DFI's ICXF3200 Motherboard

DFI has really done a fantastic job, not only in the aesthetics department, but also on the functionality side of things.

First off the PCB is a black full 30x24 ATX layout, a big board it is packed to the brim with features. The layout of the plugs, in a word, is excellent. The 24-pin power is located behind the DDR-2 UV reactive memory slots along with the IDE port. The 8-pin aux power connector sits between the CPU and the rear I/O ports at the top left of the board away from the heatsink, allowing good air flow though the system.

The Southbridge operated SATA ports and the FDD port are rotated 90 degrees to the board, making them a cable routing dream, especially for the smaller cases.

The CPU is free from large capacitors that can obstruct the installation of large aftermarket heatsinks. The only thing of any height around the CPU is the heatsink module that sits on top of the 5 phase voltage regulation system that powers the CPU. In case you haven't noticed already, DFI have really tried designing this motherboard just for you guys, the overclockers.

Turning our attention to the rear I/O ports you can see the large space where the KARAJAN audio module sits when it's installed. The RCA ports are SPDIF ports, red for in, yellow for out. The rest is pretty simple.

To the expansion slots and you can see what DFI offers. You can notice this board carries three PCI Express x16 slots. The top two slots are x8 compatible when two Crossfire graphics cards are installed. The last one at the bottom of the board is a x2 powered slot for the Physics card. There are no additional PCI Express slots on the board, only 3 PCI legacy slots. All of the expansion slots are UV Reactive under a black light. Located just below the final USB tower is a VIA 2 port PCI based Firewire chip, this is how the board gets its Firewire support.

Lastly we have the Promise Fastrack PCI Express RAID controller chip. This adds the four extra SATA ports at the bottom of the board, totalling eight SATA ports when you add the Southbridge ones into the equation.