DFI LanParty UT X58-T3eH8 LGA 1366 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look at the DFI UT X58-T3eH8

The first thing that stands out with the DFI LanParty UT X58-T3eH8 is the color scheme. The LanParty board is certainly one of a kind and either you hate it, or you love it. With a dark PCB and the bright UV reactive connector colors, DFI has made this board stand out like LanParty UT boards of old. The other standout landmarks are those two massive heat sinks that combine to appear as one via a snaking heat pipe. The need to avoid active cooling at any cost is evident with these massive heat sinks that DFI has populated the X58-T3eH8 with. The overhead view really doesn't give a good perspective of just how big they are. Ground level photos in a few minutes will confirm our use of the term "massive" when describing the north bridge and PWM heat sinks. Overall though, the layout is pretty standard when compared to other boards and is on par with the best available right now. All connectors are at the edge of the board, PCI-E spacing is of the most opportune, memory DIMM slots are gapped nicely from the CPU socket, and just look at that CPU socket; it won't get much easier to insulate on the X58 platform than that.

As mentioned, the socket of this DFI X58-T3eH8 is incredibly clean with the lack of MOSFETs and electrolytic capacitors. Instead, we have rows of ceramic surface mount capacitors backed by a pair of Cooper Bussman CPL-4-50 multi-phase inductors. These inductors will be paired with Volterra leadless VPR ICs to provide the PWM circuit for the motherboard, more on this in a moment. The massive party crasher hiding the last part of our PWM circuit is the aforementioned "massive" heat sink. At eye level, it is much easier to see the sheer mass that these two heat sinks have. They surround the CPU socket like a pack of wild animals stalking their prey..also know as paparazzi. Hovering, looming, ready to pounce; these heat sinks at first glance appear to be a CPU cooler nightmare. With a little investigation, however, we are sure to find that DFI did their homework and didn't remove any possibility for the more popular large heat sinks available.

As promised, we will now visit the PWM circuit with the mountain of a heat sink and heat pipe removed. The two Cooper Bussman CPL-4-50 is paired with a Volterra system to make up the PWM circuit. The CPL-4-50 are ferrite core multi phase inductors that each provide 4 phases for a total of an 8 phase circuit and can operate at temperatures of up to 125C. This would be why they are not being cooled by the heat sink assembly cooling the rest of the PWM circuit.

This combination of power delivery to computer components is not un-common and in fact, quite common. The EVGA 790i FTW Digital PWM motherboard uses an almost identical setup and if the upcoming EVGA Classified board is anything like its ancestral roots, it will too. Almost all high end graphics processors use a similar setup to provide quality power delivery in a small footprint that can handle substantial heat. DFI has been in love with the digital PWM for their LanParty UT motherboards for some time now and it will be interesting to see how it handles the ridiculous loads of the massive i7 processor.

The next two important areas of the motherboard are the DIMM slots, and what we call 'SB Corner', also known as 'IO Valley'. Having been looking at X58 motherboards for a few months now on a daily basis, it still seems like six DIMM slots are massive. Perhaps a level of normality will never accompany that sight. DFI seems to have a tidy little 2 phase vDIMM circuit here tucked right up alongside the main 24-pin ATX power connector and the single IDE connector. From this photo we can see the gap to the CPU socket isn't huge but should be enough to fit the Dominator modules and their expansive heat sinks with a Thermalright Ultra-120 (TRUE).

The valley is home to the ICH10R south bridge and all that accompanies the input/output capabilities of the chipset. It is nice to see the full complement of SATAII connectors at a 90 degree angle, even the two JMicron JMB363 powered SATAII ports (yellow connectors). The JMicron controller is being fully utilized by DFI as it powers both SATA II ports and the IDE connector we just saw. We then have a bank of onboard USB 2.0 headers - providing six connections in total - sandwiched between a pair of 3-pin fan headers. DFI has always provided a plethora of fan headers on LanParty board and the X58-T3eH8 is no exception. We would have liked to see one of these up by the DIMM slots instead of down here but most any memory fan assembly should reach without problem. One last item to touch on is the barely visible row of pads between the lower motherboard mounting hole and the 90 degree SATAII connectors. These nine pads are actually onboard voltage read points. We will cover these in more detail during the Voltage Regulation testing.

The last photo of the south east corner shows the color coded front panel connectors, floppy connector, CMOS battery, onboard speaker, and a plethora of jumpers. The WinBond IT8718F-S super I/O IC controls most everything in this area including the floppy connector, fan headers, serial ports, and more. It is also responsible for the vast amount of voltage, fan, and temperature readings and control supplied to the motherboards BIOS. It is the modern legacy renaissance man. The last of the goodies down here are the pair of LED displays that provide POST code readout for ease of diagnostics. One thing we really like is the fact that DFI provides a jumper to enable or disable the onboard speaker. This seems to be a very simple feature, but even simpler to implement and DFI took the time to do so. This is just one of the many little things this board poses that we haven't found in other X58 motherboards tested thus far.

Moving west along the southern corridor we find another fan header, onboard serial and firewire headers, as well as the all important; onboard power and reset buttons. The beautiful thing about the power/reset buttons is that they double as a CMOS clear button as well. Let's now the all important expansion slot layout discussion that we initiated earlier.

The hottest topic in computer forums as of late regarding X58 motherboards in regards to layout is the placement of the PCI-E 16X slots. There are a number of X58 motherboards available now and they seem to group into two categories. Those that have one of the three PCI-E 16X slots at the bottom of the expansion slot pile, and those that don't. The DFI X58-T3eH8 falls into the category that doesn't. What this allows is the ability to house a dual slot graphics card in the bottom slot, regardless of your case. With the PCI-E 16X slot filling the very last location like on the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 or the ASUS Rampage II Extreme, a dual slot graphics card would not be permitted in certain cases that don't allow a gap below the motherboard. There are absolutely no issues in this situation with the DFI X58-T3eH8 as the bottom slot is just one of the PCI slots. The rest of the expansion slot layout is pretty good. The top slot won't come close to interfering with the DIMM slots and the south bridge heat sink is designed to be covered by large video cards as are the 90 degree SATA II ports. Heck, even the CMOS battery is rather easy to access and get to with all but 3-way SLI setup.

Spacing is what spacing does, cripples certain slots with dual slot video card coolers. There is just no way around it, with a dual slot cooler on a GPU in the top slot, the PCI-E 4X slot will be held useless. With the same card in the second slot, the first PCI slot is un-available. Of course the same holds true for the bottom PCI-E slot. The ATX form factor just doesn't allow much of anything else for options so we are going to have to live with it. What is one of the best features of the DFI X58-T3eH8 is the fact that the top and bottom PCI-E 16X slots run at full bandwidth when just two video cards are running. The EVGA, Gigabyte, and ASUS X58 motherboards we have looked at thus far have all had the two PCI-E16X slots squished together. For those adamant on needing dual 16X PCI-E slots, this is the ideal board with its gapped layout.

Starting at the bottom we can see that the south bridge is flat and low for GPU accommodation and is connected to the north bridge aluminum heat sink via a twisted heat pipe. This heat pipe then snakes its way through the base of the north bridge heat sink and out to the PWM cooling fins. The PWM is cooled, not so much by a tradition heat sink, but more by the heat pipe that makes its way from the north bridge heat sink that then ends up curling back through the mass of cooling fins back towards the north bridge heat sink. Apparently this is a better design that another solid aluminum heat sink like on the north bridge or perhaps, DFI just likes heat pipes...and yes, that was a sarcastic "perhaps". DFI loves heat pipes, we'll show you in the next section during installation.

The last of our layout photos concern us with the rear I/O panel, and the rear of the motherboard. The I/O panel at the rear of the board is the single most naked I/O area we have ever seen on a motherboard and we love it. PS/2 keyboard and mouse connections - yeah for DFI - accompany two gigabit ethernet connections powered by the fully featured Marvell Yukon 88E8052 & 88E8053 controllers. We also have six USB 2.0 connections and a 6-pin firewire connector. The rest of the space is reserved for, you guessed it, another heat pipe attachment. We told you DFI liked heat pipes. Moving our attention to the backside of the DFI LanParty UT X58-T3eH8 we can see that there isn't much to discuss except one thing that immediately caught our eye upon flipping the board over.

The hardware used for the heat sinks is the single best solution we have ever seen on a motherboard. Just simple nuts and bolts with back plates and grounding protection are all we - the enthusiast - has been asking for. DFI has not only provided it, but they have provided it in a perfect manner. There really is no way to improve the mounting of heat sinks in our opinion. Perhaps a bit more substantial back plate could make things better but that would really be asking too much. But speaking of mounting, let's finally get some hardware mounted and get this lime green and yellow hot rod moving.