My Asus A8N5X has to be RMA'd because of a bad IDE port. I'm thinking of getting a DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D to replace it. The DFI board appears to have excellent build quality--high quality caps, etc. I'm not a big-time overclocker, but I do like all the tweaking options offered on the DFI board.
However, the people at DFI Street insist that you must have a 480 watt power supply for this board, and I only have an Antec Truepower II 430.
The system has a 3800X2 overclocked to 2400 (240 HTT X 10), 2 1GB sticks of Corsair RAM, DVD-ROM, Radeon X1800GTO, one 74GB Raptor and one 160gb Seagate 7200.9--both hard drives are SATA. This seems well within the limits of a 430 watt supply, and certainly runs fine at stock voltages with the current 430 watt power supply.
So, does the DFI board really require a minimum of a 480 watt power supply? If so, what is different about this board that requires more power?
Will DFI Ultra-D work with less than 480w power supply?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
No, it does not require 480W. The system in my sig works perfectly fine with the NeoHE 430, maximum AC draw is something around 250W, idle is about 120W, running on 230VAC.
I have no idea why the DFI-street guys keep insisting on 480W minmum, even DFI does not require that. If i remember correctly DFI recommended a 350W PSU for a system with a 3400+ and a 6600GT, something around 500W was recommended for 6800Ultra SLI and 3800+ or something like that. Even those recommendations are based on the assumption that a lot of users will use crappy "500W" PSUs.
I have no idea why the DFI-street guys keep insisting on 480W minmum, even DFI does not require that. If i remember correctly DFI recommended a 350W PSU for a system with a 3400+ and a 6600GT, something around 500W was recommended for 6800Ultra SLI and 3800+ or something like that. Even those recommendations are based on the assumption that a lot of users will use crappy "500W" PSUs.
Ok, thanks for the responses. I suspect that the reason for the 480 watt recommendation is people with junk power supplies and two SLI'd vid cards trying to achieve massive overclocks .
Couple of questions about this board:
- Is a Zalman NB47J suitable for chipset cooling? (Works fine on my current board.)
- Can I put the X1800GTO in either vid slot or is one preferable to the other?
Couple of questions about this board:
- Is a Zalman NB47J suitable for chipset cooling? (Works fine on my current board.)
- Can I put the X1800GTO in either vid slot or is one preferable to the other?
If you search for NB47J and ultra-d on this forum or google, you'll see full pics of people who have modded this heatsink for use on the ultra-d. It involves some creative cutting and bending of fins. However, you only need to mod it if you really want to use the top pci-e slot or are going SLI.
If you're not intending on using SLI, you can just use the lower pci-e slot, (granted, it only runs at 8x but there really won't be any noticeable performance drop). That way you won't have to mess with modding the NB47.
If you're not intending on using SLI, you can just use the lower pci-e slot, (granted, it only runs at 8x but there really won't be any noticeable performance drop). That way you won't have to mess with modding the NB47.
The Thermalright HR05 SLi works very nicely with this board 
The only problem is that something like a Ninja wont fit if you have the heatsink pointing upwards, but you can solve that with using a smaller heatsink like the 9500, point it downwards, or get the non SLi version and use the lower PCIe slot I recommend the HR05 over the zalmans, the zalmans run pretty damn hot with no airflow. Mine reached 70°c with the NB47j(wich was bolted down), the HR05 dropped that to about 50°c, did not require any mods and was much easier to install anyway
The only problem is that something like a Ninja wont fit if you have the heatsink pointing upwards, but you can solve that with using a smaller heatsink like the 9500, point it downwards, or get the non SLi version and use the lower PCIe slot I recommend the HR05 over the zalmans, the zalmans run pretty damn hot with no airflow. Mine reached 70°c with the NB47j(wich was bolted down), the HR05 dropped that to about 50°c, did not require any mods and was much easier to install anyway -
Lawrence Lee
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DFI Street = paranoid. I'm running an Ultra-D perfectly stable with a 400W Fortron PSU and a heavily overclocked Opteron.
As for the NB47J, you can use it, but you'll have to mangle those fins. I had to twist a whole row off and bend a few more to use the upper PCI-E 16x slot. You can use the lower one, which I believe operates at 4x when not in SLI but it will still give you plenty of bandwidth. I would put my X850XT in the bottom slot if I didn't have 2 PCI cards in use under it. It's also advisable to have good airflow over the NF4 chipset as it gets quite hot.
As for the NB47J, you can use it, but you'll have to mangle those fins. I had to twist a whole row off and bend a few more to use the upper PCI-E 16x slot. You can use the lower one, which I believe operates at 4x when not in SLI but it will still give you plenty of bandwidth. I would put my X850XT in the bottom slot if I didn't have 2 PCI cards in use under it. It's also advisable to have good airflow over the NF4 chipset as it gets quite hot.
I searched as you suggested and found many pics of the NB47J modded to fit--thanks for the heads-up. I'm not going SLI, so I'll have to decide whether the modding is worth it or not, though I would like to put the X1800GTO in the upper PCI-E slot.fmriguy wrote:If you search for NB47J and ultra-d on this forum or google, you'll see full pics of people who have modded this heatsink for use on the ultra-d. It involves some creative cutting and bending of fins. However, you only need to mod it if you really want to use the top pci-e slot or are going SLI.
If you're not intending on using SLI, you can just use the lower pci-e slot, (granted, it only runs at 8x but there really won't be any noticeable performance drop). That way you won't have to mess with modding the NB47.
The system is in an Antec Solo, with 120mm Nexus exhaust and two 92mm Nexus intake fans--all at 5 volts. The airflow appears to be good--the 3800X2 is overclocked 20% at stock voltage and is cooled with a fanless Ninja. (Though I may have to turn the fan on in the summer--just got the Ninja a few weeks ago).
Right now it's 18.3 Celsius (65F) in my basement office. Speedfan reports motherboard temperature as 30C. An hour of dual Prime95 and rthdribl produces a 1 degree C motherboard temperature rise. I don't know the actual chipset temperature, of course. Would have to invest in a probe and monitoring equipment to do that.
I've had no problems over the last year with this system that I can attribute to chipset temperature--actually no problems at all, other than the bad IDE port. So I think I'll be fine with the NB47J, unless airflow is significantly different with the Ultra-D.
Right now it's 18.3 Celsius (65F) in my basement office. Speedfan reports motherboard temperature as 30C. An hour of dual Prime95 and rthdribl produces a 1 degree C motherboard temperature rise. I don't know the actual chipset temperature, of course. Would have to invest in a probe and monitoring equipment to do that.
I've had no problems over the last year with this system that I can attribute to chipset temperature--actually no problems at all, other than the bad IDE port. So I think I'll be fine with the NB47J, unless airflow is significantly different with the Ultra-D.