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GokuSS2
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RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:03 pm

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mother ... -for-dfi/1

I will miss this line. Anyone else had good times with these boards?
 
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:25 pm

Bummer. My first self-built computer used a LANParty board, and it was awesome.
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Jun 03, 2010 5:07 pm

I wonder if someone like MSI or Asus could hire Oskar Wu away from them. For those who don't remember, he was the driving force behind Abit's enthusiast boards back in their heyday; his move to DFI coincided with DFI's rise (and the start of Abit's decline) as an enthusiast brand.
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Trellot
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:54 pm

I haven't been in the market to upgrade another PC for 5-6 years...just look at my signature...still using basically the same system. But, I was bummed when I found out (TODAY :oops: :) ) that the LanParty brand was eliminated by DFI in favor for industrial motherboard production. I'm starting to think about upgrading again and I was going to check DFI out first...oh well. Sad to see this change for DFI.

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Corrado
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:55 pm

just brew it! wrote:
I wonder if someone like MSI or Asus could hire Oskar Wu away from them. For those who don't remember, he was the driving force behind Abit's enthusiast boards back in their heyday; his move to DFI coincided with DFI's rise (and the start of Abit's decline) as an enthusiast brand.


I doubt it would do much. Motherboards have almost become commodity. You used to know exactly what a motherboard was based on the name. BP6, BH6, P3V, KL7 etc. I know I barely care about what my motherboard is because they generally all over clock decently. You pick the one with the features connectivity you want and thats about it. I used to look at high end boards and lust after them. Now I look at them and say "Why should I spend $175 on that, when this $95 one does the exact same thing with the same chipset with the same performance?" I think the market is just so much smaller these days that its almost not cost effective to do much special anymore. But, thats just my opinion.
 
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:08 pm

Corrado wrote:
I used to look at high end boards and lust after them. Now I look at them and say "Why should I spend $175 on that, when this $95 one does the exact same thing with the same chipset with the same performance?" I think the market is just so much smaller these days that its almost not cost effective to do much special anymore. But, thats just my opinion.

After blowing a "cheaper" board (it was a DFI P35 Blood Iron) due to overclocking I've stopped looking at any board without decent power circuitry. Sure, that brings the average mobo price (be it Intel or AMD) up past the $100 mark but I'll no longer have to worry about my board bursting into flames in the middle of the night like my DFI board did.
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arsenhazzard
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:41 am

Trellot wrote:
I haven't been in the market to upgrade another PC for 5-6 years...just look at my signature...still using basically the same system. But, I was bummed when I found out (TODAY :oops: :) ) that the LanParty brand was eliminated by DFI in favor for industrial motherboard production. I'm starting to think about upgrading again and I was going to check DFI out first...oh well. Sad to see this change for DFI.

Trellot


I just upgraded my system from an SLI-D with a (heavily oc'ed) 3800x2 to a 1090t (got it cheap). I could've put it off for longer, but updating my graphics card resulted in all of the SATA ports being blocked :p.

TheWacoKid wrote:
I've stopped looking at any board without decent power circuitry.


I'd like to add that it's not just the quality of the VRMs, but the cooling as well. Some of the cheaper boards expect stock CPU cooling to provide air flow to the VRMs, so replacing the stock cooling with a tower cooler can result in insufficient cooling.
 
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:17 am

The original nF4 Ultra-D was the last board that was any good, IMO. DFI even ruined those with a revised nf4, which didn't overclock as well. Even though the first was good, it was still a pita to setup new ram like 500mhz+ gskill. Official documentation was nonexistent, and there was conflicting explanations on the forums. A lot of trial and error was involved. Gigabyte's my favorite brand now. Their boards are pretty solid and do what I need without the unnecessary bling.
 
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:41 am

Trellot wrote:
I haven't been in the market to upgrade another PC for 5-6 years...just look at my signature...still using basically the same system. But, I was bummed when I found out (TODAY :oops: :) ) that the LanParty brand was eliminated by DFI in favor for industrial motherboard production. I'm starting to think about upgrading again and I was going to check DFI out first...oh well. Sad to see this change for DFI.

Heh... welcome to 2011. Nice thread necro! :lol:

I pretty much stick to Asus these days. Still have a couple of old systems running with DFI boards in them though (family room PC and my DIY Linux-based router)...
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:46 am

arsenhazzard wrote:
TheWacoKid wrote:
I've stopped looking at any board without decent power circuitry.


I'd like to add that it's not just the quality of the VRMs, but the cooling as well. Some of the cheaper boards expect stock CPU cooling to provide air flow to the VRMs, so replacing the stock cooling with a tower cooler can result in insufficient cooling.

Definitely. I bought the board I have now specifically because it has active cooling on the VRMs. I run water so there's not a ton of airflow across that area of the board.
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:34 am

TheWacoKid wrote:
I bought the board I have now specifically because it has active cooling on the VRMs. I run water so there's not a ton of airflow across that area of the board.

If you look at Asus' product line, it appears that their more expensive boards have VRM heatsinks, but the budget boards don't. Budget motherboard + tower (or water) cooler may not be a good idea...
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Trellot
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:32 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Heh... welcome to 2011. Nice thread necro! :lol:


:P

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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:38 pm

Trellot wrote:
I haven't been in the market to upgrade another PC for 5-6 years...just look at my signature...still using basically the same system. But, I was bummed when I found out (TODAY :oops: :) ) that the LanParty brand was eliminated by DFI in favor for industrial motherboard production. I'm starting to think about upgrading again and I was going to check DFI out first...oh well. Sad to see this change for DFI.

You're not the only one facing this decision. Still using a LanParty UT myself, started with an Athlon FX-55 and later moved to an Opteron 180. Still running, five years later, extremely stable. However I'm seriously eyeing the most recent TR Utility Player spec as no motherboard lives forever, and my hard drives aren't young anymore, either.
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:56 pm

TheWacoKid wrote:
After blowing a "cheaper" board (it was a DFI P35 Blood Iron) due to overclocking I've stopped looking at any board without decent power circuitry. Sure, that brings the average mobo price (be it Intel or AMD) up past the $100 mark but I'll no longer have to worry about my board bursting into flames in the middle of the night like my DFI board did.


I've NEVER had a problem with a board due to overclocking. I did have 2 Asus nForce2 motherboards litterally burst into flames though. If I hadn't gotten to the office at the time I did on the one, it would have taken the whole building with it. There were flames coming out of the vent above the CPU fan, and I caught the system just as it flickered off.

I've had boards go because of bad caps, but now I avoid the absolute cheapest boards. If I can spend $90 on a board, and add a $10 VRM heatsink, why would I buy the $170 board that comes with a VRM heatsink and otherwise has the same features?
 
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:42 pm

Corrado wrote:
I've NEVER had a problem with a board due to overclocking.

If you ever push your CPU so hard that the VRMs literally explode you will. I didn't realize my board couldn't handle an extremely overclocked Q6600. IntelBurnTest and an extremely overbuilt water loop didn't help.

As for adding heatsinks to the cheaper boards - that works as long as they have the same power circuitry. :P
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Thu Sep 22, 2011 8:26 pm

Corrado wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
I wonder if someone like MSI or Asus could hire Oskar Wu away from them. For those who don't remember, he was the driving force behind Abit's enthusiast boards back in their heyday; his move to DFI coincided with DFI's rise (and the start of Abit's decline) as an enthusiast brand.


I doubt it would do much. Motherboards have almost become commodity. You used to know exactly what a motherboard was based on the name. BP6, BH6, P3V, KL7 etc. I know I barely care about what my motherboard is because they generally all over clock decently. You pick the one with the features connectivity you want and thats about it. I used to look at high end boards and lust after them. Now I look at them and say "Why should I spend $175 on that, when this $95 one does the exact same thing with the same chipset with the same performance?" I think the market is just so much smaller these days that its almost not cost effective to do much special anymore. But, thats just my opinion.


True, this. I used to get certain models because of their design. The new gamer-oriented models don't really interest me at all now, since they've more frills than I would possibly ever need. Now, as both Intel and AMD plan to go the higher-integration-SoC route, motherboard makers will be more and more marginalized in the future. If they want to avoid this and continue differentiating, one way I could think of is by doing more interesting integration opportunities, like perhaps Thunderbolt, wireless networking, wireless display, or heck, even better sound, maybe by integrating quality DACs! They'll be niche at first, but they'll get there.
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:36 pm

l33t-g4m3r wrote:
The original nF4 Ultra-D was the last board that was any good, IMO. DFI even ruined those with a revised nf4, which didn't overclock as well. Even though the first was good, it was still a pita to setup new ram like 500mhz+ gskill. Official documentation was nonexistent, and there was conflicting explanations on the forums. A lot of trial and error was involved. Gigabyte's my favorite brand now. Their boards are pretty solid and do what I need without the unnecessary bling.


I think there's a lot of truth to this. If you look at DFI's final LANParty boards, based off of the Intel X48 and X58 chipsets, there were a number of complaints about really quirky BIOSes, odd behavior, and (by then) absolute zip for support. They also had a reputation for being picky about RAM. I read a lot about people who had previously owned LANParty boards, loved them, and went from nForce4 over to newer LP boards, and were extremely frustrated getting them set up. That, and they went from that cool black with orange to an absolutely nasty black with green/yellow. Not sure what they were thinking.

I also agree with the post about the way the mainboard market has trended. Only the strong have survived. Over the past decade, we've seen the following companies bite the dust:

Abit
BFG
Chaintech
Epox
iWill
Soyo

That's not an all-inclusive list, but every one of those companies had at least one home-run board at some time in their history, and they're all gone. Even the second-tier vendors are shrinking. Notice that ECS and Foxconn have no new Z68 chipset boards, and appear to have abandoned their "high-end" (e.g. the ECS "Black line and the Foxconn Bloodrage and Flaming Blade series), or at the very least are quite slow in getting new product to market. Asrock is probably the one new company making serious inroads in the mainboard market.

Hiring Oskar Wu might make sense for a company like Asrock, but every other major player (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Intel) pretty much has their ducks in a row, and truthfully, Asrock's new boards are pretty good as they stand (or would be if they invested a bit more time in their BIOS engineering). I don't think hiring him would make sense for Biostar either, who smartly keeps even their upper-end boards squarely in the budget niche (I think they'd lose money chasing the high-end market).
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:50 pm

I would add to LoneWolf15's list:

FIC (had a Socket A board from them that was a real workhorse)
Tyan (not totally gone, but have exited the desktop/enthusiast market to focus entirely on servers)
Micronics (made some good boards back in the Pentium Pro / Super 7 days)
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:11 pm

Yeah, Micronics made at least half (probably 3/4) of Gateway's boards in the 486 era, back when it was Gateway 2000. Good, solid boards, too.

FIC went from reasonable to mediocre at best, IMHO. One of my OEM suppliers used them in systems we bought to fill jobs (back when I worked in the mom-n-pop shop) that were larger than we had build time for. I never had good luck in the stability department with them; in retrospect, I'd chalk it up to shoddy voltage regulation.

As for Tyan, I think they took a long time to decide what they really wanted to be and when they finally chose, they made the right decision. Many of their desktop boards had one foot in the workstation/server market.
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:26 pm

LoneWolf15 wrote:
Yeah, Micronics made at least half (probably 3/4) of Gateway's boards in the 486 era, back when it was Gateway 2000. Good, solid boards, too.

They also made Micron PC's Pentium Pro workstation motherboards (last pre-built system I owned), and I also had a Micronics C200 Super 7 board that was the best Super 7 board I ever worked with bar none. Starfalcon (our resident collector of obsolete PC hardware) has both of those now... sold 'em to him a few years ago. I think the merger with Diamond/S3 ultimately killed Micronics... if not for that deal, they might still be around today.
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Re: RIP DFi Lanparty

Tue Sep 27, 2011 6:04 pm

just brew it! wrote:
I think the merger with Diamond/S3 ultimately killed Micronics... if not for that deal, they might still be around today.


It could easily be. Diamond started out as a great company. I remember buying my first VESA Local Bus video card, a Diamond Speedstar Pro, used on FIDONet. I called up Diamond at that time, on an 800 number, and politely asked the technician what the newest BIOS revisions and driver revisions. He let me know; they were newer than my card. I politely asked again what it would cost to get new BIOS chips (there were two, a low and a high) and a new set of driver disks.

Calm response: "Nothin'".
Me: "Nothing?"
Him: "Nothing. Of course you'll have to wait a few days for shipping..."
Me (incredulous): "Hey, no problem! Where do I sign up?"

They shipped them to me free too; I got the chips and the disks a week later.

Flash forward a couple of years, and I have enough cash to buy Diamond's Stealth 64 Video VRAM, their top-end PCI graphics accelerator. Ingram Micro sent it to me, and I got it installed.

Driver issues all over the place in Windows 9x. The top-right hand corner minimize/maximize buttons in windows are corrupted, and I can see the desktop background through them (later down the road, we find out plenty of S3 Vision 968 graphics accelerators had driver issues, due to S3's inability to get its act together, though magazines like Computer Shopper and others never commented about that, simply labeling the Diamond card as the fastest they'd ever seen). Okay, I'll just call up Diamond's tech support.

No 800 number any more --great. I have to call California on my dime.
Two hours later, still on hold, no tech. I finally leave a voicemail. No reply.
Several days later, I try again. One hour later, I leave a voicemail. No reply.
I manage to get ahold of someone via an e-mail, who promises to send an updated BIOS and driver disks. They never arrive, and I never hear from them again.
I finally send the card back to Ingram, and purchase an ATI Graphics Pro Turbo, not quite as fast, but rock stable.

I send an e-mail to the CEO of Diamond Multimedia, describing my problems and disappointment in polite detail, and I'm pretty sure I managed to find a fax number and send a second copy. No reply --two weeks later, I send another one, indicating I will not be purchasing a Diamond product again.

It only went downhill from there until the company closed. After one or two customers had issues (we advised against their purchase, but it was what they wanted ordered), we steered them away from Diamond products completely.
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