DFI LanParty Pro875B (Intel 875P Canterwood) Motherboard Review
Expansion options
On the board, there is an additional HPT372N RAID controller made by HighPoint.
As a result, the user can plug in 4 more ParallelATA hard disks and merge them into RAID arrays of levels 0,1, 0+1 and 1.5 A bit more details about the RAID 1.5. So, if we set up a RAID array of level 1.5 of two disks, then during recording the data is written to disks by turns (i.e., we gain an write speed advantage). For that, half the capacity of each disk is used. The other halves are used for duplication (mirroring) of data, which increases the reliability of data storage. In other words, the operation principle of RAID 1.5 fully coincides with the RAID 0+1, but instead of four hard disks merely two are used.
The board also supports only two SerialATA channels served by the south bridge. Note that the board offers an ICH5R chip, which allows to merge SerialATA disks into a RAID array of level 0.
Along with this, the ICH5 supports eight USB 2.0 ports, four of which are on the rear panel, with 4 more plugged in via headers (only two ports for the FrontX panel come in the bundle). But DFI engineers decided not to implement support for the Firewire. On the one hand, it is right: Firewire devices are run by few users, but extra money for an additional controller is taken by all hi-end motherboard manufacturers. And this will last until support for the IEEE-1394 becomes "shareware", that is, implemented at the chipset level (e.g. in nVidia MCP-T/S). On the other hand, the Firewire controller costs petty dollars, saving on which is senseless with the price of the board as high as $150.
Then, DFI LanParty Pro875B features integrated 6-channel audio based on the CMI9739A codec.
And before the AGP slot there is an Intel 82547 LAN controller with support for speed as fast as 1000 Mbit/s (or Gigabit Ethernet).
This controller is connected to a separate CSA (Communication Streaming Architecture) bus which allows increasing the real data transmission speed (the bandwidth = 266 MB/s).
Now take a look at the board's rear panel.
Note that instead of the COM2 port there are SP-DIF input and output on the panel. And the COM2 port is not supported by the board at all.
Traditionally, here is the jumpers diagram:
There are four jumpers on the DFI LanParty Pro875B: the JP5 is used for clearing the CMOS (near the south bridge), the JP1 - for waking up the system on keyboard pulse; the JP2 and JP6 - for waking up the system on pulses from USB devices.
As regards the additional features, they have been inherited from competitors. In particular, the idea of fitting the "Power" and "Reset" buttons straight on the board was taken from Abit (as an addition to CASE connectors).
Unfortunately, Abit recently gave up the plans to implement this feature. But button like these can be seen on boards by other manufacturers - e.g. Shuttle AN50R (nForce3 150)
Another inherited technology (this time, from MSI) is meant to simplify the system boot-up diagnostics. For that, to the J30 connector it is necessary to connect a unit with four LEDs (comes in the bundle) which light up in certain combinations (the decoding of the combinations is presented in the user's guide). Therefore, the board can display 16 various system start-up combinations. In my view, 7-stage POST indicators (like those on Abit or Epox boards) are far more convenient to the user/assembly operator because they are able keeping track of more errors (and do not depend on the orientation of the LED unit :) .
By the way, during the boot-up (with POST) the board is detecting the plugged in IDE devices for surprisingly long time.
On the other hand, while it is going on you can see the processor's clock speed value, the temperature and the cooler speed. There is also information on whether the HyperThreading is enabled or not, in which mode the memory is running (single-channel/dual-channel), as well as the frequency.
Now on to the BIOS settings.
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