DFI P45 T2RS Plus e8400 gtx260 The installation goes fine untiill it restarts and I boot the actual os. Almost every different release I used had a different panic kernel. With the latest deneb release I had: NTFS driver 3.1 loading, and it kept hanging there. I tried almost every bios setting, but I just doesnt work for some reason. Find great deals on eBay for p45-t2rs. Shop with confidence.
Bios
The BIOS is sometimes the make or break factor in mid-range boards, especially the ones that are aimed at enthusiasts. DFI have once again gone for a Phoenix Award Bios, so veteran DFI users should feel right at home right from the getgo. Starting off by looking at the flashing procedures available to us, we can see that the slightly dated floppy disk is still the preferred method of updating the BIOS. Of course, you can always use a correctly formatted USB stick to feel a bit more modern. Unfortunately, DFI are yet to implement a nice, easy flash program into their boards as Asus and other manufacturers' have done. There is a Windows tool, but do we really want to go there?
Upon boot, you're greeted with a splash screen inviting you to select either the Anti-lock Breaking System Auto Boost System feature, which is essentially a one button overclock, or enter the BIOS. The overly familiar menu is presented upon loading, and of course we went straight over to the Genie BIOS settings section to take a peek at the tweaking options.
As you can see in the above screenshot, the board doesn't disappoint in tweakable settings. DFI have gone with their usual ploy of throwing the accepted naming conventions for settings out the window and coming up with their own, so getting to grips with everything can take a minute or two. As you can see, there are all of the basic settings you would need for a decent enough overclock. The ridiculous degree of settings that can be found in the BIOS' of the high-end DFI boards isn't present here, which to be quite frank I found welcoming. It makes the board feel like it was designed to be used by anyone, rather than people who spend more time in the BIOS that in their OS.
Three menus are available from the Genie page: the 'CPU Feature', 'DRAM Timing' and 'Voltage Setting' pages. Separating these options keeps things nice and organised. The CPU feature hosts the usual settings that most enthusiasts just turn off on first boot, as well as an interesting 'Core Multi-Processing' option that cuts the CPU down to one core when enabled. The DRAM Timing menu possessed a decent number of customisable settings without going over the top. Finally, in the Genie BIOS settings there is the 'Voltage Setting' menu which does pretty much what it says on the tin, with no unnecessary settings.
The second page of interest was the CMOS Reloaded menu. This allows you to save various profiles to the BIOS for future use. This is a feature which is seen on a lot of boards these days, and rightly so as trying to remember every setting can be tricky. The page allows the saving of three separate profiles with descriptions so that you know what each profile does. The last page of the BIOS we see is the 'PC Health Status', providing all the information you'll need and a little more about temperatures, voltages and fan speeds.
Overall, I'm very impressed by the BIOS on the T2RS Plus. It has plenty of options and tweaks that you see on the high-end without going completely over the top. It should allow for some decent overclocks while not scaring the poor user to just knock up the FSB until unstable for fear of what the other settings might do.
Over the page we go into the test setup and overclocking for the T2RS...
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Most Recent Comments
I don't think i've seen a DFI board look so good since the 939 days...Quote
All I get from this tbh is there is absolutely no point in getting it if u have an IP35 Pro. Which in all honesty, including the other 2 mobos, is an absolute disgrace imo. It also has ALC885 sound.. which is pretty old afaik. I will say tho, for fear of sounding like a scratched record, I feel these 4 series Intel boards would probably perform better with newer cpus. Good review, being truthful I`d overlook this unless I see it doing well with newer cpus.Quote
bah humbug to you rast ...I see what your saying...if it had been released 18 months ago it may have warranted more attention...still a decent performing board for the money though...I wouldn't build a current system round it but if your in the field for a replacement then its worth a look...although I think DFI may have been better looking at 1377 rather then sticking to an already tried (and tried(and tried)) formula....Quote
To be really honest, it`s plain to me that the mobo is less use than the IP35 Pro. I have to wonder how it would cope against the IP35 Pro XE. So, rather than 18 months, it`d be that time PLUS before the Intel 35 chipset was released. I seriously don`t see the point in this board. For sure it`s a 35 mobo with a dropped in 45 chipset - purely on availablity I`d imagine. But does this really signal that the 45 chipset is that much of an insignificance over the 35 ? It does have the advantage of being more ddr3 orientated - so in that sense, why is there not a full bank of ddr3 dimms ? The mere presence of ddr2 dimms means that (from what I read on enthusiast sections) a 45 chipset needs to be crippled to use ddr2. How much I don`t know.Quote
hmmmm....I can see why they say crippled....but I suppose its down to the DDR2 in question...(and believe me Ive sold E8400's to people using a 4core dual sata which only takes up to DDR667 and only one channel max 2gb some people) ... Sorry my mistake I read 45 chip not chipset...thought it was reference to the 45nm wolfdales...duh...but the point about the DDR2 in question still is a valid pointQuote