NVIDIA's SLI: Part 1 - Motherboards

DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR - The Package

This is DFI's first socket 939 motherboard after the company choosing to skip development of a NForce3-based socket 939 motherboard. DFI are a company that are renowned for providing motherboards for the enthusiast with the introduction of its LANParty series boards during the last 18 months or so.

Main Feature Overview:

• Support for all AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 processors;
  
• NVIDIA NForce4 SLI MCP;
  
• 200MHz FSB;
  
• Phoenix AwardBIOS;
  
• 4x 184-pin DDR memory slots supporting up to 4GB;
  
• 2x PCI-Express x16 slots, 1x PCI-Express x4 slot, 1x PCI-Express x1 slot, 2x PCI expansion slots;
  
• 2x ATA133 ports, 4x SATA ports, 4x SATA II ports;
  
• 6 (plus 4)x USB 2.0 ports;
  
• 1 (plus 1)x IEEE 1394 Firewire ports;
  
• 8-Channel Realtek AC-97 sound chip with S/PDIF RCA based input & output ports;
  
• 1x NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet Controller & 1x Marvell Yukon Gigabit Ethernet Controller.

The Bundle

DFI's flagship LANParty motherboards have always featured a plethora of added extras, and this motherboard is no different in that respect.

The bundle includes an array of cables that should satisfy pretty much all users, whether you have got one or many hard drives in your system - the nF4 SLI-DR comes with four SATA cables, two ATA133 cables and a single connection floppy cable. These all follow the same colour scheme of the motherboard - a bright fluorescent yellow. On top of the cables, there is the usual selection of driver CD's and manuals.

As we have already mentioned, DFI take the time to add some extra spice to the bundle with additional extras that cry out to the gamer who wants to go travel to LAN parties in the form of a carrying strap - this does not fit on full tower cases, though. They have also added a UV reactive cable sleeving kit for the modder who wants to make this motherboard's UV-reactive glow a feature of their case modding exploits. There is also DFI's FrontX device that fits in to a spare 5 1/4" drive bay in the front of your case. It is a modular design that can be added to - the included parts are: a S/PDIF optical output port, an IEEE 1394 Firewire port, a 4 LED Diagnostic display panel, and an external SATA port.