Introduction

DFI LANPARTY PRO875 board

Typically when you think of an enthusiast motherboard, brands like ABIT, Epox, and ASUS come to mind. Each of these players has been in the business for awhile and has established their own niche of loyal patrons. ABIT and Epox in particular have made a name for themselves building overclocker boards. These products are typically all business; you won’t find any useless bells and whistles here.

ABIT in particular is largely responsible for the jumperless motherboards we have today. ABIT was also one of the first manufacturers to implement IDE RAID controllers on all of its high-end motherboards.

Now DFI is looking to enter the enthusiast segment as well, and they’re coming with products that should have the big boys take notice.

We know what you’re probably thinking: “DFI making an enthusiast motherboard? What is this guy smoking?” In all honesty, we were skeptical ourselves until we opened the LANPARTY PRO875’s packaging. DFI has been in the motherboard business for over two decades, but they’re largely known as a value motherboard manufacturer that deals with OEMs, not the retail market. Offering motherboards loaded with goodies and more bus speeds than you will possibly ever need is not what they’re known for (the last motherboard we reviewed from them still utilized jumpers!). But with the LANPARTY PRO875, DFI has delivered just that.

As its name implies, DFI starts the LANPARTY PRO875 off with Intel’s recently released 875P “Canterwood” chipset. 875P brings support of Intel’s latest Pentium 4 CPUs with 800MHz front-side bus support, a dual-channel DDR400 interface that is capable of feeding the CPU with up to 6.4GB/sec of bandwidth, Serial ATA, up to 4GB of memory, and 8 USB 2.0 ports are just a few noteworthy items among its long list of features.

Big, big, bundle!

Round cables!

To appeal to those oh so picky hardware enthusiasts (us), DFI has included all kinds of high tech goodness on the LANPARTY PRO875 board itself and has stuffed the retail packaging with an incredible amount of added bonuses. For instance, DFI includes two rounded IDE cables and a rounded floppy cable. Yes, that’s right, we said a round floppy cable! Enthusiasts prefer rounded cables because their thinner shape allows for more efficient case airflow. Round cables can also be tucked away neatly, making component installation a breeze. Typically these cables sell for $8-$10 each, so the round cables are a $30 value by themselves. Oddly enough they’re even UV-sensitive, allowing them to illuminate under a black light. DFI even labels the connectors making them extremely newbie friendly.

DFI also includes Serial ATA data cables and one Serial ATA power cable, a SPDIF bracket, a FRONTX front panel (with USB header), and even a handy carrying case for transporting your PC in.

Lets take a look at the hardware.