DFI LANPARTY DK P45-T2RS LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: This is a great board and i love it. It runs very cool; my Q9550 idles at under 30C (after market cooling of course), which is much cooler than my older MoBo. It is great for enthusiasts, if you know what i mean. ;)

Running dual 5850's in crossfire and could not be happier with game-play and temps; my setup owns Crysis Warhead maxed, with the highest AA, and runs very cool.

This board is also laid out pretty nice, too. With two Radeon 5850's the only thing that is in the way is the boot code LED. With a second graphics card it is covered, but when trouble shooting it is good to take additional cards out anyway. SATA cables can be tricky to connect with larger multiple graphics cards, but is doable w/o removing either.

One other thing I love is the CMOS jumper on the IO cluster. This is accessible from the rear with no need to open up the case.

Cons: As stated by others the jumpers can be a little confusing, and the written documentation is a little sparse. Nothing new to a seasoned system builder, though.

For a first time system builder, this board will do quite nicely as well. Just be sure to read the documentation to avoid any headaches during the install.

Other Thoughts: I like this board and am now a DFI fan. It offers numerous BIOS settings, and also has an inexperienced mode, where advanced BIOS settings are hidden, but can be enabled at anytime.

If you are looking for performance, good temps, and options in a socket 775 MoBo this is a good board. I like it a lot better than comparable models around the same price.

Oh... it looks darn cool, as well. Absolutely, no hassles with the install, so I gave it 5 stars.

Pros: * Newegg's extremely fast service; as always :).
* Motherboard comes packed with lots of cables.
* Mobo has a really handy LED hex readout on it. It changes along with the boot sequence, the manual describes each step in the process. This is extremely useful for debugging/troubleshooting. It was the major factor in me choosing this over similar options.

Cons: * Manual is pretty lacking. This might not bother some; it does me though.
* Does not work with my slightly mis-matched RAM. I have two pairs of GSkill DDR2 with slightly different model #s (F2-6400CL6D & F2-6400CL5D). These sticks work great together in every other system I've tried, but no this one. I've tried manually setting the timing and lowering the voltage to try to get them to work with each other. I'm hoping a BIOS update will resolve the issue.
* Price, more expensive than the competition. Definitely not better though.
* Return policy for this hardware is replacement only. I'm not sure if this is the case with other motherboards, but if this wasn't the case, I would return this for a better board.

Other Thoughts: The above mentioned LED Hex Readout display made troubleshooting the RAM a breeze. The board displayed a "C1" and halted, the manual indicated this was a memory issue. I tried each pair of memory individually; each worked wonderfully. However, any combination of the two models would cause a boot halt -- including one of each and two of each.

I wouldn't have purchased this board if I knew it wouldn't support 4x2GB of DDR2. Which is why I gave this one star.

Pros: This board looks awesome, has an awesome setup and color scheme -- heck it even smells good.

Cons: BE VERY AWARE WHEN PURCHASING THIS BOARD. This board will NOT run with high-end RAM with fast timings. My 4-4-4-12 timing RAM will not even allow this board to POST. You will have a DEAD PC if you have fast RAM. Considering with this Newegg's "Replacement Only" return policy on this item, consider this BEFORE you purchase this board. I spent over $500 buying new parts for a previously-working PC to accommodate this board -- only to find out it was RAM timing -- of which the requirements are listed nowhere.

Other Thoughts: It still looks awesome.

Pros: LED boot code indicators on the MB. Decent manual. Lots of options including overclocking. It came with orange cables to match the MB colors. 6 SATA connectors!

Cons: If you have never built a PC before, all the options and jumpers described in the manual may be a little intimidating. I initially had trouble getting the MB to boot properly... I discovered the bios reset jumper was not making a good connection. (jumper has to be on for normal boot) After I replaced the jumper, it worked perfectly.

Other Thoughts: I'm not an overclocker so most of this MB was overkill for what I need. But I bought it to build a Hakintosh using the efix module. Works wonderfully!

Pros: For a circuit board, the DK T3eH6 looks like a piece of very expensive fine art when placed in a landfill.

Cons: The DK T3eH6 even functions like a piece of very expensive fine art; way-overpriced and its eyes follow people around the room. No matter how many copies there are, they still have the problems of the original, they soon look disturbing and the person who made it is hard to get a hold of.

Other Thoughts: Had to RMA the first one; Daily attempts/tweaks to install XP in second board fail and DK T3eH6 is now beyond RMA; Support falsely blames HDD/OS/other hardware, all found working in other systems; RMA costs/additional hardware and new OS purchases now exceed original purchase price of DK T3eH6 motherboard and may well have ruined a second Core i7 cpu.

Pros: NONE, Motherboard failed to ever fully boot.

Cons: Everything

Other Thoughts: The motherboard just would not boot from the start, i tried numberously to get it working. So i returned for an exchange because you cant return for credit or refund (hint that they may know their product sucks) so they shipped me another, same problem as first and i know its not my equipment because everything works perfectly still with my old MoBo. Will not be buying another motherboard from DFI again ever.

Pros: Excellent feature set for a mATX motherboard. I'll probably never run it in Crossfire mode but it's nice to know I could if I wanted to. Once I got the kinks ironed out with my CPU cooler, and figured out DFI's support web site and the BIOS I OC'ed my E8500 to 3.6Ghz. I was stable at 4Ghz as well but was not comfortable with my CPU and Northbridge temp's.

Cons: Not for the feint of heart. The DFI BIOS is almost laughably complex to navigate. Spend some quality time with Google and on the strange DFI web site and you'll be OK.

BIOS upgrade procedure is a joke. Since I'm running Vista 64-bit I had to upgrade by booting off a USB stick. What the <BLANK>?

Other Thoughts: The Asus V72 92mm fan fits - just barely. Don't tighten it down 100%. When I tightened it down all the way the fan must have bent the northbridge cooler and I couldn't boot. Once installed, though, it works great with this board. I'm running at 25C no load, 35C gaming load and 54C under Prime95.

Rig:

DFI LanParty JR P45-T2RS DDR2 CrossFire Micro ATX Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @3.6Ghz
Asus v72 92mm CPU Fan
HIS Hightech H485QT512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB
2X2GB G.SKILL PC28500 8500CL5D-4GBPK
WD Caviar SE16 640GB Hard Drive
Vista 64-bit
D-Link WDA-1320 PCI Wireless G Desktop Adapter
Thermaltake VF1000BWS MicroATX Desktop Case

Pros: quality through and through, for beginners not a user friendly board but just do the google and learn, soon itll look easy. Worth every penny.

Cons: none

Pros: -Great for overclocking (some guys got over 600FSB)
-Very good layout
-Best BIOS (if you take the time to understand it)
-Cool color scheme

Cons: -Compatibility issues with certain RAM (check DFI website!!!)
-Can't use CMOS jumper "switch", requires manual use.

Other Thoughts: I've had some tough times overclocking my E7300, can only get to 3.3ghz with a lot of work. This is probably just my fault, since I'm used to AMD939 overclocking. It certainly isn't the Mobo's fault, 500-600FSB is easily attainable.

Technolic posted some false statements:
-The POST LED guide is located in the back of the user manual, last couple pages. And it is up to date. Otherwise there is a full manual on DFI's webpage.
-CMOS jumper can be fixed with "extended" jumper. Like a regular jumper, but with a little longer handle. I did have the same issues with a regular jumper though.

Pros: Great board...I just got a bad one. Don't get me wrong, every single motherboard I've owned has been from DFI, they make excellent enthusiast products that are not noob-friendly and perfect for the overclocker. These things can hit 500FSB 24/7 if you know what you're doing.

Cons: My board was unstable and had issues with its USB ports. I RMA'd it (why should I have to PAY Newegg to take back THEIR defective item? It's such a scam if you ask me) and got a BI P45 instead...runs perfectly.

Other Thoughts: Was using an E8500 and Mushkin 2x2GB 1066 Ascents (DO NOT PLAY WELL WITH DFI PRODUCTS) for the core of the build. I can't blame the issue on the RAM though as I cycled in some G.Skill that was on the recommended use list on DFI's website and got the same problems.