I just bought a UT NF4-DF Expert, should I give it back?

[jerry2]

Hi

 

Please don't flame me, I am a newbee... Ok, I bought this MB not for OC, as I am a business user more or less. I like to tweak, but twaking and OC is not my life if you know what I mean. I have my curent MB Asus A8V OC for 33% and it running stable... But I am not too much into this business...

 

What got me to buy this MB was the claims that the material used in it is brilliant and durable. I don't want to change my system for anoother 5 years, as I mostly do Web design and occasionaly play games, but not much.

 

I ave 6 Sata diska using RAID 1 mostly so I needed a stable and Deluxe type of motherboard.

 

What I didn't realize is now I am reading this forums, I may be better at buying Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe. I see some things better than this DF motherboard:

 

1. It has a newer Silicon Image chipset for Raid and Nvidia RAID has Raid 5 also.

2. It is silent, no fan on the bridge as I won't be playing much I want to be silent.

3. Full 2x16 PCI-E SLI... I don't need it, I will be using ATI card anyway, but I need in the future to use 2 gfx cards for 4 monitor outputs. And instructions for DF says that I have to use 1 card or 2 cards only in SLI mode. Does that mean I can not run 2 Ati cards at 8x PCI-E each, no SLI? If that is true, Asus is for me better because is has full 16x PCI-E lanes.

 

On the other han, the DFI board I have has better BIOS, I like the Memtest option in BIOS and saving settings as I allways forget them when I tweak something. Also as I said, the word goes DFI has a better build quality.

 

My main concern are the 4 DIMM sticks I have and wouldn't want to change them. 2 are the Corsair VS serie 2 x 512Mb and other two are some Samsung 256 Mb RAM's that have quite bad timings (3,4,4,8 I think, not sure)... Of course I couldn't PC this RAM's even to T1 and 400Mhz (only 333Mhz) on the A8V Deluxe, but I did manage to get a lot more speed from the processor. I don't mind not having the fastest RAM speed, I just want to know is there any chance this same RAM will be working in this motherboard? They were working 100% in A8V deluxe.

 

That are my main concerns. Both MB are the same price here and they can wxchange it to me as the board is still unopened (yes, I can not try if I don't buy).

 

I am not looking for flames, after all I know this is a DFI board so it must be a little biased. But I bought and have this board at home. I told you what I need from it. Do you think I should stick with it or should I think again if not going the Asus road because of the points I made before?

 

So please don't flame me, I know DFI are the best MB around, that is why I bought one. I am just wondering if they can be good to non hard gamer also, especially my configuration worries me.

 

Yours

 

Jerry

 

PS - After reading threads here I still can not understand, is it possible to turn off the fan of this board if not doing heavy tasks or not possible? Seems to be possible but if I understand correctly there is some bug in BIOS that doesn't work as expected (fan off under 25 degrees)?

[kitfit1]

It looks to me as if you did your research on the mobo, after you bought it. If what you want is a low maintenance low input mobo with mild overclocking capabilities, then you would be better off sticking with your Asus. It's a good solid mobo and should serve you well.

[NEOAethyr]

A general use mobo I'd pick abit, msi or tyan over asus.

Asus puts good part on there mobo's, but not as much so as abit or msi or even tyan.

 

The ati cards, I don't think they can run in crossfire mode on the nf chipsets, not sure.

They don't even use pci-e for that, for bridging.

 

The pci-e32x is not worth anything.

 

The raid 5...

Still gonna be somewhat software based.

On raid 5 that's bad news.

Raid 0 would be ok.

[jerry2]

Well, thank you. I did a research before I bought it, but I didn't see the new Asus mobo. All the others seemed to be that are no good for my needs ;-) I mean, DFI one seems way better. It is just the K8N32-SLI one it may be better for my needs. But still not 100% sure :-(

[aussie fx]

If you want to run two ATI vga cards you will need to get a crossfire board

SLI is nvidia.

 

What do you want, a Ferrari or a Toyota?

Ferraris are high maintenace but lots of fun,

Toyotas, hm well they're just toyotas, but reliable.

 

Enjoy either one they are both good boards, I too had an A8V del but this expert just flies.

 

aussie fx

[PhoetuS]

There is a good chance that the ram you have will not work well in the expert. if you want low maintaince, the asus is probably the better way to go...

[jerry2]

A general use mobo I'd pick abit, msi or tyan over asus.

Asus puts good part on there mobo's, but not as much so as abit or msi or even tyan.

 

The ati cards, I don't think they can run in crossfire mode on the nf chipsets, not sure.

They don't even use pci-e for that, for bridging.

 

The pci-e32x is not worth anything.

 

The raid 5...

Still gonna be somewhat software based.

On raid 5 that's bad news.

Raid 0 would be ok.

 

Well, I don't want to use the bridging at all. Just have 2 sparate cards with 4 monitor outputs, that's all... Like 2 PCI cards in the old days (or AGP + PCI as I have now)...

 

PCIe32 may be worth to me if I can set it up so that runs 2 Ati cards separately and this 16x PCIe can not (nobody can tellme for sure).

 

Ah, so software RAID 5 is not much to wish for? I am after security. I fear ok if one disk fails, I will still have 2 left and raid 5 is faster than raid 0 I have now (isn't it???), but if controller fails :-((( I am still in the dust...

 

So that makes me think twice about changing motherboard. Only the fan noise... Can the speed on the chipset fan be controlled somehow?

 

Jerry

[CPDMF]

With your current config and intended usage I don't think the expert board is for you. The LanParty boards will throw a fit over your mixed dimms. You would end up unhappy and hating DFI boards.

[jerry2]

With your current config and intended usage I don't think the expert board is for you. The LanParty boards will throw a fit over your mixed dimms. You would end up unhappy and hating DFI boards.

 

You think this RAM's can not work? The 2 Corsair VS 512Mb alone I guess would work?

[CPDMF]

With your config (Power Supply, Value Ram, etc) you will have loads of problems that have no solution except to spend more money. The expert was designed as a pure enthusiasts board with only the best components in mind.

[RGone]

With your current config and intended usage I don't think the expert board is for you. The LanParty boards will throw a fit over your mixed dimms. You would end up unhappy and hating DFI boards.

There may be a communication issue here across languages but above is exactly what CPDMF wrote to you. It was what he meant to say. It is what he did say.

 

RGone...

 

You think this RAM's can not work? The 2 Corsair VS 512Mb alone I guess would work?

[jerry2]

Ok, thank you for advice. I am sorry I didn't find this board early. You seem a great community. I hope to be able to return one day with some time to spent on enthusiasm...