DFI Lanparty Blood Iron P45-T2RS Elite Motherboard Review

A Closer Look at the DFI Lanparty BI P45-T2RS Elite

Above you will find a map so to speak of the BI P45-T2RS Elite motherboard with descriptions of the various parts.

The first thing that you will probably notice is that the BI P45-T2RS Elite’s color scheme is different than the typical Lanparty boards we are all familiar with. Instead of the DFI standard black, yellow, and orange design they went with a typical Blood Iron red PCB with a black and blue theme. The CrossFire version of the same board looks identical except for the PCI-E slots, which are DFI yellow.


Starting at the right hand side of the board just below the CPU socket, we see the PWM chip: ISL6322. This is a four-phase digital PWM control IC and provides the board’s voltage regulation and includes integration of power MOSFET drivers into the controller IC instead of using a separate PWM controller. Signals sent can command the ISL6322 to adjust voltage margining offset, converter switching frequency and overvoltage protection levels.

Meanwhile, in the bottom right corner we have the CPU fan header and the 24 pin connector. The 24-pin ATX connector is situated on the bottom of the board, which keeps it out of the way of installed components such as video cards and after market heatsinks.


Moving left across the board we come to the memory slots and the Northbridge heatsink. The RAM slots are in a standard location and are color coded to indicate the correct slots for dual channel use. For cooling, there is no fancy heatpipe cooling or even a fan on this budget board. Instead, DFI stuck with a basic black aluminum heatsink for both the Northbridge and Southbridge.


Continuing to the bottom left corner we have six SATA 2 ports, another fan header, and the front panel connectors. The SATA 2 ports are a basic design instead of right-angle connectors like we have seen in higher-end models. Straight above that is the motherboard battery and two jumpers. The battery is there to save BIOS settings and the red jumper is one of two CMOS clear jumpers. The blue jumper is a secondary RTC reset jumper so when the RTC battery is removed, this jumper resets the manageability register bits in the RTC.


Also near the red and blue jumpers is an ICS chip titled 9LPRS918JKLF. This is the motherboard’s PLL or clockgen chip and this code is actually the one you use if you want to use a clockgen overclocking program like SetFSB. Moving to the top left corner we have a fairly large ITE chip. The ITE IT8718F chip provides the most commonly used legacy Super I/O functionality plus the latest Environment Control initiatives such as H/W Monitor and Fan Speed Controller.


Just to the right of the ITE controller chip, we see a Realtek audio chip. The Realtek ALC885 chip runs the sound on the Lanparty BI P45-T2RS Elite and is a high-performance 7.1+2 Channel High Definition Audio Codec with advanced lossless content protection technology. This protects pre-recorded content while still allowing full-rate audio enjoyment from DVD audio, Blu-ray DVD, or HD DVD discs.

For PCI-E slots, there are four (as shown above), one 16x and three 1x. This means CrossFire is not possible on this board. Below the PCI-E slots there are two PCI slots.

One other feature you will notice on this board is the solid capacitors. These caps are said to be of higher quality and more durable than the older electrolytic style capacitors which have often been a source if trouble on older electronics. It seems most motherboard manufacturers are using solid caps these days, even in budget boards.


Moving right along the top of the motherboard, we come to the I/O panel. For sound, the BI P45-T2RS Elite includes High Definition audio outputs (Coaxial S/PDIF Out Port, Optical S/PDIF Out Port) for your Home Theatre needs in addition to the standard input/outputs. The second CMOS jumper is also shown above; which is very useful for users that have the board inside a case where the other CMOS jumper is not accessible.

The rear panel inputs and outputs are pretty standard overall. I/O ports include the previously mentioned HD audio outputs, one PS/2 Mouse Port, one PS/2 Keyboard Port, six Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports, one LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED) and a CMOS jumper.