The DFI RDX200 CF-DR Motherboard Review

Overclocking

When it comes to overclocking, DFI has developed a reputation as the very best there is, even the budget minded DFI NF4 Infinity boards are crazy overclockers. The DFI RDX200 CF-DR should have no problem living up to the hype with easily the most complete BIOS I have ever seen combined with the quality construction of the board itself.

Starting out with my AMD Athlon 64 3800+ at its default multiplier of x10 I was able to push the board to an impressive 268FSB, a touch less than the 270FSB I reached with the DFI NF4 SLI-DR awhile back.

Dropping the memory divider to 166 and the CPU multiplier to x8 allowed me to push the board all the way to 309FSB, not too shabby at all. One issue I’d like to point out is the heat generated by the chipsets. Once I got past 300FSB the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 NB chipset was idling at 49C and peaked at 58C during my testing.

Another point worth mentioning is that the RDX200 CF-DR is still in its infancy. While both NF4 board used for comparison have had several BIOS optimizations to improve performance, the RDX200 CF-DR has had exactly ONE beta BIOS release. I expect even better performance once all the kinks are removed.