DFI UT P35-T2R: Tweakers Rejoice!
by Rajinder Gill on October 18, 2007 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming Performance
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a variety of current games. We ran our benchmarks at a 1280x1024 resolution with high quality settings
Battlefield 2
This benchmark is performed using DICE's built-in demo playback functionality with additional capture capabilities designed in house. During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a significant amount of smoke, explosions, and vehicle usage as this a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. We run Battlefield 2 using medium quality graphics settings available in the video settings. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game frame rates of 35 and up.
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes was released last year but is still one of the high points of the RTS genre. The game is extremely GPU intensive but can also requires a fast CPU at times. The game contains a built-in performance test that utilizes the game engine to generate several different action scenes. We find the performance test gives a good indication of how well your system will perform throughout the game. Some of the in-game action sequences can be more demanding than the performance test, however, so we find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate score in the performance test above 35FPS.
Prey
Prey offers some superb action sequences, unique weapons and characters, and is a visually stunning game at times. It still requires a very good GPU to run it with all of the eye candy turned on. We set all graphic settings to their maximum except for AA/AF and utilize a custom timedemo that takes place during one of the more action oriented sequences. We generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 35FPS.
Gaming Summary
Although the DFI board did not finish first in our benchmarks, it did perform very consistently with differences only averaging around 1% between the P35 boards. This only reiterates our original statements about the performance of the P35 chipset: just about any board based on it will perform great and performance differences between boards is generally less than 2% at stock speeds.
We did not need to test the DFI board to figure this out, but wanted to provide the preceding results in the interest of completeness. Now let's release the hounds and see what this board is really capable of doing; in other words, let's delve into the BIOS and take a look at how to overclock this board.
As usual, gaming performance was tested with a variety of current games. We ran our benchmarks at a 1280x1024 resolution with high quality settings
Battlefield 2
This benchmark is performed using DICE's built-in demo playback functionality with additional capture capabilities designed in house. During the benchmark, the camera switches between players and vehicles in order to capture the most action possible. There is a significant amount of smoke, explosions, and vehicle usage as this a very GPU intensive Battlefield 2 benchmark. We run Battlefield 2 using medium quality graphics settings available in the video settings. The game itself is best experienced with average in-game frame rates of 35 and up.
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes was released last year but is still one of the high points of the RTS genre. The game is extremely GPU intensive but can also requires a fast CPU at times. The game contains a built-in performance test that utilizes the game engine to generate several different action scenes. We find the performance test gives a good indication of how well your system will perform throughout the game. Some of the in-game action sequences can be more demanding than the performance test, however, so we find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate score in the performance test above 35FPS.
Prey
Prey offers some superb action sequences, unique weapons and characters, and is a visually stunning game at times. It still requires a very good GPU to run it with all of the eye candy turned on. We set all graphic settings to their maximum except for AA/AF and utilize a custom timedemo that takes place during one of the more action oriented sequences. We generally find the game to be enjoyable with an average frame rate above 35FPS.
Gaming Summary
Although the DFI board did not finish first in our benchmarks, it did perform very consistently with differences only averaging around 1% between the P35 boards. This only reiterates our original statements about the performance of the P35 chipset: just about any board based on it will perform great and performance differences between boards is generally less than 2% at stock speeds.
We did not need to test the DFI board to figure this out, but wanted to provide the preceding results in the interest of completeness. Now let's release the hounds and see what this board is really capable of doing; in other words, let's delve into the BIOS and take a look at how to overclock this board.
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Acanthus - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Although all of the tweaking options provided are nice, it literally does no better than Asus P5K Deluxe or the Gigabyte P35-DQ6.Furthermore with X38 boards on the way, im not seeing a whole lot of incentive for this $300 motherboard.
Just my $.02
retrospooty - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
This board has hit 672mhz FSB, far FAR higher than any other other board ever, including early samples of X38. Not likely to be matched until the DFI X38 comes out.http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
This link shows it at 666mhz, I cant find the 672mhz one at the moment, but its on the same forum, by the same guy with the same golden CPU.
cmdrdredd - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Not usable 24/7WHO CARES!?
retrospooty - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Well, it still goes alot higher than the others you mentioned, it is absolutely the best overclocking motherboard available. - that was what I responded too, obviously its not the one for you.Acanthus - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
That is from the DFI labs... with a beta board... on supercooling...and volt mods... on a dual core CPU that doesnt stress the PWMs...Anandtechs results even using phase dont approach those results.
retrospooty - Friday, October 19, 2007 - link
No, that is not from DFI labs, that is an independant dood, and CPU's that hit that high FSB are pretty rare.Whatever man, you can poo poo it all you want. It is the best OC mobo out there, and goes higher and takes it farther than any other. It may not be the one for you though.
Raja Gill - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
You need to remember that this board was compared at stock settings, not OC'ed, things change up top...;), not to mention we could not get the board to crash..regards
Raja
Acanthus - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Its the same chipset, its not going magically increase in a non-linear fashion.The P5K and DQ6 hit the same maximum overclock.
MadBoris - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
It makes sense that article takes a different approach, customers of this board or tweakers in general, will really appreciate the fine details.Personally, in the last ten years I have gotten to a place where I am very comfortable not pushing for the last 100 - 300 mhz. The meager tangible return is not worth all the extra voltage or potential stability issues that often come up later in the life of the HW due to creep, dust, aging paste, etc. I get a nice stress test capable OC, then back it up a notch. I won't win any 3dmark awards that way though but am very satisfied with stability when a new product stresses HW in ways not stressed before.
One thing for sure with this board, I wouldn't want to lose the CMOS, then have to remember all my settings after a year.
Nice board and good article, $300 is too much though for a MB for me. It's definitely elite.
retrospooty - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Its alot of reading, but that is because the DFI is alot of motherboard. I have had it since it was first released and loving every minute of it. I have a C2D 6750 running at 8x500 fsb for a sweet 4 ghz on water at DDR2 1000 4-4-4-10 timing, man is it sweet.There are sooooo many bios tweaks to get better performance, or stability at high overclock - its definitely not for beginners... worth every penny of the $300 I spent.