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DFI AD77 Infinity Review December 06, 2002 Chris Angelini |
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Summary: Based on the VIA KT400 chipset, DFI's AD77 Infinity is one feature-packed motherboard. Bus speeds in 1MHz increments are available up to 255MHz as is AGP 8X, DDR400, Serial ATA and IDE RAID. But the best part is the board's solid performance and incredibly low price! Read all the details in our review and be sure to answer the quiz questions at the end for a chance to win this motherboard!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 14 ) |
Very few motherboard manufacturers are able to compete in the demanding enthusiast market. For a product to be considered ideal, it must first boast stability. Performance is another important characteristic, as is a well-rounded specification sheet. ABIT, ASUS and EPoX have all manufactured boards incorporating a combination of the aforementioned qualities with varying degrees of success.
It is a difficult market to persist in, though. With each additional feature, the price of a motherboard increases. The situation is further complicated by the fact that enthusiasts make up only a small percentage of those looking to purchase motherboards. So, while high-end motherboards may be great for earning accolades, stiff competition makes it difficult for manufacturers to turn worthwhile profits selling expensive boards.
DFI is no stranger to the motherboard manufacturing process, as the company was founded in 1981; however it has previously focused primarily on the OEM market. The last few motherboards to emerge from DFI indicate an interest in attracting enthusiasts looking for more than just the bare essentials. Newly offered features like DDR400 memory support, USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, six-channel audio, and Serial ATA provide a stark contrast to older DFI motherboards that often included onboard audio and in some cases, an integrated Ethernet interface at most.
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While DFI’s product index would indicate a conservative history, its rapid adoption of VIA’s KT400 and P4X400 chipsets suggests that the company may be trying something new. VIA doesn’t even list DDR400 memory support as a feature of its chipsets, yet DFI is confident enough with its results to claim compatibility with existing 200MHz memory modules.
Stepping Out – The DFI AD77 Infinity
The latest in DFI’s Athlon XP-compatible lineup contradicts the company’s heritage. That’s not to say the board isn’t stable – in fact, it powered through our entire testing suite without issue. However, the AD77 Infinity does include many features seemingly aimed at the power user.
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The most distinguishing feature of the AD77 is its four, 184-pin DDR memory slots. Most manufacturers offer three such slots, and it isn’t uncommon to see an i845 board with two. The AD77 is able to claim support for up to 4GB of DDR memory, though. DFI has even gone so far as to test the board with DDR400 memory and publish its results here. Surprisingly, the AD77 Infinity is stable with DDR400 in three of its four memory slots, according to DFI!
SIDEBAR: DFI’s AD77 Infinity product page
| Board Analysis (Continued) | Page:: ( 2 / 14 ) |
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.
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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.
SIDEBAR: Trader Joe’s recently acquired a stock of wine due to an airlines transition away from bottled wine. They are now selling Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon for a mere $1.99 per bottle.
| BIOS | Page:: ( 3 / 14 ) |
BIOS
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Although jumpers control the AD77’s main front side bus setting, the board’s BIOS offers a pretty expansive list of options for fine-tuning performance. Depending on the processor you’ve installed, the AD77 gives you the option to overclock the front side bus in 1MHz increments between 100 and 255MHz. There are also several voltage adjustments available, which may or may not help a stubborn processor or memory module achieve stability in an overclocked environment. The memory bus can be set at 2.5 or 2.63V, AGP voltage ranges from 1.5 to 1.8V inclusive, processor voltages between 1.1V and 2V are available in .025V steps, and finally, chipset voltages between 2.5 and 2.8V can be specified.
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Memory timings and frequencies play an important role in determining overall system performance. As we saw in our ASUS A7N8X nForce2 review, aggressively timed DDR333 memory can actually outperform DDR400. We’ve seen the same thing with VIA’s KT400 chipset. Even still, DFI has infused the AD77 Infinity with DDR400 support and a host of timing adjustments. CAS latencies, Bank Interleaving, and Command Rates are all customizable, among other memory settings.
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SIDEBAR: Nokia’s 8265 cellular phone replaces the older 8260, and is a much sharper cell phone with a white backlit display.
| System Setup | Page:: ( 4 / 14 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (333MHz)
DFI AD77 Infinity KT400 Motherboard
ASUS A7V8X KT400 Motherboard
SOYO KT400 Dragon Ultra Motherboard
512MB Corsair XMS3200 CAS2 Memory
NVIDIA Reference GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB
Detonator Driver 40.71
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA-100 Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 8.1
Desktop resolution 1024x768, 32-bit color, 75Hz refresh
All power saving options were turned off, as were the Automatic Update and System Restore services. Graphics options under the ‘Performance’ tab were all disabled for maximum performance.
Benchmarks
Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo
3D Mark 2001 Second Edition Build 330 – 32-bit color
Quake III: Arena version 1.17 ‘Demo001’ demo
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter – 32-bit color, Elephant Atrium demo
Jedi Knight II
Comanche 4
SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
Lab Notes
At 2.33GHz, the AD77 ran with a 173MHz front side bus and effectively 346MHz memory bus. In order to maintain stability with CAS2 memory settings and Turbo performance enabled, the Vcore had to be set for 4.85V.
SIDEBAR: KT400A is in the works, but motherboards based on the chipset won’t start surfacing until January.
| 3D Mark 2001 SE | Page:: ( 5 / 14 ) |
3D Mark 2001 SE v.330 – DirectX 8
Notes
SOYO’s aggressively tuned KT400 Dragon Ultra takes the first place finish in each run of 3D Mark 2001 SE. The AD77 is able to take a close second place, though, and is followed by ASUS’ A7V8X. The mild overclock to 2.33GHz gives the AD77 an edge at 1280x1024, but stability issues at 800x600 give us second thoughts about increasing the Athlon XP 2800’s frequency, even with the help of Thermalright’s SLK-800 copper heat sink.
SIDEBAR: Did you know that VIA’s Pentium 4 chipset, P4X400, supports HyperThreading? I threw my 3.06GHz on VIA’s P4PB Ultra and voila, I was greeted by a BIOS option and two logical processors in Windows XP.
| 3D Mark 2001 SE – Frame Rates | Page:: ( 6 / 14 ) |
3DMark 2001 - Car Chase
3DMark 2001 - Dragothic
3DMark 2001 - Lobby
3DMark 2001 - Nature
SIDEBAR: DFI stands for Diamond Flower International
| Serious Sam SE | Page:: ( 7 / 14 ) |
Serious Sam SE (Elephant Atrium) – OpenGL
Notes
Low resolution tests show a small difference between the KT400 boards – the SOYO KT400 Dragon Ultra takes first again, followed by the DFI AD77 and the third-place ASUS A7V8X. As the resolution increases, the difference between the boards shrinks, just as we’d expect.
SIDEBAR: VIA’s upcoming KT400A chipset will support dual-channel DDR, similar to NVIDIA’s nForce2. It remains to be seen how the two products will stack up against each other.
| Quake III: Arena | Page:: ( 8 / 14 ) |
Quake III v.1.17 Demo001 – OpenGL
Notes
We see similar benchmark results with Quake III. Mainly, low resolutions favor the SOYO board and the scores even out as the screen resolution increases. Again, overclocking doesn’t do a whole lot for performance, especially at high resolutions where the KT400 Dragon Ultra still manages to edge out the competition.
SIDEBAR: Vanilla Coke is good. Better, in fact, than regular Coke.
| Comanche 4 | Page:: ( 9 / 14 ) |
Comanche 4 – DirectX 8
Notes
The results of Comanche 4 pretty much tell the same tale as the preceding benchmarks – The SOYO KT400 Dragon Ultra takes a first place finish in the low resolution tests, followed by the DFI AD77 Infinity and ASUS’ A7V8X. At 1600x1200, the SOYO board still holds a lead, but only by one percent.
SIDEBAR: Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane…
| Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo | Page:: ( 10 / 14 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby – DirectX 8
Unreal Tournament 2003 Botmatch – DirectX 8
Notes
At 800x600, there is clear difference between the competing KT400 boards in the Flyby demo. At 1024x768 and above, though, that lead begins shrinking until it disappears completely at 1600x1200. Overclocking does very little to help the AD77’s performance, interestingly.
SIDEBAR: If you’d like to try something new, buy Guanabana nectar – it’s delicious!
| Jedi Knight II | Page:: ( 11 / 14 ) |
Jedi Knight II – OpenGL
Notes
Jedi Knight II is largely impacted by processor performance, as indicated by the minimal frame rate losses all the way up to 1600x1200. As such, the SOYO KT400 Dragon Ultra maintains its advantage and is trailed by the AD77 Infinity and finally, the A7V8X. Even still, the difference between the boards never exceeds three percent.
SIDEBAR: Like nForce2, the KT400 chipset seems to run much better with a 333MHz memory bus, even though 400MHz offers more theoretical performance.
| SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory Bandwidth | Page:: ( 12 / 14 ) |
SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory Bandwidth
Notes
The memory bandwidth benchmark seems to model the rest of the benchmark results. Equipped with 512MB of DDR3200 memory running at 333MHz (CAS2), the SOYO KT400 Dragon Ultra continues to outperform the competition. The DFI board takes second and is followed by ASUS’ A7V8X. Interestingly, increasing the AD77’s front side bus frequency has a negative impact on memory bandwidth, which probably has something to do with latencies incurred by cranking up the memory bus.
SIDEBAR: Two Rockstar Energy Drinks consumed in rapid succession will keep you up all night long. If not, you probably ingest too much caffeine!
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 13 / 14 ) |
Pros:
Value: The AD77 Infinity’s most attractive quality is the value that it offers. Considering the number of features offered by the board (not to mention performance relative to other KT400 motherboards), you can be sure that $100 is buying an impressive product. In comparison, competing boards based on the same chipset cost an additional $20-30 – money that could be used for a faster Athlon XP CPU.
Performance: It may pale in comparison to NVIDIA’s nForce2, but KT400 is still a viable chipset. DFI has done an excellent job at optimizing the AD77 Infinity for performance and it shows in the benchmarks. Although SOYO’s KT400 Dragon Ultra Platinum Edition logged better numbers, it did so at a price point $50 higher than that of the AD77.
Stability: It takes a well-implemented motherboard design to achieve stability. We’ve had mixed luck with preceding products from DFI, but the AD77 Infinity didn’t demonstrate a single instance of flakiness in the time we spent testing its performance. That is to say our Athlon XP 2800+ ran for an entire day without a hiccup.
Cons:
Jumpers: DFI hasn’t given up its OEM roots altogether. The AD77 may feature a ‘tweakable’ BIOS, but it still relies on jumper inputs to set its base front side bus frequency. Please, someone, tell the folks at DFI that motherboard jumper settings were so three years ago!
SIDEBAR: A few manufacturers were displaying KT400A boards at this year’s Comdex.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 14 / 14 ) |