The BIOS and nTune support
Most of today's enthusiast-oriented motherboards ship with competent BIOSes, but DFI goes above and beyond with the LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert.

The Expert's BIOS kicks things off with a wide array of memory timing options, including the DRAM command rate, which DFI refers to as Command Per Clock. Users are also given control over a handful of memory bus dividers that can run the memory clock as low as half the speed of the system's HyperTransport clock.

Most enthusiast boards can match the Expert BIOS's selection of memory timings, but few equal its generous overclocking options. HyperTransport bus speeds are available as high as 550MHz, along with enough HT processor link and CPU multipliers to keep the rest of the system in check. If you want to push your processor to its limits, the BIOS offers CPU voltages as high as 1.55V. There's also an additional CPU overvolt option that increases the processor voltage by 2.4-36%, yielding a maximum CPU voltage of 2.108V. If that isn't enough juice for you, memory voltages are available as high as 4.0V, as well.

While the Expert's BIOS is well-equipped for traditional overclocking, its most impressive clock-related feature may be the Cool'n'Quiet MAX FID option. This setting controls Cool'n'Quiet's maximum CPU multiplier, allowing users to enjoy HyperTransport overclocking and idle clock-throttling at the same time. Surprisingly, this feature is missing from most Athlon 64 motherboards, although DFI makes it available on several of its LANParty offerings.

In addition to robust memory timing and overclocking options, enthusiasts are increasingly demanding fan speed control options to help lower system noise levels. Fortunately, the Expert's BIOS delivers temperature triggers for the board's CPU, system, and north bridge fans. The fan speed options aren't quite as flexible as those found on some other boards, but they're more extensive than most. DFI also gets props for including a shutdown temperature trigger that should help guard against damage from a catastrophic cooling failure.

With so many BIOS options to choose from, users will likely want to experiment a little to find the right mix of settings for their system. The Expert makes this easy by allowing users to save up to four BIOS configurations with CMOS Reloaded. Profiles can be loaded from within the BIOS or invoked upon booting by holding down a predefined hotkey.

While CMOS Reloaded and the Cool'n'Quiet MAX FID are some of the Expert BIOS's more unique features, its pièce de résistance is the integration of Memtest86+. Toggling a BIOS option boots the board directly into Memtest, making it easy to quickly test tighter timings or an overclocked memory bus. DFI's LANParty nForce4 motherboards are the only ones on the market to integrated Memtest into the BIOS, putting the Expert in rare company. Call us greedy, but we wish DFI could find a way to integrate a boot-to-Prime95 option for testing the stability of overclocked processors, too.

Since even seasoned enthusiasts might want access to a few BIOS options without having to reboot, the Expert also works with NVIDIA's nTune Windows system utility.

Through nTune, it's possible to manipulate the system's HyperTransport and PCI Express busses, adjust the HT processor link multiplier, and fiddle with a few memory timings. nTune also supports core and memory overclocking for recent GeForce graphics cards.

In addition to offering a small collection of overclocking and tweaking options, nTune also lets users track system speeds, temperatures, and voltages.