DFI RS482 Infinity
Apr 20th, 2006 | By Archive
DFI RS482 Infinity
Date
: 04/20/06 – 05:44:16 AM
Author
:
Category
: Motherboard
Page 1 : Index
Manufacturer
: DFI
Price
: $93.99 (Newegg)
We last reviewed the DFI Infinity nF4 Ultra and now DFI's given us the opportunity to review the new
DFI RS482 Infinity
. The DFI RS482 Infinity is a micro-atx motherboard using the ATi Xpress 200 chipset. It is ideal for those looking to create a home theatre PC or small personal workstation that doesn't take up too much real estate.
Some of you will remember my review on the ECS RS-480M that utilized ATi's RS480 Northbridge and SB400 South Bridge. This newer motherboard uses the newer RS482 for the North Bridge and SB450 for the South Bridge on the newer 90nm technology. Since our little package is coming from the fine folks at DFI, we expect nothing but the best. Given DFI's previous track record on stellar performance and overclocking abilities, I'm expecting a lot out of this motherboard. Is it possible that I set the bar too high? Well, we'll find out soon enough!
Page 2 : Package Contents
The DFI RS482 arrived in a fancy box with the primary color being blue.
It's impossible to missing the Chinese characters scattered on the box and the very bright Phoenix to the top right. At the top left is the DFI's logo and there web address. We also have the Infinity logo to the bottom left just over the RS482 stamp mark. Running across the bottom edge are a few features this motherboard supports: ATi Radeon Express 200, HDTV, DVI Output, PCI Express, Serial SATA, Dual 400 DDR and Gigabit LAN.
Flipping the box over we see a large list of features underneath the DFI RS482 Infinity header.
The features included on the back print out include the ATI RS482 Chipset, AMD Athlon64/FX/x2 Support, HDTV/TV Support, DVI Output Support, Serial SATA & RAID, 8 Channel Audio & SPDIF, PCI Express and Dual 400 DDR, Gigabit LAN, IEE 1394 and USB 2.0. To avoid displaying an excessively large amount of pictures on this page, the features will be displayed in a picture of if you click on the link.
Tilting the box onto the side does not reveal any useful information. On this one edge we see the DFI Logo and web address to the left and the Infinity and RS4828 Logo to the right.
One of the edges has the Product label which provides a very brief overview of the specifications for this motherboard.
A factory in Taiwan made this board to the specifications above and that is exactly where we will be heading next. No, not to Taiwan but to the specifications page!
Page 3 : Specifications & Features
DFI has always done an excellent job in providing specifications in all its glory for its potential customers. This motherboard is so jam packed with information that I've broken down the specifications into four sections.
CPU/FSB/Chipset/Memory
The DFI RS482 supports the latest technology on the market. We'll be able to use anything from a Sempron to an FX processor as long as it is Socket 939 based. It won't be long until this technology is completely obsolete with the introduction of the Socket AM2 and the use of DDR2.
Unlike some of the other motherboards out on the market, this puppy supports the full 4GB of memory. My previous ECS board only had 2 DIMM's which was rather unfortunate for those who wanted to go big.
So far, the specifications look quite good. It's hard to go wrong at this stage!
Expansion Slots/BIOS/Power Management/Hardware Monitor
There's nothing extremely out of the ordinary on this page.
Graphics/Audio/LAN/IDE/Serial ATA with RAID/IEEE 1394
The beauty of a microATX motherboard sporting either the ATI X200 chipset or the nVidia GeForce 61×0 chipset is the integrated graphics processor. On our sample we have the ATI Radeon X300 GPU. By no means is this a manly processing unit, it's just a little something you can use if you know you won't need the sheer power of an X800 or an X1800. One of the best parts about this board is that it is complete. The X300 GPU also has VGA and DVI Output, as well as S-Video output and HDTV output. Dual display is possible using a combination of the provided outputs and a total of 4 displays can be outputted using SurroundView if you use another ATI based video card.
The rest of the specifications are more or less inline as to what I expected with this board. It is a little saddening to see the lack of SATA II and IEEE 1394b. Regardless, the motherboard still offers a very complete package with a total of four SATA ports and the capability to add another four ATA devices.
Rear Panel I/O Ports / I/O Connectors/PCB
Our last page covers all your I/O connectors and the physical dimensions of the board. I can't say I'm particularly interested in this last page so I think it is in everyone's interest to move to open up the package so we can set up the system.
Page 4 : Package Contents
Opening up the package we get to lay out eyes on the accessories. Pretty melodramatic, but that is how it always is with motherboard packages. Resting below all of the accessories will be our prized motherboards.
In our package of accessories we have, starting from the top left and going clockwise, the S-Video out cable, HDTV out cable, 4 pin molex connector splitting to 2 SATA connectors, two SATA cables an ATA100 cable and floppy IDE cable.
We also have a Driver CD, RAID drivers and a custom rear I/O panel.
The last thing is the DFI manual. This is a decent size book that will guide on the hardware and software installation onto the motherboard.
We finally get a chance to remove the cardboard shelf holding up the accessories and worship our new motherboard.
We'll go over the layout of the RS482 Infinity on the next page.
Page 5 : Layout
As you may have noted from the page above, there are a lot of features on this motherboard. This means careful engineering is required to layout all the components that will maximize the limited space DFI has available.
At first glance is appears DFI has done an excellent job in laying out the components. We have the processor in the middle along the top edge. In a standard case and in a micro ATX case like the SG01, it'll be positioned beneath the power supply. This has its advantages and disadvantages as you will be able to utilize the 12cm PSU fan to dissipate heat but it'll also limit the size of the heatsink you can install.
If you plan on installing this motherboard in any case, you will not have any problems installing the largest of heatsinks as there are no tall capacitors to clear.
To the right of the CPU socket are the four DIMMs, color coded for easy reference. It would have been nice to see the dual channel configuration using slots 1,3 and 2,4. This would have allowed better airflow between the sticks. Along the far left side are the ATA 100 connectors and Floppy IDE connector.
Below the ATA connectors we have the front I/O connectors, 4 SATA ports, a few jumpers, a 3.3V battery and the passively cooled South Bridge.
Just beneath the South Bridge, or to the right in the photo above, is the BIOS chip. While some consider the processor to be the brain of a computer, I think it's the BIOS chip that's more relevant. Without this little puppy we wouldn't be able to pull off any stellar overclocks as everything would be stuck on default fail safe!
Also running along the bottom edge of the motherboard is the VIA VT6307 chip. The VT6307 will is the IEEE 1394 controller. I won't bore you with the details, just click on the link to be directed to the VIA page.
Surrounding the VIA chipset is an extra IEEE 1394 connector and two USB 2.0 connectors for a total of four USB 2.0 devices.
Continuing our view from the edge, we get a glimpse of the two PCI-E slots, a single PCI-E 1X and a single PCI-E 16X slot. In between the slots are a few capacitors, nothing that stands out. Below the last PCI slot is the COM port.
The bottom left corner of the board sports two other silicon chips. The first is the ITE IT8712F-A, the other a RealTek RTL8110SB chip. Our little IT8712F-A will control the hardware monitoring on the RS482 while the RTL8110SB provides the Gigabit LAN.
Just above the PCI-E 16X slot is the passively cooled North Bridge, the 24-pin power connector and a few audio connectors. We can also see the very tiny Realtek AL8580 8 channel chip off to the side.
Here's a closer picture of the North Bridge heatsink. Even though it is passively cooled, it took all the overclocking heat without any problems.
Taking the heatsink off doesn't revel anything due to the thermal adhesive. I tried rubbing it off with some rubbing alcohol but that didn't help.
Moving further up we have a series the power regulator and the 4-pin auxiliary connector.
This wraps up how everything is laid out on the board. While DFI has done an excellent job in laying everything out, I don't think it was perfect. My first gripe is the location of the CMOS jumper, it's located directly beside the battery.
While my fingers are far from fat and stubby, it is very difficult to lift that jump and move it over so you can clear the CMOS and once again begin your overclocking journey. I had tried to squeeze a small pair of needle-nose pliers in there but was left with the same result.
My other dislike was the location of the 24-pin and 4-pin power connectors. Both of these connectors are located to the left of the CPU socket. In some cases you will need to route the power cables beneath the power supply in order to get the wires to the connector. Or it means you need to run cables over your CPU, hindering the air flow. In a normal ATX case, I had to run the two cables in between the motherboard and the 120mm exhaust on the power supply and the 120mm exhaust on the case. This may be a little uncomfortable to some because if your fans are unguarded, you may find the wires lodged in there!
With those two gripes out of the way, we can continue our focus on the motherboard. We see that the backside is completely bare and the rear I/O panel is put to very good use.
The custom rear IO panel will be required if you intend on covering up the open gaps.
This wraps up our layout page and we'll move onto the installation so we can start overclocking and benchmarking!
Page 6 : Installation
Installing a mATX motherboard is a piece of cake, even more so if you're installing it into a mid-tower ATX case. The difference between this task and installing a mATX board into a mATX case is not a lot. The process will take longer and you
will
need to be careful with your wiring to optimize airflow.
As I mentioned a few lines ago, I'm going to install this motherboard into a mid-tower, my SST-TJ04 to be precise. This case has a fair bit of volume so lying the motherboard down to thread in the screws is not difficult.
I choose to use my AMD A64 3000+ Venice processor as it has a great track record.
My cooler of choice was my Thermaltake BigTyphoon, and yes, it is big. While it towered over the DIMM slots, it didn't prevent me from installing my 1GB OCZ PC4800 Platinum kit.
An optional video card can be installed and I chose to use my PowerColor X800GTO16. It's not a very long card so it didn't get in the way of any connectors, but even using a 7800GTX or an X1800 would not reduce your access to anything on this board.
To power the machine, I used my Antec 480Watt TruePower 2.0. The combination of a big cooler and a poor 24-pin power connector led to the 24-pin power cable pushing up against the Big Typhoon or running along the side obstructing the flow of the 120mm exhaust and at times even touching the fan blades and stalling the motor.
Some careful cable management would probably eliminate the cable problem, but as it stands it can be a problem for some.
With the main components in place, all that remained was installing a floppy drive, a hard drive and an optical drive. The ribbons caused a bit of a mess by the edge of the board, but it was certainly an easy task. It would have been nice to see DFI include rounded cables, especially since the use of ribbons inside a mATX case would cause chaos in terms of restricting airflow.
Now that everything is connected and powered, it's time to go through the BIOS and do some overclocking.
Page 7 : BIOS & Overclocking
DFI has stuck with the Phoenix BIOS that many of us are very accustomed too. What makes this motherboard different from other mATX board manufacturers is GENIE BIOS options for overclocking. We'll quickly cover the basics and take a deeper look at the overclocking features on this motherboard.
The first thing I did was update the BIOS to the March 21 2006 version. This is the third BIOS revision and it
dramatically
improves the overclocking abilities on this board. With the new BIOS updated, here's what our first BIOS screen looks like.
It's the standard menu and there's nothing special to it. The standard CMOS features page gives a basic run down on the drives installed and when to halt the boot if certain components aren't installed.
The Advanced Features page is no different on this board compared to the DFI Infinity.
The Advanced Chipset Features is very different on the RS482 compared to other motherboards as it let's you control the onboard X300 processor in addition to the usual PCI-E settings.
There are several settings you can "tweak" for the integrated graphics. For all the benchmarks I will be leaving the GFX Clock Mode on Sync. You could change it to ASync and tweak the memory settings or adjust the boot display and TV standard for the video out feature.
The next page we visit is the Integrated Peripherals page. This page is really just a menu that let's you change the IDE, PCI and IO settings.
The IDE settings let's you enable and disable various settings for both the IDE channels and the SATA channels. The PCI settings essentially let's you decides whether or not to enable various USB 2.0 devices, the onboard audio and integrated LAN and IEEE1394. The last menu, IO settings, controls the keyboard input frequency, floppy drive, serial port and the UART2 (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) settings.
Moving to the Power Management page, there are a number of features you can tweak but only a few I usually only touch.
The one feature I really like that all boards have is the RTC Alarm Resume as it let's me configure an automatic start up time everyday, generally set to boot up slightly before I need to get up for the day.
Moving onto the next page takes us to the PnP/PCI Configurations.
Moving onto the PC Health Status page, we get a very detailed look at the voltage readings, the temperature readings for the system, CPU and North Bridge. We also have three fan sensors reporting back to us.
The Shutdown temperature can be set anywhere between 60 to 90¢ªC in intervals of 5¢ªC.
The final and most important page we're going to look at is the GENIE BIOS Setting page.
There is no other motherboard on the market that will give you so many DRAM modification options.
Covering the main sections, you have CAS latency (tCL) modifications, 2, 2.5 and 3, Min RAS Active Time (tRAS), from 5 to 12, RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) from 2 to 7 and Rowprecharge Time (tRP) from 2 to 7. Those are your common settings found on most motherboards, but that only scratches the surface with the DFI RS482 Infinity.
Going back to the main Genie BIOS setting menu, it's time to check out the CPU overclocking. The CPU FSB Ratio Setting varies from 4x up to your default multiplier and increases in increments of 0.5X.
The CPU'n'NB Bus Ratio setting has the usual range of 1 to 5X.
The CPU Frequency is set by a decimal number and starts at 200 and stops at 400. The DFI nF4 Ultra Infinity goes up to 450Mhz.
There's a wide range of DRAM Clock Settings to help you maximize your CPU performance if your memory is holding you back.
Every overclocker will eventually get their foot wet with some voltage tweaks, DFI has a very wide range of settings for you in this department.
The CPU voltage defaults at 1.4V, but this motherboard lets you go anywhere from 1.1 to
1.85
! That's a lot of juice for a mATX motherboard.
The DRAM voltages range from 2.5V to 3.2V. While not as high as other DFI boards, very respectable and still higher than other ATX motherboard offerings out there.
The NB to HT voltage setting can be tweaked from the 1.2V default and go up to 1.4V.
The last voltage setting is the Nb-SB Link voltage; we get a range of 1.8 to 2.1V on the RS482.
Not to be left out in the dark, there are miscellaneous voltage settings, PCI Clk and Spread Spectrum.
We've now covered a vast majority of the RS482 BIOS so we're going to head out and do some overclocking.
Page 8 : Performance Outline
Let me first begin by giving you the specifications of the system I'll be using.
AMD A64 3000+ 'Venice' Processor
Thermaltake Big Typhoon
Patriot Memory PC4000 2GB Kit 3-4-4-8 2.9V
Samsung SATA II 40GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Hard Drive
SilverStone SST-TJ04 Black Case on it's side
Antec TruePower 2.0 480 Watt Power Supply
2*120 SilverStone fans for chassis cooling
Motherboard
DFI RS482 Infinity
Video Cards
Integrated X300SE
Power Color X800GTO16
For a microATX motherboard, the overclocking on this bad boy is spectacular! Given the wide range of voltages and memory tweaks, this could easily become one of the most powerful cube PCs on the market.
Here's a full list of the frequencies I used for the benchmarks.
In order to test the motherboards performance, I'll be subjecting it through a series of benchmarking applications. The suite includes PCMark 2004 and 2005, ScienceMark 2.0 Build 21MAR05, SiSoft Sandra 2005 SR3, Super Pi 1.4, Everest v2.20.405, 3DMark2k1 SE, 3DMark2k3, 3DMark2k5, 3DMark2k6, HDTach 3.0.1.0, and RightMark 3DSound. I will also test the gaming performance by running Half Life, DOOM III and Battle Field 2 at 1024*768.
Let's get to the action!
Page 9 : FutureMark
Our first batch of benchmarks will be based on FutureMark applications. Up first is PCMark 2004 and PCMark2005 followed by 4 versions of 3DMark.
FutureMark PCMark
As we overclock the system, the performance appears to increase linearly. Once thing you will notice is that the integrated graphs will take a bit of punch out of the overall system performance.
FutureMark 3DMark 2K1, 2K3 & 2K5
Here we have more or less the same story. The lack of a dedicated video card shows how much of an impact your performance will suffer. Needless to say, those not requiring top of the line gaming performance can certainly go without a PCI-E 16X card.
FutureMark 3DMark 2K6
Looking solely at the total score and the SM2 score will draw the conclusion that the X300 gets smoked by the X800GTO16. But that's only half the picture. If you look at the CPU score, the difference caused by the shared memory has a very small affect on the CPU performance.
Page 10 : Benchmarks Continued
Moving on two a new batch of benchmarks, we'll start the page off with Super Pi.
Super Pi 1.4
SiSoft Sandra 2005 SR3 – CPU Arithmetic
SiSoft Sandra 2005 SR3 – CPU Multi-Media
Unlike the FutureMark 3DMark2006 CPU analysis, SiSoft shows very little difference when comparing of the X300 based system and the X800 based system.
Everest – Memory Bandwidth
Everest – Latency
There is a very distinct difference on the performance of the system when you're sharing some of the system memory.
This is further emphasized on the SciencMark 2.0 memory benchmark.
ScienceMark 2.0 – Memory Benchmark
ScienceMark 2.0 – Molecular Dynamics & Primordia
In our audio performance, the CPU usage ranges any where from 5 to 15%
RightMark 3DSound CPU Utilization (32 Buffers/44.1Khz)
At last piece of software to look at HD Tach.
HD Tach 3.0.1.0
The performance is pretty consistent regardless of the clock frequency or the total available system memory.
Page 11 : Gaming Benchmarks
For the gamers looking to hook up the RS482 to their 50" plasma TV, this is a page you'll want to check out. If you plan on playing any of the newer titles out there, you'll definitely want to get yourself a dedicated video card. It's not because the missing 32MB of memory will have a profound effect on your overall performance, but the X300 doesn't cut it in the newer titles.
That wraps up all of our benchmarks; head over to the next page where I draw the conclusions.
Page 12 : Conclusion
The DFI RS482 Infinity has turned out to be one stellar motherboard. It offers everything you'll want in a basic multimedia PC. The overclocking potential is simply marvelous with my 3000+ Venice breaking 300*9 and even posting at 315*9!
With the exception of the layout issues, you won't find very many flaws. It certainly would have been nice to incorporate IEEE 1394b (800MBit/second FireWire) and SATA II but only one of those can be controlled by DFI. Hopefully it won't be long before ATi releases an updated chipset designed for mATX motherboards with SATA II as that's more of an issue to me.
Using the X300 IGP, both analog and digital output did not have a problem keeping up with any videos I wanted to play. The TV-out with the S-video also performed as expected. Popping in my X800GTO, I had a system ready to handle everything I'd throw at it. The 8 channel audio will be more than sufficient for most people. DFI has once again developed a motherboard that caters to the enthusiasts but also carries riches needed in a fully-fledged multimedia PC.
Advantages
High overclocking potential for mATX
Passively cooled NB and SB is not a problem for OCing
Everything you need in a multimedia PC
DVI output for X300
Disadvantages
Obstructive layout
X300 IGP does not provide sufficient power for new title gaming
Overclockers Online would like to thank DFI for providing the sample for review.