Board Analysis (Continued)

In looking at the AD77 it quickly becomes apparent that DFI has made an effort to include a little bit of everything. Besides the native ATA-133 support offered by VIA’s VT8235 South Bridge, DFI also utilizes HighPoints’s HPT371 to add an extra ATA-133 channel. As a result, the AD77 can accommodate a total of six IDE devices. And as if that weren’t enough, DFI also includes Marvell’s 88i8030 Serial ATA Bridge Chip. Since the bridge translates parallel ATA commands, it doesn’t operate at Serial ATA’s native 150Mb per second, but still serves to add SATA support to the AD77.

VIA VT8235 South Bridge

The back plate of the motherboard

Clearance near the CPU interface

DFI goes even further by integrating VIA’s VT6306 IEEE 1394 controller, delivering two Firewire ports through a pair of headers on the motherboard. Of course, the corresponding bracket is also included with the AD77. Since the VT8235 supports six USB 2.0 ports, DFI places four on the board’s back panel and includes a second header featuring the fifth and sixth, should they be needed. The VIA VT6103 PHY interfaces with the South Bridge to offer 10/100 Ethernet connectivity through the AD77’s back plate. The motherboard also claims six-channel audio output through the three 1/8” mini-plug jacks also on the boards back, though this is a software feature.

If you’d prefer to replace the integrated audio and onboard Ethernet with an add-in card, the AD77 features an AGP 8X slot, five PCI slots, and a slot for a CNR card. Additionally, three hardware-monitored fan headers are offered for cooling purposes. DFI includes a few other headers, such as an S/PDIF output, a 4-channel audio output (a hardware implementation), and an infrared connector, though the hardware necessary to take advantage of these features must be purchased separately.

We’ve only got a couple of complaints about DFI’s methods for laying out the AD77. First, the ATX power connector is situated right above the AGP slot. This, of course, isn’t the best place for it, as a thick cable can have a negative effect on the cooling potential of a given heat sink. Considering, the heat generated by an Athlon XP 2800+, we’d prefer to keep the area around the processor interface clear. Diagnostic LEDs are built into the board, which we think is a useful feature, but we’d recommend that DFI include better documentation of the diagnostic codes. Other manufacturers include stickers that identify the various LED combinations, and it would have been helpful to see the same from DFI.