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Introduction:::...

Intel may have convinced their partners that DDR2 and PCI Express was the way to go and that they should snap up their 915 and 925 chipsets as quickly as they could, but the reality wasn't quite so clear cut. Although we are now seeing sales of DDR2 and PCI-E beginning to take off, it wasn't quite the crashing overnight sensation that Intel had us all believe back in Q3 2004.

2005 has seen more people taking the plunge, and with DDR2 speeds increasing and latencies falling, even the once-feeble argument that DDR2 is a superior technology is beginning to hold water. On paper it was always better, but famous gaming victories rarely get made on paper.

Today I want to look at a 925X chipset based motherboard from a company that was once the darling of the OEMs but pretty much ignored by the enthusiast sector. Perhaps that's not surprising considering they were famed for being solid and reliable but they were also rather unadventurous when it came to adding exciting options to their BIOS implementations.

How things change! Today DFI are becoming as well known for their innovative products and their extensive BIOS options as they are for their reliability, and though it's taken them a while, they've made it amongst that small band of elite manufacturers that come to mind when you need a motherboard you know will perform well.

The major negative with this product is its chipset. The 925X has already been replaced by the superior 925XE which introduced the 1066MHz bus and is generally a better option for overclocking your memory. However, not everyone is interested in such things, and for the most part the 925X offers almost everything your regular user could want but at a lower cost.

The 925X-T2 I'm reviewing today isn't just another halfhearted 925x implementation, it comes with a heapin' helpin' of DFI's imagination and attention to detail....on paper at least.

As usual let's browse the specs.

LAN PARTY 925X-T2 exclusive features

• Karajan Audio(Dolby 7.1 /8ch supported)
• Dual Gigabit LAN(1xPCI interface, 1xPCIe interface)
• 100% Japanese Capacitors
• SATA/ PATA converting daughter Card
• CMOS reloaded
• All New Genie BIOS
• UV sensitive slots
• New FrontX
  (SATA port,Spdif optical out,Mini1394,Debug LED lights)
• PC Transpo
• EZ-on / EZ-touch

Intel® Pentium® 4 Prescott processor
    - Hyper-Threading Technology 
    - 800MT/s (200MHz) system bus interface
Socket LGA 775 (LAN Grid Array)

Intel® 925X chipset
    - Intel® 925X Memory Controller Hub (MCH)
    - Intel® 82801FR I/O Controller Hub (ICH6R)

Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM sockets 
Supports dual channel (128-bit wide) memory interface
Supports up to 4GB system memory
Supports DDR2 400 and DDR2 533 DIMMs
Supports ECC (x8) or non-ECC x8 and x16 DIMMs
Supports 256Mb and 512Mb DRAM densities
Supports Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT2)
Supports unbuffered DIMMs

Award BIOS
Genie BIOS provides:
    - CPU/DRAM overclocking
    - CPU/NB/DRAM overvoltage
4Mbit flash memory

Supports ACPI specification and OS Directed Power Management
Supports ACPI STR (Suspend to RAM) function
Wake-On-Events include:
    - Wake-On-PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse 
    - Wake-On-USB Keyboard/Mouse
    - Wake-On-Ring (external modem)
    - Wake-On-LAN
    - RTC timer to power-on the system
AC power failure recovery

Monitors CPU/system temperature and overheat alarm 
Monitors 12V/5V/3.3V/Vcore/Vbat/5Vsb/3.3Vsb voltages 
Monitors the speed of the CPU/system fan
CPU Overheat Protection function monitors CPU temperature and fan 
    during system boot-up - automatic shutdown upon system overheat

Azalia audio codec with independent variable sampling rate
S/PDIF-in/out interface
8-channel audio output 

Gigabit ethernet controllers - Marvell 88E8053 PCI Express and Marvell 88E8001 PCI 
Full duplex support at both 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 1Gbps

Supports ATA/33, ATA/66 and ATA/100 hard drives

Supports four SATA (Serial ATA) interfaces which are  compliant with SATA 1.0 
    specification (1.5Gbps interface)
Supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD

Supports two 100/200/400 Mb/sec ports

1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
2 S/PDIF RCA jacks (S/PDIF-in and S/PDIF-out)
Karajan audio card (6 audio jacks)
1 IEEE 1394 port
2 RJ45 LAN ports
6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports 

1 connector for 2 additional external USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 connector for 1 external IEEE 1394 port
1 connector for 1 external serial port
1 front audio connector for external line-out and mic-in jacks
1 CD-in internal audio connector
1 S/PDIF connector for optical cable connection
1 IR connector
1 CIR connector
4 Serial ATA connectors
1 IDE connector
1 floppy connector
2 ATX power supply connectors
5 fan connectors
4 diagnostic LEDs
1 diagnostic LED connector for external 4 diagnostic LEDs display
EZ touch switches (power switch and reset switch)

1 PCI Express x16 slot
3 PCI Express x1 slots
3 PCI slots 

PCI 2.2 and Azalia compliant

6 layers, ATX form factor
24.5cm (9.64") x 30.5cm (12")

All specifications above are subject to change without prior notice.