DFI AD77 KT400 Motherboard
DFI AD77 KT400 Motherboard
Price: £TBC
Site: www.dfi.com For information
Buy: check www.aventi.co.uk for retailers
Review
However easy it is to dismiss the box when the boards inside, it does look pleasing to the eye and shows a clear indication that DFI are targeting system builders and enthusiasts alike. The key feature set of the KT400 is clearly marked on the box and for this board includes AGP8X, SerialATA and DDR400.
The accessories and interface connectors were as you would expect them, though sadly you do not get included with a digital out - SPDIF out. As i have a digitally connected amp this would have been useful. Although this may change.
1x Serial ATA, 1x Floppy drive cable, 2x ATA
Although the manual was not 100% finished and was marked as such, it was clearly laid out and easy to understand. The highpoint information and drivers for windows NT4/9X/2000/XP was provided along with a cd of the drivers for all the components of the motherboard. This included Network, Sound, USB2.0 and VIA chipset drivers.
Motherboard Layout
The DFI's layout was well thought out, although not all people will like the PSU connector placement. They have included 4 DDR RAM slots which is nice for upgrading upto a maximum of 16GB of unbuffered memory. The board supports the vaious DDR RAM types including PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333) and PC3200 (DDR400). Im not sure about the need for the CNR slot as i have never really found a use for one, however its better to have one and not need it then the alternative.
An HighPoint HPT371 offering a single channel ATA33/66/100/133 interface is provided for Raid functions (Red IDE connector). The port supports RAID 0 striping and RAID 1 mirroring.
The Marvell SATA1.0 88i8030 chip is used to control a single Serial ATA port. The chip is well enguaged in bringing in the new tecnology and is expected to interface with Western Digital, Fujitsu, Maxtor and Samsung drives. The tecnology is expected to delivery transfer rates of upto 1.5Gbps.
Theres a few jumpers around the board but not enough to cause any moaning. The onboard sound, CNR settings, PS2 Power select, Standby Power, Serial ATA and CPU FSB all have jumpers to alter the state.
There are serveral LED's on the board to show the health/status of the board as it boots up and as its running.
The extra USB2.0/1.1 and Firewire pins (J15, J14, J8) did have a tight fit with the thick cables but as there taking up slots they all squeezed in. The firewire allows devices to communicate at upto 400Mbps which the users of digital video editing and portable storage will be happy to hear.
Apart from the capacitor to the left of the heatsink the socket is pretty much clear of objects blocking a 4 hole mounting heatsink. The holes do not have solder reinforment which i would have liked to have seen.
A passive heatsink keeps the VIA KT400 Northbridge cool. I prefer passive heatsinks to the active alternative some manufactures supply, as the fans tend to whine after time.
The standard ports are provided (PS/2, 2xSerial{RS232}, 1xParallel) along with 4x USB2.0/1.1 ports, 10/100 RJ45 Network and Sound Ports (including MIC in, LINE OUT and a LINE IN).
For integrated S/PDIF and MIDI ports an optional connection bracket is required. The sound is driven from the VT8235 South Bridge offering AC97Microsoft DirectSound/DirectSound 3D support and full duplex, independent sample rate conversion for audio recording and playback.
