DFI has positioned its connectivity very well, with the pin-outs all along the base, the six SATA ports angled facing outwards at the edge, the power connectors in good places and the four memory slots just far enough above the PCI-Express card to get DIMMs in and out just fine.
In typical DFI fashion, orange and yellow on black is again this season's style for the JR (and DK) series, giving everything a colour co-ordinated look, while retaining some necessary differentiation in memory slots, USB etc. The front panel audio pin-outs are plain black, and can be confused with the RS232 series pin-out below it, but they are labelled on the PCB and in the manual.
DFI also includes onboard power and reset buttons in the corner, but due to the lack of space we're missing the useful two digit POST LEDs. There's no reset CMOS button, but DFI does include a normal jumper on the board and it attempts to include an easy to use connector on the rear I/O as well.
Unfortunately, instead of being a cheap and simple switch it's actually a normal jumper instead, that means a quick flick of the fingers is out of the question. Instead, you have to get your head around the back of the case to see which pins are which, essentially defeating the point when it comes to ease of use.
Click to enlarge
With one Gigabit Ethernet controller and Realtek ALC885 High-Definition audio, in some ways the DFI matches the recent Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R we reviewed in terms of basic features. These provide enough for most of us, but the advantage the Gigabyte board has is plenty of PCI expansion space. The DFI lacks this with two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lanes hard locked to x8 each, so even if you use a single x16 card in the one socket it'll only run at x8 speeds. This is because, again, of the limitation in space - there simply isn't enough for the switching hardware and routing without going to extra layers and making the board uncompetitive because it's far too expensive.
Click to enlarge
There's a single PCI-Express x1 lane that's unusable with a dual height graphics card and just a PCI slot left, some people may find upgradability limited. However, there's plenty of spare USB ports and like all MicroATX boards it requires more planning, especially if you want to use it as a HTPC slash powerful gaming PC under the TV.
Click to enlarge
In typical DFI fashion, orange and yellow on black is again this season's style for the JR (and DK) series, giving everything a colour co-ordinated look, while retaining some necessary differentiation in memory slots, USB etc. The front panel audio pin-outs are plain black, and can be confused with the RS232 series pin-out below it, but they are labelled on the PCB and in the manual.
DFI also includes onboard power and reset buttons in the corner, but due to the lack of space we're missing the useful two digit POST LEDs. There's no reset CMOS button, but DFI does include a normal jumper on the board and it attempts to include an easy to use connector on the rear I/O as well.
Unfortunately, instead of being a cheap and simple switch it's actually a normal jumper instead, that means a quick flick of the fingers is out of the question. Instead, you have to get your head around the back of the case to see which pins are which, essentially defeating the point when it comes to ease of use.
Click to enlarge
With one Gigabit Ethernet controller and Realtek ALC885 High-Definition audio, in some ways the DFI matches the recent Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R we reviewed in terms of basic features. These provide enough for most of us, but the advantage the Gigabyte board has is plenty of PCI expansion space. The DFI lacks this with two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lanes hard locked to x8 each, so even if you use a single x16 card in the one socket it'll only run at x8 speeds. This is because, again, of the limitation in space - there simply isn't enough for the switching hardware and routing without going to extra layers and making the board uncompetitive because it's far too expensive.
Click to enlarge
There's a single PCI-Express x1 lane that's unusable with a dual height graphics card and just a PCI slot left, some people may find upgradability limited. However, there's plenty of spare USB ports and like all MicroATX boards it requires more planning, especially if you want to use it as a HTPC slash powerful gaming PC under the TV.
Click to enlarge
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