LANParty KT400A from DFI

The "LAN Party" KT400A from DFI
A Different Approach from DFI

By: Jeff Bouton
June 11th, 2003

Next we ran Quake 3 at 640x480 with all visual quality settings at their minimums.  Setting the test up this way reduces the influence the video card may have on the test, giving us a good view of the CPU and memory performance.  We also threw in a quick overclocked score for good measure.

At the default clock speeds, the ASUS motherboard held a 4.5% edge over the DFI system, although the "LAN Party" posted a nice 13.3% gain when overclocked.

The DFI "LAN Party" KT400A motherboard put up a good showing so far, although it was continually overshadowed by the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe.  To be honest though, aside from the PCMark2002 memory scores, the DFI board kept it close and we are comparing it to one of the best nForce2 based boards available.  Next we are going to see how the two compared when we ran the popular "Winstone" benchmarking programs.

 

Content Creation 2002 and Business Winstone 2002 Real World Application Testing

When it comes to assessing a system's overall performance, Business Winstone 2002 and Content Creation 2002 have served us well.  Business Winstone focuses on workstation application performance and Content Creation assesses performance using multimedia intensive applications.  Below is a breakdown of the applications each benchmark uses.

Once again we see the KT400A board couldn't quite surpass the nForce2 system.  It's with tests like these that the difference in memory performance becomes evident.  We reported in the PCMark2002 test that the ASUS system posted memory scores 10% faster than the KT400A system.  We saw the same trend with Business Winstone 2002 where the difference was virtually identical.  The margins were less with Content Creation 2002, with close to a 5% difference in the results.  Either way you look at it, the DFI posted good scores and was able to keep up with the very popular nForce2 system which is no small task.

As we bring this review to a close, we can't help but feel positive about the DFI "LAN Party" KT400A motherboard.  While the board didn't quite keep up with the nForce2 comparison, it still maintained solid performance through out our testing.  As we said in the opener, no one ever accused DFI of making the fastest motherboards on the market, that much appears to remain unchanged thanks to the KT400A chipset.  We're eager to see what DFI does with their nForce2 based "LAN Party" board which is on the way to the HH labs "as we speak".  To be realistic, however, no user would be able to "feel" the difference in the scores we reported.  Our past experience also shows that DFI makes a stable product, and that seems to remain unchanged as well.  Throughout the entire testing of this product, we didn't have a single glitch, crash or hiccup with this board during normal operation.  So it seems that even though DFI is turning over a new leaf by targeting the enthusiast market, they are still applying the same (or higher) standards as they did in the past.  In fact, aside from the lack of Gigabit Ethernet, we don't have a whole lot of negatives to say about this product.  The feature set for this motherboard is excellent and the added bonus items are useful, well thought out and just plain fun.

The DFI "LAN Party" KT400A motherboard is a quality product, with competitive performance and features for a reasonable price.  We've seen this board selling for as low as $145, and when you factor in all of the additional items included on the box, we think it is money well spent. 

We give the DFI "LAN Party" KT400A a Hot Hardware Heat Meter rating of a 9.  You'd be hard pressed to find a better KT400A based motherboard.
 

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