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DFI LanParty motherboards are well loved by many gamers and enthsuiasts due to its price, performance and features. Here's a quick re-cap on DFI.  DFI (Diamond Flower International) specialises in PC components especially motherboards. Their headquarters are based in Taiwan and they have offices around the world including Germany, Netherlands, US and Japan. Here's a little blurb taken from their website.

"DFI is an international IT expert based in Taiwan locating our Headquarters in Hsi-Chih City. DFI was established in 1981 under Mr. Y.C. Lu's principal. Dedicating to servicing customer with high technology, DFI has been earning a worldwide reputation for quality owing much to the continuing support from our customers, suppliers and affiliates as well as our own efforts over the past twenty years. With more than 20 years of computer product developing and manufacturing, our team of highly skilled engineers helps DFI position ourselves as the standard setter of price-performance solution in the manufacturing and marketing of computer products."

I don't even have to tell you this ... but you'll probably know that many Lan Party goers would probably prefer to build a gaming system using a DFI LanParty motherboard ... with lots of UV cold cathode tubes ;) Why? Well, firstly they look good. Most of DFI LanParty motherboards that I've reviewed, use UV sensitive components for their PCIe, PCI and DIMM slots, as well as the connectors for SATA, IDE and floppy. With bright vivid coulors including orange, yellow and green ... it really attacts attention when you have UV cold cathode tubes installed in your system, especially in a dark room full of gamers.

Last week we reviewed the DFI LanParty DK P45-T3RSB Plus motherboard. It was a very good all-rounder, offering decent performance, great features and good overclocking ability. It was one of the "DARK" series of motherboard, which DFI have designed to cater for the higher-end of the mainstream market. We now take a look at another DFI motherboard, but this time it's one of their UT series ... the DFI LanParty UT P45-T3RS motherboard. It utilises the Intel P45 chipset and corresponding ICH10R southbridge. It supports all Intel socket-775 processors with 1333/1066/800MHz FSB, DDR3 ram (upto DDR3-1800/OC), as well as being Crossfire ready.

The UT series of motherboards from DFI have been re-designed containing more features associated with extreme overclocking enthusiasts. Take for example the unique customiseable chipset cooling system, whereby users can add an external heatpipe/heatsink for more efficient cooling. There's also a new 8-phase full digital PWM, the usual internal power-on and reset switches, diagnostic LEDs, as well as the separate Bernstein HD audio card with full SPDIF support.

We shouldn't expect to see much difference between the DFI LanParty DK P45-T3RSB Plus and the DFI LanParty UT P45-T3RS ... as they're virtually identical, expect for the features mentioned above. What makes the UT really appealing to the enthusiasts is the overclocking potential it offers. The new 8-phase full digital PWM should give extra stability during overclocking, while the unique customiseable chipset cooling system will also help with cooling the chipset/mosfets.

In our tests we'll be testing the DFI LanParty UT P45-T3RS motherboard using the usual PC Mark 2005, 3D Mark 2005, 2006 and Vantage tests. we'll also be running some DX games too. Our test rig includes an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ default 2.4Ghz, Radeon HD 4870 1Gb GDDR5, Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC2-9200 2Gb Kit, PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860W PSU and a 24" Samsung SyncMaster 245B LCD monitor. Windows Vista with native DX10 was used as our OS.

** Before we start, I have to make a point very clear to all our readers. The results shown in our tests for the DFI LanParty UT P45-T3RS motherboard, were obtained using a different graphics card from the comparison list. As explained above, we used an AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4870 1Gb GDDR5 graphics card in our new test setup instead of the usual Radeon HD 4850 512Mb DDR3 graphics card, which was used in our previous test system.

OK, let's not waste any more time an take a look a closer look at the DFI LanParty UT P45-T3RS motherboard  ...