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The motherboard box itself is one of
the biggest in depth I have ever seen!
The box design itself includes the standard LANParty
artistic picture
On the back, shows the contents of the
box as well as the main features of the board
Opening up the motherboard box greets
you with a chest of treasures! As expected, the motherboard
box is one of the first things to greet you along
with a PC Transpo box - Ill get on to that later!
When you lift the Motherboard out though,
you are greeted with the hidden extras underneath!
Unlike the majority of manufacturers that supply everything
in one Mainboard box, DFI have separated the Accessories
(back plate/USB connectors etc.) and round cables
in their own unique box. Is it a good idea? Well its
certainly nice to see something different and yes
I do think it works! You don't have all your pieces
out instantly, instead you have them kept tidy in
their own unique boxes! There is also a box containing
Front X. I will tell you more about that later too!
Opening up the motherboard box brings
you directly to the "Quick Installation Guide",
LANParty case stickers and motherboard jumpers with
the motherboard hiding underneath
Taking the motherboard out of its Anti-Static
bag, we are finally shown the brightly coloured motherboard.
The brightly coloured sections of the motherboard
are the UV sensitive sections that will glow under
a UV/Black light.
Also what is interesting, is a RESET and POWER button
on the board. This is to help those overclockers or
builders to use the motherboard without having to
connect the case buttons first!
Below are all the back connectors. You
have the PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse connections, Serial
and Parallel connectors, S/PDIF-in and S/PDIF-out,
4 USB slots, 1 Firewire port, 1 RJ45 (gigabit) connection
and your audio connectors
Underneath the motherboard is the
main manual and features book including CDs going
further in depth on how to setup your system and what
it can do!
The CDs included are InterVideo WinCinema,
the DFI drivers and tools and finally the Silicon
Image drivers for Windows2000/XP install.
The accessory kit includes the silicon
compound for your CPU, 2 SATA Cables, 1 SATA to Molex
power connectors, the back plate and the Game Port
and an extra Firewire port.
The rounded IDE and Floppy connectors
are also reactive to UV light, glowing a bright orange
when under the light. Unfortunately, only 1 IDE cable
has been supplied as well as 1 floppy cable. If you
have more than 2 IDE devices, then you are going to
have to purchase another cable.
The PC Transpo is the unusual suspect
that comes with Motherboards, but goes very well with
the LANParty theme. To help you carry around your
piece of art (yes the computer!), the PC Transpo wraps
around the case and supplies you with both a shoulder
strap and handle!
Last but by all means not least, is
the interesting FrontX box
The FrontX is both a front bay for
easy access to your USB, Firewire, microphone and
headphone ports but it is also a system status indicator
with lights telling you instantly what has failed
(if anything) - full lights = A-OK
Here is the FrontX put together how
I wanted. You can lay out the connectors however you
want. As you can see, all the lights are on which
means my system is running ok :)
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