DFI 865PE Infinity

DFI Infinity 865PE Motherboard Review
DFI's Latest Intel Offering

By: Jeff Bouton
November 6th, 2003

Quake 3 & Comanche 4 Gaming Tests

We also tested the two motherboards with a couple of games.  In this case we ran two popular tests, Quake 3 and Comanche 4.  With Quake 3 we set the application to the "Fastest Setting" which effectively takes the video card out of the picture, focusing on raw CPU performance.  With Comanche 4, a benchmark that is very CPU dependant, we left the settings at their defaults while selecting the "No Audio" option.

With both gaming tests, the Intel 865PE maintained the faster score, albeit by a small margin.  Either way you look at it, both systems returned very good, competitive results.

Content Creation 2002 and Business Winstone 2002 Real World Application Testing

With our last round of tests we ran both Business Winstone 2002 and Content Creation Winstone 2002.  Each application gauges a system's overall performance with workstation and multimedia applications.  Content Creation 2002 tests multimedia intensive applications,  while Business Winstone 2002 compares performance with common workstation applications.  Below is a list of the programs each test uses to calculate its final score.
 

When it came to multimedia intensive application testing using Content Creation 2002, the DFI 865PE Infinity and the SiS655FX reference motherboard were in a dead heat, posting identical scores.  With common workstation application performance testing using Business Winstone 2002, the SiS655FX took a slight lead, probably a result of the faster hard drive performance.

As we bring this review to a close and try to collect our thoughts, it is difficult to say anything bad about the DFI 865PE Infinity motherboard itself.  Yes, we thought the manual was a bit scant on information, but the board itself was impressive.  The feature set is excellent, with decent 6 channel audio, USB 2.0, FireWire and SATA RAID.  Top that off with a complete BIOS that offers all the necessary settings for fine tuning performance, CMOS Reloaded and the added performance possible from Superpatch and you have a good package. And let us not overlook the awesome overclocking performance of this motherboard, allowing us to hit 3.21GHz with our Pentium 4 2.4GHz processor with minimal BIOS adjustments and stock cooling.  If you are looking for a system long on features, performance, stability and overclocking potential, we can't see how you would be disappointed with the DFI 865PE Infinity, this board is the real deal.
 

We give the DFI 865PE Infinity a Hothardware Heat Meter Rating of a 9.5

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