7.1 provided by the Karajan audio module is bad, it actually sounds pretty good, but audiophiles will elect to forego the module for their own PCI solution.