DFI Infinity NF4 Ultra

Board Layout:

The most notable item when handling the DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity is the motherboard's PCB color. Unlike the LAN Party and LAN Party UT series that are glamorous with their design thanks to the UV sensitive onboard components as well as its accessories, the Infinity PCB uses a yellow/brown PCB. With popular motherboard PCBs being largely green, black, red, and in some instances even being white, the DFI Infinity series certainly reminds us of older OEM products. On the other hand, the component layout is somewhat similar to the LAN Party Ultra-D with a few notable changes. Starting the tour of the NF4 Ultra Infinity, we begin in the upper right hand corner with the system memory. Supported by the DFI NF4 Ultra are four 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets. The memory does support 128-bit dual channel mode and supports stock speeds up to DDR-400. As is a common occurrence with many AMD Socket 939 motherboards, the system memory slots are positioned parallel with the PCI expansion slots. Near the DDR slots on the left hand side is a DRAM power LED. Also near the system memory DIMMs is the 4-pin ATX +12V connector as well as a 3-pin system fan header. Below the DDR memory area is the AMD Socket 939. The CPUs supported are Socket 939 interface AMD Athlon 64 parts (including the X2 and FX models) and Sempron processors. Around the processor and heatsink retention frame, the area is relatively free of any onboard components that could possibly cause harm when using the stock heatsink or after-market solutions along with water-cooling parts. There is a fair amount of power circuitry to the left of the processor area, however, that should be clear of all retail-cooling devices. To the lower right hand corner of the CPU socket area is the 3-pin CPU fan header.

Beneath the CPU socket area, and behind the PCI Express x1 slots, is the Vitesse VSC8201 Gigabit Phy. The 10/100/1000 ASIC is supportive of the Linux 2.6 kernel, and is certainly a better networking candidate than we have seen with previous motherboards. To the right of the CPU area is the 24-pin ATX power, floppy disk, and dual IDE ATA-133 connectors. As with the integrated SATA ports, the IDE interface, which is also powered by the nForce4 Ultra, is capable of achieving RAID 0 and RAID 1. The positions of these connectors are certainly well placed for optimal cabling if the system will be installed inside of a traditional ATX chassis. However, if using ribbon cables for the FDD and IDE interfaces, the non-rounded type may inhibit some fresh air from reaching the CPU cooler. Continuing down the motherboard, next we have the NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra, which provides many of the necessities for the motherboard and features all of the characteristics we have come to love since the nForce4 launch back in late 2004. Atop the Chipset is an active cooling solution from DFI. The active cooling solution uses an aluminum heatsink with a small fan that is powered by a 3-pin interface. Next to the NVIDIA MCP are four SATA 2.0 ports that are capable of running RAID 0 and 1, along with RAID spanning to the Parallel ATA devices. On the opposite side of the Chipset is the CMOS battery and clear CMOS jumper.