The board
DFI has adopted a unique aesthetic for its LANParty line, and while a black board and UV-reactive colors might be a little wild for more reserved circles, it's a great combo for enthusiasts with case windows. The Expert offers more than just a unique aesthetic, though. Its layout also deviates from the norm.

DFI has been experimenting with different socket and DIMM slot positions for a while, and with the Expert, the two have been swapped. This puts the DIMM slots closer to the rear exhaust fan in most enclosures, which should allow for better memory cooling. However, the design also moves the CPU socket further away from that rear exhaust port. That could result in warmer air around not only the processor heat sink, but also the board's voltage circuitry.

Thankfully, the area around the Expert's CPU socket leaves plenty of room for larger, more exotic coolers. Even the VRM heat sinks are low-profile designs that shouldn't interfere with wider coolers. The close proximity of the board's DIMM slots could cause clearance problems with larger coolers and taller DIMMs, though. Keep that in mind if you're running Corsair's XMS Pro or Xpert modules.

Just over to the right of the CPU socket (bottom left in the picture above), we can see the Expert's power connectors. DFI includes an eight-pin connector for the auxiliary 12V line for those with compatible power supplies. Regular four-pin ATX 12V connectors will work just fine, though. Those planning on running dual graphics cards should also note that there's a four-pin floppy power connector next to the board's top PCI Express x16 slot. DFI recommends running additional power to that port with SLI configurations.

When running a pair of graphics cards in SLI, the Expert routes eight lanes of PCI Express to each of its x16 slots. The nForce4 SLI's remaining four lanes of PCI-E go to the x4 slot, rendering the x1 slot useless. Bandwidth returns to the x1 slot when the Expert is configured for a single graphics card, though. That configuration directs 16 lanes of PCI-E to the top x16 slot, followed by single lanes to the x1 and x4 slots, and two lanes to the bottom x16 slot.

Switching between the Expert's PCI Express lane configurations is as easy as toggling a BIOS option, so there's no messing around with SLI paddle cards. It's a pretty slick system, and we don't even mind losing the x1 slot in SLI mode. Double-wide graphics coolers would have blocked access to the slot, anyway, and as long as PCI Express peripherals remain few and far between, we can still gush over the theoretical potential of an x4 slot.

Beyond the Expert's expansion slots, we find the board's chipset cooler. We're generally not fond of active cooling here, as tiny fans tend to develop an annoying whine over time. However, DFI's little mag-lev unit seems to be better than most. Our own Mr. Wasson has had one just like it running in his personal system for more than four months now, and it's not getting any louder.

While we don't mind the Expert's active chipset cooler, we're less fond of its Serial ATA port placement. Long, double-wide graphics cards like NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX 512 can obscure access to the nForce4 SLI's upper two SATA ports. This is a surprisingly common problem among SLI boards, and one we hope manufacturers pay more attention to in the future.

We'd also like manufacturers to pay attention to DFI's inclusion of onboard power and reset buttons. The buttons are probably overkill for most folks, but they're very handy for benchmarking on an open test system.

Around the rear, the Expert's port cluster is loaded with goodies, including six USB ports, dual Ethernet jacks, a Firewire port, and coaxial S/PDIF audio input and output ports. Onboard headers are available for an additional four USB ports, one Firewire port, and one Serial port, but DFI doesn't bundle any PCI or front-panel expansion ports to connect to those headers.

DFI fills the gaping hole in the Expert's port backplane with its Karajan audio riser. This little unit provides a full suite of analog audio ports, including a couple of dedicated input ports that eliminate the need for port sharing. The riser also moves the ALC850 codec chip up off the board, isolating it from noise that could damage the quality of audio streams. We'll see whether it makes a difference in our audio quality tests.