Graphics and Gaming (continued):
Moving along in the gaming timeline we tested Halo under the same conditions. Halo was tested using 1024x768 resolution also. We are now starting to see an increase in frame rates when SLI is enabled, and much less increase in the difference when the system is overclocked.
The next game, Far Cry, had lots of folks digging deep in their pockets to upgrade video cards. Far Cry was tested at 1024x768 also, with all settings on maximum, 4x antialiasing and 4x antistropic filtering. Here we can see the beginnings of SLI taking charge and creating some much improved frame rates. System overclocking is beginning to help more and more.
Finally we take a look at the effects of SLI and overclocking with Doom 3. The folks who didn’t upgrade to play Far Cry, upgraded for Doom 3. Testing for Doom 3 was done at ultra settings, 4x antialiasing, and 4x antistropic filtering. Here it is obvious, Doom 3 rocks SLI. Frame rates nearly double. As you can also see, it appears that the video cards were the bottleneck as overclocking the CPU did nothing to increase frame rates.
Conclusion:
DFI seems to have another winner on their hands; incredible good looks, the most tweakable BIOS to date and as stable as can be. DFI also has industry leading customer support with their forum based DFI-Street.com, where customers can read through other folk’s issues and also post their own problems with a reasonable expectation to a solution. Parts placement and the attention to cooling are also strong points of this board. All one has to do is go to Futuremark’s listing of top 3DMark record holders and you will see, the majority of those records are held by DFI nF4 motherboards. That alone says a lot about the capabilities of the Lanparty nF4 Ultra-D and the rest of the DFI nF4 boards. This board has it all, even when I exceeded the limitations of the board while looking for a FSB ceiling, it reacted brilliantly, Only once did I have to actually use the Clear CMOS jumper to get back into the BIOS.
The Ultra-D can be found at most major e-retailers for right around $140.00, as seen in this set of Price Grabber search results. In addition, Newegg currently lists it for about $137, and Monarch Computer is selling the Ultra-D for $149.
For all its features, looks, packaging, and BIOS options, I have no choice but to give the DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D Motherboard a complete 5 out of 5 stars..."Highly Recommended".
Final Rating (5 out of 5 stars): 
Pros:
• BIOS options
• Voltage Extremes
• UV board design
• Stable to who-knows-where
• Overclocker’s dream
• Price
Cons:
• Chipset placement under video card (nVidia's design, not DFI's)
Special thanks to DFI for providing the Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D Motherboard to Bigbruin.com for review!
Please drop by the Bigbruin.com Forum and feel free to discuss this review.
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