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should I buy DFI?


jayyyb

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Yeah that was a fairly stupid question to ask on a DFI enthusiast board..

 

anyway, I'm in the market to build a pc for the first time, the main question I have for you guys, bear in mind that I am a bit of a newbie, I've been lurking around for ages - finally taking the plunge:

 

The deciding factors for me buying a motherboard rest on:

 

1) support / community (sorted here - it seems like a tight helpful place)

 

2) quietness

 

I would have preferred a passive cooling on a northbridge (as I REALLY would like a very quiet pc)

 

As heatpipe passive solutions are out of my price range, I'm considering several options, one of them is the Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D

 

Could any users of this motherboard here let me know their experiences with the NB fan - loudness etc..

 

I noticed one particular thread which mentioned a defective NB fan (a bit disconcerting) has this been resolved?

 

The rest of the (main parts of the) system I am getting:

 

AMD 3500+ Venice

XFX Nvidia 6600gt

OCZ 3500 1gb gamers gold

Seagate 7200.9 SATA

 

Would these components make any difference to loudness of the NB fan?

 

Any other comments would be much appreciated

 

I guess I'm asking you guys to sell it to me, be honest though

 

Many thanks for your time

 

by the way I am also looking at the Gigabyte GA K8N

 

amongst others

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yeah, I guess I'm not that fussed about OCing, just want a stable quiet fast computer.

 

You don't think that DFI is suitable for my needs? - what mobo's / manufacturers do you suggest I look at?

 

I'm not bothered about SLI, but I'd quite like the features of the NF4 chipset.

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I bought my DFI nF4 Ultra D primarily because I wanted a stable board .... my logic is that if these things can be stable @ DDR 600 then it should be very stable at the speeds I use the board at (DDR 500).

 

I also wanted a quiet PC, because I use it in my SOHO all day and 'noise annoys'.

 

With water cooling and 4 x Zalman case fans + 80mm fan on the memory all @ 5 volts it is almost totally silent, and no noise from the chipset fan at all.

 

Apart from a little head scratching during setup (everything resolved by the posts in this forum), + having to change my memory to something more adequate, this board has been 100% stable, no problem whatsoever.

 

Gets a definite recommended from me .... just make sure you read the good advice from the people in these forums, and get the right quality components to go with a quality board.

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if you aren't willing to buy the proper hardware to compliment the board (not hte most expensive, just the parts we know work without problems, which eliminates VALUE anything from the equation), and are not afraid of a challenge, then this board is for you

 

if you just want a stock speed, out-of-the-box plug-n-play board, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Abit, etc, all make boards that you should look at.

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if you just want a stock speed, out-of-the-box plug-n-play board, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Abit, etc, all make boards that you should look at.

 

I would kind of disagree here. I pretty much just plugged in my components and booted up. I didn't really do any tweaking yet, and my board is as stable as a board can possibly be. I would say just get it, because then if you want to OC later, you have the ability, but you DO NOT have to OC this board to make it worthwhile.

 

Considering that any other quality board is 100+ dollars, I'd say it's worth the neglible price difference.

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Could any users of this motherboard here let me know their experiences with the NB fan - loudness etc..

 

Perhaps there is something wrong with my chipset fan, but mine is quite loud when it's running full speed (7000+). But the sound is not as unpleasant as many fans. It's sort of a lower frequency hum, rather than a very high pitched whine that some fans make? Regardless, if you are a person who is annoyed by loud fans, like myself, you will be driven mad by this fan very quickly.

 

But then I discovered SmartGuardian, which is a monitoring/fan control utility that comes with the board, and I found that if I set the fan to never go over 5200 rpm's, it is completely inaudible. Even under full load for hours, my chipset temps have never gone past 53 degrees (idles at around 45) at that fan speed, which is a hair higher than I'd like, but I'm sure it's quite safe, since Angry said in another thread that even 70 is not unsafe for that chipset. I personally would feel a little nervous seeing anything in my case at 70 degrees, but he should know better than I what's safe for the board.

 

So in my experience in just a couple days with the board - slowing the chipset fan down a bit, and using Cool 'n' Quiet (Amd cpu driver), this board can be made to run very quiet if need be.

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