Athlon Hit Parade: 10 mobos with the nForce2 Ultra400

DFI LanParty NFII Ultra

Board Revision: A

BIOS Version: July 9, 2003

DFI didn't want to be accused of being stingy, so they sent us the LANParty NFII Ultra to test. And it really does live up to its name! The large box contains a high quality shoulder strap system called PC Transpo. It can be attached to practically any housing and makes carrying your PC - preferably to LAN parties, what else? - not only kind to your fingers, but easy on your back, too.

"Let's Party" could be the board's motto, too, because it also comes well-equipped. DFI has once again used the HPT372N IDE RAID controller from HighPoint, whose RAID-1 mode has been reengineered so that it now uses both hard drives when reading. It is claimed that this leads to significantly enhanced performance in the RAID mode 1.5. Find out more here .

Besides the RAID controller, the board also comes with a serial ATA controller from Marvel with only one port. But even this one is likely to be sufficient for the next few months, especially since serial ATA hard drives are rare and relatively expensive. DFI has, however, also thought to include a power adapter for serial ATA.

Computer tinkerers and hardware testers will greatly appreciate the additional power and reset switch on the motherboard. But normal consumers will only rarely get a glimpse of this feature.