VERY HOT - DFI LanParty UT CFX3200 preview!
Author: Grga Curkovic
Date: 16 Mar 2006

RD580 (Radeon Xpress 3200) has been one of the buzzwords of this year CeBIT. You could see the posters on almost every corner and all ATi?s partners had systems with sample boards running demos. We were lucky enough to get our hands on two samples, one of them being DFI?s LanParty UT CFX3200. DFI?s boards are always amongst the best performers and top overclockers so we were pretty psyched when we came across this board.

First of all we have to stress the fact that the sample we tested is a R&D (Research and Development) sample and is far from the final product. The performance and the feature of the board might (and probably will) change in the final revisions. DFI?s usually doesn?t let reviewers test unfinished boards - we were specifically told so - but we were lucky enough to get one (big "Thank You" goes to DFI for that). The board is based on the ATi RD580 northbridge and ULI M1575 southbridge. Since NVIDIA acquired ULI we have heard rumors that ULI will stop shipping chips, and that there is possibility that the manufacturers will have to wait for the ATi 600 southbridge. That will probably be a most unpleasant delay for ATi, and because of this the first RD580 boards could appear somewhere around May/June. On the other hand, on the last day of CeBIT DFI crew informed us they pushed the release of this board forward so it is possible they have a stock of the southbridge chips. We?ll just have to wait out and see what comes out of this mess.