UT2003, X², Quake III
Our Unreal Tournament 2003 test involves using the retail game patched up to build 2225. A custom demo is run at 800x600 to place more of the emphasis on the subsystem than the graphics card. Further, the recorded bot match is far more system dependent in nature than the usual flybys. It's a question of an effective ppartnershipbetween memory, MCH, CPU and AGP functions.
All that theoretical talk translates into a benchmark score of ~160FPS for both Intel boards and ~185FPS for the Athlon 64 3200+. The DFI continually snaps at the IC7's heels but cannot quite overhaul it.
Another 800x600 test of the nice-looking X² - The Threat benchmark. The DFI board consistently averaged just a notch above the IC7 and a notch below the Biostar K8VHA. Most important of all, it was extremely stable. It was left running Prime95 overnight and didn't fail over a 12-hour period. Stability of modern motherboards seems to be such that it is only worth mentioning if they produce erratic behaviour.
I'm only going to say one thing here. All three test boards are good. They perform with utter stability and produce repeatable benchmarks. It's difficult to purchase a bad board, and the DFI LANPARTY is far from that. We've had a number of thoughts whilst reviewing this motherboard, so let's wrap it up and see if we can arrive at an objective conclusion.
