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DFI
AD77 Infinity KT400 - First Look
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Author : Wayne
Date : 4th September 2002
|
| ...Product |
AD77 Infinity |
| ...Manufacturer |
DFI |
| ...Supplier |
DFI |
| ...Price |
Estimated
£100 (Inc. VAT |
Introduction :
They may not be one of the big names in the motherboard
business but I must admit to having a sneaky admiration for
DFI. While other companies are hyping their products out of
all proportions DFI go quietly about their business and while
you're unlikely to find brightly coloured PCBs, futuristic North
Bridge coolers or fancy accessories what you tend to get is
a very stable board at a sensible price. We've reviewed a couple
of boards from DFI and though none of them have been spectacular
overclockers or particularly good lookers I can safely say we've
never seen a bad board from them.
In some ways the AD77 Infinity I'm looking at
today is DFI's first real move towards the enthusiast sector
and though they've been talking about such a move for a while
now they've never quite been able to shake their OEM roots.
Even this board is comparatively heavy on the jumpers and also
features an increasingly rare CNR slot which betrays their tendency
to always have OEMs in mind but this aside the approach is really
quite radical for DFI.
DFI are producing the AD77 in two distinct flavours,
the AD77 Pro and AD77 Infinity. Both feature the new VIA KT400
chipset but the Pro version comes minus IEEE 1394a (FireWire),
Serial-ATA and single channel RAID. If these features matter
to you then you need to specify the AD77 Infinity not Pro.
I want to say at this stage that the board I'm
looking at is an early sample and I don't expect it to perform
anything like the final shipping product. DFI were quite straight
with me about there being some genuine performance issues at
present, issues that just about all KT400 adopters and not just
DFI are wrestling with. They do hope to have made some serious
improvements to overall performance levels by around mid-Sepember
and I have a horrible 
feeling
we might be looking at a new North Bridge revision. No, DFI
didn't tell me this, they actually said the improvements would
come as a result of an improved BIOS developed with input from
VIA but since when did BIOS optimisations follow a time plan?
I noticed the North Bridge on the AD77 is a "CD" revision
and you may remember the problems KT333 had with performance
prior to their "CE" revision, so while I hope I'm
wrong it may just be that a whole new North Bridge is in the
pipeline.
In The Box :
As you'd expect for a product designed to compete
on price the box contents cover pretty much just the basics,
again though I should point out that this may change before
shipping begins. In the box are two ATA-66/100 IDE cables and
a floppy cable, a Serial-ATA cable, I/O Plate, Installation
CD, RAID installation floppy, two port USB bracket and two port
IEEE1394a bracket. The installation CD was still at an early
stage as could be seen from the hand written details on the
front.
Speaking of boxes DFI have produced quite an eye
catcher. The metallic look inks add a touch of class and all
the relevant specs are suitable displayed on the back. This
is quite a step up for DFI and a statement that they're beginning
to think seriously about moving things up a gear or two.
About the KT400 Chipset :
VIA were talking about the KT400 chipset almost
as they were launching the KT333 and interest was immediately
piqued because it was assumed KT400 = support for DDR400. Well,
it did kind of make sense since the KT266/a offered support
for DDR266 and KT333 offered support for DDR333. Unfortunately
VIA decided not to offer official DDR400 support through the
KT400 chipset, in fact with no official standard to support
they couldn't really. Can somebody give the guys at JEDEC a
poke with a sharp stick please! That's not to say that the KT400
can't run the memory bus asynchronously at 200MHz (400MHz DDR)
because it can, there's just no guarantee that your particular
stick of DDR 400 will run on it. That, it seems, is down to
motherboard manufacturers to sort out!
KT400 Block Diagram
|
VT8368 North Bridge
|
VT8235 South Bridge
|
Despite the buzz amongst users it's no great secret
that most manufacturers are not especially excited about KT400.
This indifference is probably due to the fact that KT400 brings
very little with it that's worth getting excited about. The
VT8235 does add a couple of new features such as USB2.0 but
most of these are features that are already available on the
KT333 based boards which have switched to using the VT8235 already.
Despite what some people seem to be saying the KT400 offers
no support for Serial-ATA, this functionality must be added
by using a supporting chip, in this case the Marvell 88i8030.
The only real selling point for KT400 other than performance
(which at the moment it doesn't have) is AGP 8X and a speed
doubled 8x V-Link interface offering 533MB/sec NB to SB transfers
as opposed to 266MB/sec. With AGP 8X graphics cards still to
make it to store shelves in quantity this leaves the KT400 with
very little going for it at present.
Let's stock up on some specs than we'll take a
look at the board itself.
| Features |
KT400
|
KT333
|
KT266A |
| North Bridge |
VT8368
|
VT8367
|
VT8366A |
| Processor Support |
AMD Athlon™ XP
AMD Duron™
|
AMD Athlon™ XP
AMD Duron™
|
AMD Athlon™ XP
AMD Duron™
|
| Front Side Bus |
200/266MHz
|
200/266MHz
|
200/266MHz |
| Memory Bus |
200/266/333MHz
|
200/266/333MHz
|
200/266MHz |
|
AGP Support
|
AGP 8X
|
AGP 4X
|
AGP 4X |
|
Memory Type
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DDR200/266/333
SDRAM
|
DDR200/266/333 SDRAM
|
DDR200/266 SDRAM |
|
Max. Memory
|
4.0GB
|
4.0GB
|
4.0GB |
|
South Bridge
|
VT8235
|
VT8233, VT8233C,
VT8233A or VT8235
|
VT8233, VT8233C
or VT8233A |
|
North/South
Bridge Link
|
VIA V-Link@
533MB/s
|
VIA V-Link@
266MB/s
|
VIA V-Link@
266MB/s |
|
Integrated Audio
|
AC?97 6 Channel
|
AC?97 6 Channel
|
AC?97 6 Channel |
|
Integrated Modem
|
MC?97
|
MC?97
|
MC?97 |
|
Integrated Network
Controller
|
VIA 10/100 Ethernet
MAC
|
3Com? (VT8233C)
or? VIA (VT8233
or 8233A) 10/100 Ethernet MAC
|
3Com? (VT8233C)
or? VIA (VT8233 or
8233A) 10/100 Ethernet MAC |
|
PCI Devices/
Slots
|
5 PCI
|
5 PCI
|
5 PCI |
|
IDE
|
ATA 33/66/100/
133
|
ATA 33/66/100
ATA 133 with
VT8233A South Bridge
|
ATA 33/66/100
ATA 133 with
VT8233A South Bridge |
|
USB
|
USB 2.0 6 Ports,
3 Controllers
|
VT8233 series
USB 1.1 6 Ports, 2 Controllers VT8235 USB 2.0 6 Ports,
3 Controllers
|
USB 1.1 6 Ports,
2 Controllers |
|
Super I/O
|
LPC Super I/O
|
LPC Super I/O
|
LPC Super I/O |
|
IO APIC
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes |
|
Power Management
|
ACPI/APM/PCI/
PM
|
ACPI/APM/PCI/
PM
|
ACPI/APM/PCI/PM |
Key Features
· Supports AMD Athlon™ XP processors
· 200/266MHz FSB settings
· 200/266/333MHz System bus settings
· Support for AGP 2X/4X/8X
· Supports up to 4.0GB DDR200/266/333SDRAM
· 8X V-Link 533MB/s high bandwidth North/South Bridge interconnect
· Support for Advanced Communications Riser (ACR) Card Standard
· Integrated 6 channel Surround Sound AC-97 Audio
· Integrated MC-97 Modem
· Integrated 10/100 Ethernet MAC
· Support for ATA 33/66/100/133
· Support for USB 2.0, 6 USB ports, UHCI compliant
· Advanced power management capabilities including ACPI/OnNow
· 664-pin BGA VT8368 North Bridge
· 487-pin BGA VT8235 South Bridge
AD77 Infinity Specifications
Chipset
VIA VT8377 and VT8235CD
CPU Socket
Socket A
Memory
Supports up to 16GB memory (unbuffered DIMM)
Uses PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333) or PC3200
(DDR400) DDR SDRAM DIMM, 2.5V type
SATA IDE Interface
Uses Marvell 88i8030 chip
Supports one SATA (Serial ATA) interface which is compliant
with SATA 1.0 specification (1.5Gbps interface)
Rear Panel I/O Ports
4 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 RJ45 LAN port
2 DB-9 serial ports
1 DB-25 parallel port
1 PS/2 mouse port
1 PS/2 keyboard port
3 audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in
I/O Connectors
1 connector for 2 additional external USB 2.0/1.1 ports
3 connectors for 3 external IEEE 1394a ports
1 connector for 1 external game/MIDI port
1 connector for external line-out and mic-in jacks
2 internal audio connectors (AUX-in and CD-in)
1 4-channel audio output connector
1 S/PDIF-in/out connector
1 connector for IrDA connector
2 RAID IDE connector
1 connector for serial ATA interface
2 IDE connectors
1 floppy connector
1 ATX power supply connector
1 Wake-On-LAN connector
1 Wake-On-Ring connector
3 fan connectors for CPU, chassis and second chassis fans
Power Management
ACPI and OS Directed Power Management
Wake-On-Events include:
Wake-On-Ring
Wake-On-LAN
Hardware Monitor
Monitors CPU/system temperature
Monitors +12V/-12V/+5V/-5V/3.3V/CPU/VBAT(V)/5VSB(V) voltages
Monitors CPU/chassis fan speed
Automatic chassis fan on/off control
Expansion Slots
1 AGP slot that supports 8x/4x AGP
5 PCI slots (1 shared with CNR slot)
1 CNR slot
Audio Onboard
AC'97 S/PDIF extension compliant codec
Supports Microsoft DirectSound/DirectSound 3D
AC'97 supported with full duplex, independent sample rate converter
for audio recording and playback
6-channel audio output
LAN Onboard
Uses VIA VT6103 Phy chip
ATA RAID Onboard
RAID 0 (striping) or RAID 1 (mirroring)
IEEE 1394a Interface
Uses VIA VT6306 chip
Supports three 100/200/400 Mb/sec ports
BIOS
Award BIOS
2Mbit flash memory
Form Factors
4 layers, ATX form factor
30.5cm (12") x 24.5cm (9.64")
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