DFI vs Sapphire Crossfire motherboards

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Mysterae

Gawd
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Sep 11, 2005
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This is another 'help me choose a motherboard' thread, but please read on!

I've decided it's between:

DFI LanParty UT RDX200CF-DR (£149.64)

or

Sapphire PURE Crossfire Advantage (£84.99)

The graphic card choice is a Sapphire X1800XT (master later) and 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix RAM, and all watercooled.

There is obviously a big price difference between the two, I just don't know if the premium of the DFI is worth it. Having read all the probs folk have had with the DFI puts me off, but I want to overclock and the DFI gives the best for that. However, there are no reviews on the net of the Sapphire board that I can find, so it's hard to make an educated choice.

Is there any percievable benefit from having the same manufacturer of motherboard and graphics card in the same system?

Anyone got any opinions, choice they would make, heard anything about the Sapphire board I haven't?
 
Mysterae said:
This is another 'help me choose a motherboard' thread, but please read on!

I've decided it's between:

DFI LanParty UT RDX200CF-DR (£149.64)

or

Sapphire PURE Crossfire Advantage (£84.99)

The graphic card choice is a Sapphire X1800XT (master later) and 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix RAM, and all watercooled.

There is obviously a big price difference between the two, I just don't know if the premium of the DFI is worth it. Having read all the probs folk have had with the DFI puts me off, but I want to overclock and the DFI gives the best for that. However, there are no reviews on the net of the Sapphire board that I can find, so it's hard to make an educated choice.

Is there any percievable benefit from having the same manufacturer of motherboard and graphics card in the same system?

Anyone got any opinions, choice they would make, heard anything about the Sapphire board I haven't?
Click to expand...

Just a lil bit of an addition. The Sapphire Crossfire board, based upon the PC Partner RD480AK9-A72D I may add, is the PC-A9RD480Adv. ^__^

IMHO, I'd wait until someone puts out a review for it. I've been keeping tabs on the EQS boards, their EQS A72K9-CF is based upon the same PC Partner board, and some people have been having some memory issues when trying to do overclocking on it along with some other issues which you can see here:

http://www.eqscomputers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=578

Otherwise, EQS's support seems to be top-notch and this would also be a viable alternative. But, if you do get this board can you please post your feelings about it? I'm really curious to see how many PCI slots you have free with that configuration and how well it runs. ^__^

Meantime, I'm really leaning towards the MSI RD480 Neo2 and just waiting for Zipzoomfly to get it in stock. ^__^
 
you might want to check out this little thread if you are considering the dfi. http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79187
dfi's last 3 "enthusiast" boards, nf2 lanparty, nf3 250 gb and the nf4 series have all had serious booting ,bios and memory compatibility issues. takes a lot of time and patience, maybe even an rma to get one working correctly. as an aside, dfi's customer/tech support is only slightly better than an 18 inch needle in your eyeball.
 
DFI has another board coming too right? The CF-BT? Anyways, its just a personal preference but i like boards that dont stray too far from refernce design. The CF-BT is supposed to be a tweaked reference design so it could be a real winner. With that in mind, the Sapphire boards are basically ATI reference design (i think). The problem is that no one really knows how well sapphire will support the boards. Im in the same situation as you guys. I got an X1800 XT coming today with no PCI-E board. I dont know if i should chance it and get a DFI RDX200, or wait for the sapphire and CF-BT boards.

Aaron- I think i read somewhere that that RDX200 doesnt play well with enermax psu's. Have you tried another brand psu?
 
Thanks for your input guys.

I dunno, I've read everything on the DFI Streets forum about the DFI board and didn't instill me with enthusiasm. Then again the Sapphire board is a bit 'dull', if motherboards can be anything but! The forum and it's support for Sapphire is a bit lacking.

I'm going to hold off for a week, mainly to see if the availability of the X1800XT is any better, and if any other players bring out a motherboard.
 
DFI is to say the least, picky. They require certain components and if your motherboard doesn't like a component. It will give you one or more of the following

- Abdominal Pain (Because you just spent money on an unstable board)
- Back Pain (From leaning over trying to fix your computer)
- Small wallet (From spending $200 on a motherboard)
- Red LED's of Doom
- Long Beeps
- Cold Boot Issues
- Freezing
- Crashing
- Memory Errors

I have one and I have had all 9 :) Dont I feel special.
 
I own the DFI board. It runs great except that it has booting/rebooting issues. Hitting the reset button solves the problem, but is pretty annoying to say the least. That's not even figuring that a board that cost $200.00 should not have any issues whatsoever.
 
On the RDX200...flash to the beta bios. It helps tons. I have two running so far with no issues AFTER the bios flash. Before..read above and also the RAID did not work for me. After...all good. ;)
 
Right, made my decision and a DFI RDX200 and a X1800XT are winging their way to me now. Gotta have something to play with over xmas! If a better 2x16 Crossfire mb comes out in January as per the rumours, then the board will be ebay fodder!

What make of RAM are you guys using with your DFI board?
 
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