DFI NB73-EA i845E Review (11)
Overclocker 20 May 2002

Conclusion

DFI NB73-EA breaks away from it's tradition of "plain functionality" and brings itself to a level to compete with the big names currently in the market. From the benchmarks, we can see the DFI NB73-EA does perform averagely well. I would say it's one of the boards that runs exactly at 133.33Mhz (in fact 133.0Mhz) which I strongly emphasis. 

DFI NB73-EA has a feast of features which might come useful for those who uses digital media storage like memory sticks. The 6 channel audio and SPDIF in/out is also a standard feature which will definitely appeal to those who uses the PC for video editing and watching DVD.

Installation is a no brainer. The only suggestion I would think of is to reduce the amount of jumpers on board and put everything in the BIOS

Overclocking wise, this board has up to 165Mhz FSB for you to meddle with. The overclockability depends a lot on the CPU and vcore, We did a test and it would run up to 145Mhz FSB from the default 133Mhz. 

Overall, this board is quite a breakthrough for DFI. I think we would expect to see more interesting features in future. Priced at USD105 (pricewatch.com) it is one of the cheapest boards that offers great features.

Pros 好处:

• FSB (1mhz) up to 165Mhz adjustable
• Onboard LAN
• 6 Channel audio
• USB 2.0 
• Diagnostic LEDs

Cons 坏处:

• DDR266 support only
• No RAID
• Documentation needs improvement

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 5 stars.

Highly Recommended

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