DFI LanParty UT NF3 250GB - How About that AGP Slot?
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Notice anything interesting? Come on, look a bit harder. Yeah, that AGP slot is awfully low isn't it? Where normally the top PCI slot would be, we instead have the offset AGP 8X connector. And in it's normal position are two SATA connectors, the VIA Firewire chip, and the lower edge of the DIMM slots. Now you know why they can get away with having them set a bit lower on the PCB. There is no normal AGP slot to interfere with. Whether this affects memory overclocking performance, we'll find out eventually.
The two SATA connectors stuck in the middle of the board is a bit... odd. I suppose they didn't really have anywhere else to put them, but I don't see those being used too much anyway. The other two are well placed in the bottom right hand quadrant of the board, and I don't believe many people yet have more than two SATA devices. Also in that bottom right hand corner are two switches, one for power on, and the other for reset. Brilliant! I love it when these appear on boards, as it makes testing out of a case so much easier. Or heck, just seeing if the board is running right when you first install it. Maybe I'm just a geek. Present and accounted for as well are two pinouts for external USB2.0 ports.
On the left by the AGP and PCI slots you can find the Firewire chip, and the Marvel GBe PHYs chip. The VIA chip is a two port design, with one on the backplane and one header available for connecting elsewhere. Looking on the back, there's four USB ports, as well as the ubiquitous LAN connector, 6 analog audio ports, the S/PDIF coax in/out, parallel, serial, and PS/2. I'd gladly exchange two more USB ports for the PS/2 or parallel/serial ones, but no one seems to be willing to do that.
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