DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RSH - AMD LanParty Motherboard Review

If you are a hardware enthusiast you're probably familiar with the name and ideology behind the brand of DFI. The Taiwanese manufacturer is well known with the "LanParty" series motherboards, the company being the only one creating motherboards solely for overclockers and hardcore gamers. Ever since the long forgotten days of the NVIDIA NForce 2 chipset, DFI earned for themselves a good name by providing some of motherboards that were most capable and had the best overclocking potential. Although for the last few years in Bulgaria the brand was in the shadows because of import issues, now the full range of its products is available at out market. The first review of their products at ModReactor will be the one of DFI LanParty DK (DARK) 790FXB-M2RSH - top range AMD processor motherboard, based on the top-class AMD 790FX chipset. And to be fair in out assessment of the motherboard we tested it with the newest and fastest AMD processor - Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition.

Major DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M2RSH features:

• Support of all AMD® AM2 and AM2+ processors: Phenom FX / Phenom / Athlon / Sempron
• HyperTransport 3.0 (5200MT/s за AM2+) HyperTransport 1.0 (2000/1600MT/s за AM2)
• Northbridge: AMD 790FX
• Southbridge: AMD SB750
• 4 DDR2 memory slots for up to 8GB 667/800/1066MHz, with support of dual-channel (128-bit) interface to the memory
• 4 phase PWM of the processor
• 3x PCI-Express x16 2.0 slots - in configuration x16 + x16 with two cards in CrossfireX or x16 + x8 + x8 with three
• 3x PCI slots
• 6x SATA 3GBps connectors, supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 2x PATA 133Mbps connectors
• 1x Gigabit LAN through Marvell 8053 module
• 8 channel HD sound through Realtek ALC885
• 12x USB 2.0 ports, 6 on the back, 6 more from additional 3 connectors
• EZ touch switches (power switch and reset switch)
• Debug LED - digital LED for POST diagnostics
• CMOS Reloaded - system for backup of different BIOS profiles and settings
• Genie BIOS - hundreds of setting in BIOS for the needs of the even most demanding overclockers
• Auto Boost System - DFI overclock system for beginners
• Fluorescent Slot & Connectors for better motherboard appearance in acrylic cases with UV lights

Well, well, well... on paper everything seems in favour of DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RSH. Let us proceed by taking a closer look at the motherboard before we begin serious testing.