DFI - DFI ‘LANPARTY NFII Ultra’ nForce2 Ultra 400 Motherboard

When a new nForce2 motherboard is announced it’s fairly easy to guess which type of geekster will be counting the days and saving the pennies until it hits the shelves - hardcore gamer, budget gamer, enthusiast, system integrator, etc. For some manufacturers, features and performance alone aren’t enough to make you part with your hard-earned lolly. Many manufacturers pay a little more attention to the aesthetic qualties of their boards, be it the packaging, the colour of the PCB or even the design of the northbridge fan, anything to make their particular nF2 board stand out from the crowd. Well, here’s one nForce2 bad boy that will appeal to a broad spectrum of PC users. I say this because even my missus, a self-confessed technophobe (and proud of it too), says ‘wow, that looks cool, why doesn’t yours do that?’

Listed as having an nForce Ultra 400 chipset, the NFII ULTRA model from DFI’s LANPARTY Series is a black PCB’d beauty with green-coloured UV reactive slots and connectors. Not only are the specs impressive - 6 channel audio, AGP 8X support, SATA, RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 1.5, dual LAN, IEEE 1394 and USB 2.0 - there’s also a plethora of kit available including matching UV sensitive rounded IDE cables, a FrontX expansion box and PC Transpo carrier. Although there doesn’t appear to be any heatsink mounting holes around the CPU on pics of v1.0 boards, the overclocker is catered for with proprietory features such as the Ultra Red Diagnostic LED, Easy On/ Easy Touch (custom onboard power and reset switches) and Genie BIOS.

The good news is newegg is selling them for $159.99 USD, the not-so-good news is the ETA of April 21st is more than a whole day away…*

Click read more for the full specs, links and preview pics…

PROCESSOR
AMD Athlon XP 266/333/400MHz FSB
AMD Athlon 200/266MHz FSB
AMD Duron 200MHz FSB

CHIPSET
nVIDIA® nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset
- nForce2 SPP
- nForce2 MCP-T

SYSTEM MEMORY
Supports dual channel memory interface
Supports up to 3GB memory (unbuffered DIMM)
Uses PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266) or PC2700 (DDR333) DDR SDRAM DIMM, 2.5V type
Three 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets
L2 cache memory
- Duron processor: built-in 64KB Level 2 pipelined burst cache
- Athlon XP / Athlon processor: built-in 256KB Level 2 pipelined burst cache

BIOS
Award BIOS, Windows® 95/98/2000/ME/XP Plug and Play compatible
Genie BIOS provides:
- CPU/DRAM overclocking in 1MHz stepping
- CPU/AGP/DRAM/Chipset overvoltage
Supports SCSI sequential boot-up
Flash EPROM for easy BIOS upgrades
Supports DMI 2.0 function
4Mbit flash memory

ENERGY EFFICIENT DESIGN
Supports ACPI specification and OS Directed Power Management
Supports ACPI STR (Suspend to RAM) function
Wake-On-Events include:
- Wake-On-Keyboard/Mouse
- Wake-On-USB
- Wake-On-Ring (external modem)
- Wake-On-LAN
- RTC timer to power-on the system

DAMAGE FREE INTELLIGENCE
Monitors CPU/system temperature
Monitors 12V/5V/3.3V/CPU/VBAT(V)/5VSB(V)/DDR/AGP voltages
Monitors CPU/chassis fan speed
Automatic chassis fan on/off control - this prevents system overheat and prolongs fan life
Read back capability that displays temperature, voltage and fan speed
CPU Fan Protection function monitors the CPU fan during system boot-up
CPU Temperature Protection function monitors CPU temperature during system boot-up

AUDIO FEATURES
AC’97 2.2 S/PDIF extension compliant codec
Supports Microsoft® DirectSound/DirectSound 3D
AC’97 supported with full duplex, independent sample rate converter for audio recording and playback
6-channel audio output

LAN FEATURES
Uses ICS1893 Phy chip
- Integrated IEEE 802.3, 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX compatible PHY
Uses Realtek RTL8101L fast ethernet controller
- Integrated IEEE 802.3, 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX compatible PHY

ATA RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk)
RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 1.5
Two independent IDE channels support 4 hard disk drives (UDMA modes 33/66/100/133 or EIDE)
Supports PIO modes 0/1/2/3/4, DMA modes 0/1/2 and UDMA modes 0/1/2/3/4/5/6

PCI IDE INTERFACE
Supports ATA/33, ATA/66, ATA/100 and ATA/133 hard drives
UDMA Modes 3, 4, 5 and 6 Enhanced IDE (data transfer rate up to 133MB/sec.)
Bus mastering reduces CPU utilization during disk transfer
ATAPI CD-ROM, LS-120 and ZIP supported

SATA IDE INTERFACE
Uses Marvell 88i8030 chip
Supports one SATA (Serial ATA) interface which is compliant with SATA 1.0 specification
(1.5Gbps interface)

IEEE 1394A INTERFACE
Uses Agere FW803 Phy chip
Supports three 100/200/400 Mb/sec ports

PROCESSOR SOCKET
Socket A
Equipped with a switching voltage regulator that automatically detects 1.100V to 1.850V

ACCELERATED GRAPHICS PORT (A.G.P.)
Supports AGP 8x up to 2132MB/sec. and AGP 4x up to 1066MB/sec. bandwidth
for 3D graphics applications

REAR PANEL I/O PORTS
4 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
2 RJ45 LAN ports
2 DB-9 serial ports
1 DB-25 parallel port
1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
3 audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in

I/O CONNECTORS
1 connector for 2 additional external USB 2.0/1.1 ports
3 connectors for 3 external IEEE 1394a ports
1 connector for 1 external game/MIDI port
1 connector for external line-out and mic-in jacks
2 internal audio connectors (AUX-in and CD-in)
1 4-channel audio output connector
1 S/PDIF-in/out connector
1 connector for IrDA interface
2 RAID IDE connectors
1 connector for serial ATA interface
2 IDE connectors
1 floppy connector
2 ATX power supply connectors
1 Wake-On-LAN connector
3 fan connectors for CPU fan, chassis fan and second fan

EXPANSION SLOTS
1 AGP slot that supports 8x/4x AGP
5 PCI slots

PCB
4 layers, ATX form factor
30.5cm (12″) x 24.5cm (9.64″)

LANPARTY NF II ULTRA @ DFI

DFI Motherboard for AMD Processors, “LAN Party” Model NFII Ultra Retail
LANPARTY Motherboard Series
Supported CPU: AMD Athlon XP 266/333/400MHz FSB & AMD Duron 200MHz FSB
Chipset: nVIDIA® nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset
FSB: 400/333/266 FSB
RAM: Dual Channel DDR266/333 max 3GB
IDE: ATA 133/100/66/33 up to 4 Devices
Slots: 1xAGP 8X and 5xPCI slots
Ports: 2xPS2,2xCOM,1xLPT,2xRJ45 & Audio Ports
Onboard Audio: AC’97 2.2 S/PDIF
Onboard LAN: Dual ICS1893 Phy chip/Realtek RTL8101L 10/100mbs Controllers
Onboard SATA: 88i8030 chip 1 Channel
Onboard RAID: RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 1.5 up to 4 Devices
Special Feature: RAID1.5 DUAL LAN Genie BIOS, Live Update, UV Sensitive, Round Corner PCB
Package comes w/ PC Transpo, FronTX and WinDVD SW

$159.99

LAN Party Model NFII Ultra Retail @ newegg

LAN Party Specifications @ LANParty
LAN Party Image Bank @ LANPARTY
LAN Party NFII Ultra Preview Pics @ OverclockZone

[Cheers to Silly and StinkNazzBreff for the links]