DFI LanParty Pro875B (Intel 875P Canterwood) Motherboard Review

DFI LanParty Pro875B
Chipset	Intel 875P Canterwood
Processor	Pentium 4 FSB 400/533/800MHz Celeron Northwood FSB 400MHz HyperThreading
Memory	PC2100/PC2700/PC3200
HDD	2x UltraDMA/100 RAID - 2x UltraDMA/133 2x SerialATA(RAID)
Additional	Audio AC'92 v2.2 8 USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet
Price:	$155

The sector of high-end motherboards is especially attractive among manufacturers. It's no secret that profit from sales of motherboards priced higher than $100 is not significant (as per the measures of IT industry). So the justified increase of prices up the the 150-200$ mark allows companies to gain much more essential profits.

There are its own leaders on the market, as well as there are many companies aspiring to join them. For example, Asus motherboards have firmly fixed their grounds in the hi-end sector. In most cases, high prices implying excellent quality as well as dignified reputation of the leading motherboard manufacturer imparts the company products a higher status. Nevertheless, Asus is also experiencing some pressure from the part of competitors and has to enrich the package bundle (e.g., a WiFi module that comes as a bundle item for Asus K8V Deluxe). Another example is Gigabyte who offers a line of custom-designed motherboards with support for the DPS technology (see the review Gigabyte K8NNXP). And one more classical representative of the high-end is the MAX product line by Abit. Each board of this series offers the OTES cooling system (e.g. - KV8-MAX3).

Even Elitegroup (ECS) whose original estate has been value-sector products has attempted to enter the sector of expensive motherboards. In particular, the Photon line of motherboards was produced that stands out with its richer package bundle, as well as overclocking tools (e.g., Elitegroup Photon AF1).

Among the second-rank manufacturers, it's difficult to distinguish any high-end products. Nevertheless, these companies do not abandon attempts to have a bite of this rich pie. For instance, Chaintech started sales of the Zenith series boards (as well as Apogee - e.g. Chaintech 7VJL ) which stand out with their rich package bundle. The main idea behind it is this: to maximize the package bundle, build up marketing activities and release a product with the overstated price.

That is the way DFI followed through producing a new line of boards dubbed LanParty. As you can judge by the name, boards of this series are aimed mostly at gamers who join various computer parties where the exterior of the system plays a leading part. No matter how good a person is at games, but folks will always flock around his PC pointing at the hardware with envy :) . And there is indeed something to point at: LanParty series motherboards offer smart coloring that brightly gleams in the ultraviolet.

In ultraviolet: green DIMM slots glittering, and the greed IDE connector - not

It's a pity we got only a poor 25W light bulb at hand ( taken from SU-7 Fitter Fighter :), but even such a lamp proved that DFI justified our highlighting expectations. In particular, gleaming are the orange IDE connectors and AGP/PCI slots, green DIMM slots, the plastic frame of the processor socket and a battery pad. Also, with blue illumination gleaming are varied stickers (e.g. that with the serial number). But the green IDE connectors are not shining - this is easily on the photo.

DFI LanParty Pro875B Specifications

Package

The board is packaged in a huge box with an image of the potential buyer :) .

Package bundle

• Motherboard
• 1x software & drivers CD;
• 1x third-party software CD;
• Two rounded ATA-100 cables, one rounded FDD cable;
• Two SerialATA cables + a power adapter (2 connectors);
• User's Guide + Quick Setup Manual in English;
• Additional description of the board's features + description of CMOS Reloaded;
• 5-inch FrontX panel + two USB 2.0 ports, audio outputs and a diagnostic unit;
• A bag to carry around - PC Transport;
• A header with a GAME-port;
• A LanParty logo sticker + a DFI logo sticker;
• A pack of additional jumpers;
• A cap for the rear panel;
• 1x floppy disk with HTP372N RAID controller drivers;
• 1x ICH5R drivers floppy.

The list of package bundle items is extensive, and of course all this takes up much space. The rounded cables are packaged in one box, the bag to carry the CPU around in another, and the FrontX panel with the related cables in the third. All the remaining items are packed in the fourth box, with the motherboard itself in the fifth. All the five boxes are packed in one big box with a plastic handle.

Let's start with the most unusual: the bag to carry the computer around. Clearly, if the motherboard is positioned for LAN party fanciers, this thing will be very useful.

In fact, the bag proved to be very convenient: you can carry both Standard ATX cases and Full ATX cases (the length of the belts is flexible). You can carry the case in one hand (a very convenient handle) and over the shoulder (less convenient belt). Moreover, you can use the PC Transport as a backpack.

Finally, the bag has special pockets for various stuff (keyboard, mouse, cables).

Now a few words on the FrontX additional panel.

With this thing, the user can bring additional USB ports, audio outputs as well as a diagnostic unit over to the front panel of the PC housing. Especially note that the panel has removable plugs, which makes it possible to select the number and position of the ports to your taste.

The panel is equipped with a closing lid which hides the ports if they are not used. Therefore, the exterior of the system is not spoiled.

What is bad about it is that some systems may be of different color, and the FrontX panel will strongly stand out.

Now look at the rounded cables which are very well made.

By the way, the cable should also shine in the ultraviolet, but on my systems they didn't.

The remaining contents of the boxes are standard: two SerialATA cables and the related power adapter with two connectors, a cap to the rear panel and a header with a GAME port.

Besides, you can find a quick system assembly guide in the box.

As regards the complete user's guide, it is divided into two parts: "User manual" and "Features". The first brochure gives a description of all the connectors and jumpers, as well as the board's specifications in several languages (including Russian - a keen interest of DFI to our market :). The second brochure gives a very brief description of utilities and third-party software, as well as a RAID array setup & administration guide.

Unfortunately, none of the booklets gave any description of the BIOS settings. So we had to check the quality and depth of description with the *.pdf file downloaded from the company website. The manual has nothing to complain about: all the sections are written very well and competently.

Of the third-party software, InterVideo: WinDVD and WinRIP stands out (the same is in the package bundle to Asus motherboards of the "Gold" series). On the master CD, there is a complete pack of drivers, DFI utilities for BIOS update (RadarSyn and WinFlash), as well as McAfee VirusScan. The board also comes bundled with two 3" floppies containing drivers to HighPoint and ICH5R RAID controllers.

If you look at the price of the board and compare it with the prices for separate components, then you can see that the package bundle is worth the price tag. See for yourselves: in a retail shop, such a carrying bag costs about $35, plus $10 for a panel, and $15 more for three cables. In the total, the price of the board makes up about $90-100, which is cheap enough for a board built on the expensive i875P Canterwood chipset.

Another thing is that if the board appeals to the user, the extra components (PC Transport, FrontX) are not necessary. Then you would have to buy them separately elsewhere to present your friends :-)).

And the last note about the package bundle: what is really missing is the ultraviolet lamp with a chuck to plug in to the PSU. When I took the board to my hands, I was absolutely unaware where to look for such lamps, how much they are and where to plug them in.

Finally, here comes the following conclusion: the package bundle can be rated at "4.5/5". Also note that if your PC case has no additional USB ports, then to implement all the ports of the DFI LanParty Pro875B board, you would have to buy a header for three USB ports.

DFI LanParty Pro875B Board Features

The PCB design has no special issues to complain about: the latches for the memory slots are not blocked by the video card, and the main and additional power connectors are positioned in a good way. The only issue may come up when a long expansion card is installed in the last PCI slot. Then it would be uncomfortable to the assembly operator to plug the cables of an additional RAID controller thereto (not the most common combination :).

The connectors to plug in IDE cables are positioned in a more or less convenient way. Besides, close to each important component there is a distinct marking ("PATA1, PATA2" - for the same connectors).

The board offers 4 connectors to plug in fans: the CpuFan is reserved for a processor cooler and is positioned near the DIMM slots, the ChassisFan is positioned near the FDD connector, and the SecondFan near the PCI5 slot. The last connector (ChipFan) is meant for a fan on the chipset and is positioned near the processor socket (quite a strange choice of place).

However, the cooling of the north bridge is made passive.

The radiator orientation matches the first versions of the reference design. As a result, conflicts may come up when video cards with massive radiators on the reverse side of the board are installed. Some time ago, Asus made such a mistake (see the review on P4C800 Deluxe), but fixed is afterwards.

Under the North Bridge there are 4 DIMM slots, all partitioned into two groups, with two slots in each group. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.

To enable the dual-channel mode, memory modules have to be fitted into different channels. To accentuate this, the memory slots are colored differently (so that the user fills the slots of the same color). The maximum memory capacity makes up 4GB; and ECC memory modules are allowed.

Once voltage is applied to the board, a red LED positioned between PCI4 and PCI5 lights up. But when the system starts up (or hibernating), then one more LED is on - near the memory slots.

There is an AGP Pro slot with a latch installed onboard. Only 1.5V (or 0.8V) AGP 4x/8x video cards are allowed into the slot.

Engineers at DFI fitted quite a smart latch. But using it is quite awkward - the motherboard "grabs hold" of the video card too tight :).

Besides, there are five PCI slots on the DFI LanParty Pro875B motherboard.

As we already noted, the slots are colored with special paint that glitters when exposed to ultraviolet.

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.

BIOS

The BIOS of DFI LanParty Pro875B is built on the Award BIOS Phoenix version.

First, look into the section dealing with the memory latency timings. Here, the major parameter is "System Bandwidth". It is intended for the automatic setting of latency timings and by default selected is the value that best suits the type of memory used in your system.

However, in practice the board sometimes makes mistakes and sets sometimes to risky latency timings. In particular, that was the case with the Corsair TwinX PC3200 memory. So the most correct way for system set-up is adjust the latency timings manually. For that, set the "System Bandwidth" to "Disable". The user can adjust the "SDRAM Cas Latency" and "Precharge to Active"(Trp), "Active to precharge" (Tras) and "Active to CMD"(Trcd).

As regards the selection of memory operation speeds, no issues about that: the user gets access to both synchronous and asynchronous operation modes.

Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring.

The board displays information collected from a standard set of sensors: the main voltages, temperatures of the processor and system. Besides, the board keeps track of the rotational speeds of three fans.

Finally, let's look into the CMOS Reloaded technology which allows storing four absolutely different parameters sets which can be easily adjusted through a key press.

For example, you can make two profiles: "Normal" and "Overclocked", respectively with the nominal settings and overclocking parameters. This feature is especially useful if you replace memory quite frequently, and if the computer is operated by several users.

Overclocking and stability

At overclocking, DFI motherboards have never been a "smashing hit". However, such features were present in full. Running ahead, I must admit the board DFI Pro875B LanParty keeps on with this tradition.

All the overclocking options are gathered in the "Genie Bios Setting" section.

Here they are in brief. First, the board allows adjusting the system bus speed within 100/200 MHz (for Celeron) to 400 MHz in 1 MHz increments.

Very convenient is that as the FSB speed varies, a new processor clock speed is displayed in the special box. The same occurs when adjusting the multiplier, however this feature is accessible for merely a small number of Pentium 4 engineering samples (on other processors, the multiplier is locked).

Secondly, the user can adjust the processor voltage (Vcore) within a very wide range: - within 1.3625V (nominal for the Prescott core) to 1.9750V in 0.0025V/0.025V/0.05V increments.

The next item is about adjusting the memory voltage (Vmem). The advanced user can raise the Vmem from the nominal 2.6V up to 2.9V (in 0.1V increments).

Besides, we get a useful function of raising the AGP bus voltage, which comes in handy.

The variation range is between 1.5V (nominal) and 1.8V in 0.1V increments.

At increased speeds, it is important that the PCI and AGP bus speeds not depart from the standard 33 and 66 MHz, respectively, if possible. It is primarily important for correct HDD operation (and much more important for motherboards having support for RAID). The DFI LanParty Pro875B board is able setting a fixed clock speed on the PCI and AGP buses. This parameter is adjustable within 33/66 to 48/96 MHz, respectively.

Another feature is the fixing of SerialATA frequency at 100 MHz. It is important since the bus is very sensitive to frequency variations. Hard disks with such interface are often an obstacle to further overclocking.

We are now moving on to the most exciting part - the factual overclocking. At that, the board ranked a bit higher than the average: stable operation was fixed at FSB=275 MHz.

Remember that in the overclocking tests we use a very successful P4 2.4C specimen able to run at FSB>300 MHz and at Vcore =1.65V (see the review on Abit IC7-MAX3)

The power converter uses a 3-phase power scheme, in which there are eight 2200 mkF and four 1500 mkF capacitors.

Note the radiators on the MOSFETS, which improves cooling at increased loads. By the "increased load" we can safely imply "using Prescott", because the existing processor revisions with this core impose high requirements to the power converter. In any case, DFI LanParty Pro875B meets the VRM 10.0 and Prescott FMB1.5 specifications (for details of these specifications, see the review on Gigabyte S655TX Ultra), which allows using Prescott processors of clock speeds up to 3.4 GHz.

Resume: the board offers a quite good set of overclocking tools. But anyway it is unable to make the most - for hardcore overclocking, look for a motherboard of other manufacturers.

Performance

As contenders to our board in question, I took Asus P4P8X built on the dual-channel Intel 865P chipset (and flashed with the BIOS from P4P800 Deluxe), and Abit IC7-G based on the i875P chipset, and Abit AI7 (i865PE).

In our test configuration, we used the following hardware:

The memory was running synchronously with the processor bus (i.e., the speed = 200 MHz, which is equivalent to DDR400). Besides, the following latency timings were set:

• CAS Latency = 2T
• Trp = 3T
• Tras = 6T
• Trcd = 3T

Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.

Now on to the gaming benchmarks.

Quake 3


Serious Sam


Comanche


3dmark

Conclusion: DFI LanParty Pro875B demonstrated a bit less performance level than other high-end boards. But this fact does not affect the attraction of this product, because performance is not the key criterion in choosing a motherboard. More important is the stability, compatibility to various expansion cards, memory compatibility, and a selection of extra features. Performance may change (towards increase or decrease) once a new BIOS version is released.

Final Words

On the whole, the board left a good impression: if offers balanced expansion options and good performance level, as well as good operational stability.

Of the merits of the board, note the rich package bundle which includes a bag for carrying the CPU around (PCTransport), smart 5" FrontX panel with audio outputs, USB ports and a diagnostic system. Also note the unique coloring of the board which glitters when exposed to ultraviolet. The same coloring is made for the nice rounded cables. Like in 95% of the other cases, these extra components are given to the user not for free, but with money (and without a wholesale discount :).

Of the functional peculiarities of the board, note the POST codes diagnostic system, built-in Power and Reset buttons, as well as the CMOS Reloaded feature which allows storing 4 BIOS setting profiles.

As regards the overclocking tools, they are quite powerful. However, the board is unable to make the most of the processor and memory.

It's worth noting that the price of DFI LanParty Pro875B was originally set to $200. But currently some shops offer it at a much lower amount - about $155. However, in my view this amount looks somehow overstated. Anyway, everybody buys up to the purse :)

Conclusion

• Good stability and performance;
• Support for SerialATA (2 channels; ICH5R);
• Integrated 6-channel audio and LAN (Gigabit Ethernet);
• Support for the USB2.0 interface (8 ports);
• POST code diagnostic system;
• CMOS Reloaded technology;
• Rich package bundle (rounded cables, PCtransport, FrontX).

• Price too high;
• Some users may not like the lack of Firewire support.

• Very powerful overclocking tools (but middling results);

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