Board Analysis

Board layout

If you’re still not convinced that DFI has an enthusiast board on their hands with the LANPARTY PRO875, one look at the board itself should convince you otherwise. Gone is the tan PCB you typically see on a value product. DFI has instead implemented a black PCB with orange UV-sensitive DIMM sockets, AGP and PCI slots. When combined with the UV-sensitive rounded cables, you’ve got one really sharp-looking system.

Lower half of the motherboard

AGP retention mechanism

For diagnosing problems on boot up, DFI includes a bank of diagnostic LEDs on the lower portion of the LANPARTY PRO875 board. On the opposite side of the board (between PCI slots five and six) is a power LED. This 1-2 combination makes troubleshooting the board significantly easier. If the power LED doesn’t shine, you know you’ve got a dead motherboard. Meanwhile, installation problems can be identified via the diagnostic LED display, simply look up the LED combination in the LANPARTY PRO875 manual to determine the source of the problem. A memory LED is also located near the top of the motherboard.

Not much space for heatsink install

The board layout of the LANPARTY PRO875 isn’t without a few nitpicks. For instance, the 875P North Bridge is angled towards the CPU interface in order to shorten the trace lengths between both components. Unfortunately, DFI has placed the North Bridge heatsink directly over the 875P chip, resulting in very little room to work with when installing a new processor. If DFI had angled the North Bridge heatsink 45 degrees in relation to the chipset, the edge of the heatsink would be parallel with the CPU interface, freeing up more room for CPU heatsink installation.

We’re also a little disappointed in the location of the floppy and IDE connectors that are tied to the RAID controller. The floppy connector is on the bottom of the motherboard, so those of you with full-size towers like the SuperMicro SC750 may not have enough cable for a board like the LANPARTY, at best it will be a very tight fit. Motherboard manufacturers typically place the floppy cable near the primary IDE connectors so why DFI chose this location is definitely a mystery to us.

As far as the secondary set of IDE connectors goes, it’s not unusual to see a motherboard manufacturer place the RAID connectors below the primary connections that are tied to the motherboard’s chipset. But placing them on the bottom right corner of the board is far from ideal, especially when they’re mounted perpendicular to the right edge of the motherboard; this requires even more cable length.

I'm all alone!

Another oddity is the location of the third fan header – directly across from the IDE RAID connectors below the fifth PCI slot. At that spot we fail to see what device could reach it. Traditionally fan headers are placed on the left and/or right side of the motherboard. Typically you place your intake fan to the right of the motherboard, near your hard drives, while the exhaust fan is on the left side, sitting near the motherboard back plate. Unfortunately you’ll have a hard time reaching the third fan header from either of these locations.

One positive feature that we especially like is that the memory sockets are spaced high enough for end users to install the graphics card and system memory independent of each other. We’ve run into countless motherboards that space these components too closely, requiring the memory to be installed before the graphics card. We also give a big thumbs-up to the onboard power and reset switches.

Plenty of space for graphics card

ATX power duo

Finally, DFI got the location of the ATX power connectors right as well. Both are positioned so that power cables won’t constrict airflow around the CPU.