reviews

DFI LanParty UT 790FX Motherboard Review


Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Board Layout and Features Cont.


The ATX Connector has gotten pretty sparse in terms of support however the important stuff is still represented including 6x USB 2.0, a single Firewire, and 2 GigaLan Ethernet connections.
It should be noted that if you enable the 4x PCIe option the secondary LAN controller will cease to function.  It would seem that some of the PCI Express lanes are shared.

A Marvell chip provides the PHY connection for the GigaLan while a Silicon Image chip has been added to support 2 independent SATA RAID connections.
The AMD (ATI) SB600 Southbridge is supplying the majority of the independent connections including the available USB ports, and 4 SATA connections.  A single IDE and floppy connection is also available.
The standard EZ buttons and BIOS Diagnostic LED are found in the lower corner of the PCB and are one of the redeeming features on all DFI motherboards. The easy access power and reset buttons also double as a way to clear the CMOS. Simply press both buttons at the same time for 10-15 seconds, release, and then power on the system. This will also work if you have power and reset buttons hooked up thru the front panel connector.