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Taking our usual trip from left to right, top to bottom, lets examine the layout.
The first thing you come across is the 4-pin ATX connector used for extra power to the processor on many P4 solutions. The board is crowded in this area of the board with lots of power regulation circuitry to manipulate the power from the little connector before it hits the CPU. The crowding can hinder you connecting the cable but since you only do it when installing or removing the board, it's not a problem.
Being a P4 board means the regulation room around the socket with the standard cage fitted to accept the standard Intel retail HSF package or one of a variety of aftermarket heatsinks from dozens of manufacturers. The socket is rotated 90 degrees clockwise from what you see on many P4 boards but since the heatsink area is a standard size, no fitting problems should arise. You can see a row of 8 caps atop the cage on the top horizontal edge of the board.
Moving right we hit the pair of DDR DIMM sockets and the board supports up to 2GB of memory and accepted a pair of unregistered Samsung PC2700 256MB modules without issue.
The main ATX connector is vertical along the right edge, near the top, and the IDE and floppy port connectors are just below in a vertical orientation. Below the heatsink cage we have come across the GMCH, passively cooled by an impressive looking heatsink.
From there downwards, layout is standard. 6 PCI slots, no pesky CNR/AMR riser slots and the southbridge are all in standard positions. The 2nd ATX connector (ATXP2) is on the right hand edge of the board in the final quarter in a vertical orientation. While not present on every P4 board, DFI have sensibly placed it at the edge of the board to minimise having to drag it across board components.
A solid layout, unfussed without RAID and exactly what we've come to expect from them. A full 9-hole ATX mount but nothing you can't accomodate in any decent case.
Installation was a snap, slotting right in where the previous board lay. The provided backplate was used to shield the ATX ports and everything hooked up fine and the system booted first time with no BIOS manipulation needed. A sensible set of defaults straight from the factory before it arrives in your system.
Good expansion from 6 PCI and onboard audio make it a nice board to work with, if a little uninspiring. A quick note on the manual and box bundle and we can have a look at performance.
Bundle and manual
The bundle, being DFI, only provides what's needed and little more. Our test board shipped with gameport and extra serial port displaced by the VGA connector, the manual and a driver CD, ATX backplane connector and the SP/DIF plate with connectors, shame you can't use the input however.
The manual is excellent, the usual DFI quality. Easy to read, multi language and with a nice quick start layout guide for those new to the platform. It explains all the BIOS options and all the supported extras of the board. One of the highlights of the DFI package and excellent to work with.
Lets take a look at system setup and performance.
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