Get Fatal1ty.... 4 phase power + otes ram.... onboard otes... moffet cooler... stable clock man.........
better layout...cooper heatsink.......sound card off board...
and have optical out.....
what DFI have? think about it......

When we benchmarked nF4-SLI boards several months ago, it was very early in the release cycle for nForce4 motherboards. We were surprised to see the large spread of overclocking results, but there was the explanation that the boards were new to market and we were testing immature technology. We are now several months down the road and the nForce4 Ultra chipset is everywhere in the market. Now, we have to wonder why there is such a huge spread in overclocking results with the nForce4 Ultra boards in this roundup. Names like Abit, which should be at the top of the OC game, barely reached 250 in our overclock tests. The enthusiast wannabes also generally performed extremely poorly.

It is almost like some board makers understand how to overclock nForce4 motherboards and others are still struggling. Two boards clearly stand out in overclocking in this roundup:the Epox 9NPA+ and the DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D. These two turned in bus overclocks more than 50% higher than the third placed motherboard, and they were also the top two in stock ratio overclocking.

owh n 1 more thing, i guess high htt shows what the board is capable off.. no matter at what speed ur ram is running.. just my 2 cents 

its weird becoz most of them who have the same problem are using high voltage ram

The Fatal1ty AN8 costs about $50 less than its Pentium 4-bearing counterpart, the AA8XE, but that still rings it in at around $200. That's a lot to pay for a motherboard by anyone's standard. Still, if it provides a significant boost in performance, it's worth it, right?

If you don't consider overclocking a critical factor, this is one of the best Athlon 64 boards we've tested. It's packed with good features, and extremely easy to work with. The benchmarks are the highest we've seen for an Athlon 64 FX-55. Will similar new chipset motherboards for AMD's CPUs deliver similar performance? We'll be taking a look at quite a few of them over the coming weeks, and it will be interesting to see how they stack up. Compared with the last-generation chipsets, it's a real winner.

That said, we were extremely disappointed to find that we could hardly overclock our FX-55 chip at all. It's hard to know exactly where to place the blame for this—on the CPU, its cooling, or the motherboard. Still, for a motherboard that emphasizes overclocking, our lack of success is definitely bad news. The features and utilities for juicing up your CPU are fantastic, so this could be a great board for those users. We just didn't get there in our tests. At this price, this is obviously not a board for everyday users. If you're a hard-core enthusiast, we have no problem recommending it. The benchmark scores are fantastic, and the nForce 4 Ultra chipset delivers fantastic features. The slot layout is highly unusual and could be bad or good depending on what you plan to install, so plan accordingly.

The LanParty line of motherboards from DFI have always catered to the kind of PC enthusiast who likes to really push his components to the limit, and this one is no exception. It's not necessarily designed for ease of use, but for tweaking, tuning, poking, and prodding your components until you eke out every last bit of performance. The UV sensitive slots are a bit of extra eye candy for the case modders out there, but the real star of the show is the BIOS. DFI has done an exceptional job with adding the kind of BIOS features that hardcore PC builders really appreciate. The built-in MemTest86 and user-selectable backup BIOS banks are great ideas. Really extreme overclockers will get a kick out of pushing their expensive RAM up to 4 volts.

Having said that, we find ourselves mystified about a couple of things. Why is DFI stuck in three-years-ago mode with no web-based, Windows BIOS update software? Why on earth would they put a x4 PCIe slot on a consumer motherboard? Why make the user change six large sets of jumper blocks to enable dual-graphics mode? Why put the analog audio jacks on a removable bracket when it's going to go in the back I/O panel anyway? None of these things are really problems, per se, but they're curious design decisions that we feel might be keeping the board from its full potential.

If you're a hardcore overclocker, you've almost certainly heard of DFI's LanParty series before. You should know that this model continues the legacy of adding features to help you push your hardware beyond its intended specifications. It's also not outrageously expensive, and in fact costs a little less than many other nForce 4 Ultra motherboards on the market. If you don't plan on tweaking out your system, you may be better off with a board that includes more x1 PCIe slots, but there's still a lot to like here. Dual gigabit Ethernet and six USB 2.0 ports on the back I/O panel are features anyone can enjoy.