DFI PRO875 (875P): Introducing the LAN Party Series

Final Words

After testing the DFI PRO875 for several days we came to a few conclusions:

1. The DFI PRO875 is a superb motherboard for FSB overclocking. So far it’s the highest FSB overclocker we’ve seen, beating out P4 motherboards from ABIT, Albatron, Gigabyte and others. However we haven’t retested ASUS or MSI’s latest P4 motherboards yet, but you’ll be seeing those results in our 875P roundup soon.

2. The DFI PRO875 is a great choice for users that demand some of the best onboard features available on a desktop motherboard today, including the 875P North Bridge/ICH5R South Bridge combo, Serial ATA and IDE RAID support, CSA Gigabit LAN, and accessories like the FrontX panel and PC Transpo backpack, among other features and accessories. The PRO875, of course, also brings the fast performance you would expect from a motherboard based on Intel’s 875P chipset. Though the DFI PRO875 is a bit slower than other 875P motherboards (partly due to the low FSB the PRO875 defaults to) the difference is so minute that no user should base their 875P motherboard purchase on the premise that it’s faster than other 875P motherboards, as all 875P motherboards perform virtually identically. We can’t stress this point enough.

3. For a high-end Pentium 4 motherboard the PRO875 is very competitively priced, at just under $200 at several U.S. retailers, including Newegg. Considering the abundant amount of accessories and onboard features, DFI does an excellent job of keeping this board within reach of hardcore gamers. It’s quite clear that DFI didn’t skimp on other, more subtle onboard components like capacitors, as we were able to successfully overclock the PRO875 to exceptional levels.

In the end we can say that we were more than surprised to see DFI introduce such an incredibly good motherboard, even despite our fairly good experiences with their past motherboards. We would recommend the DFI PRO875 to any user looking for a feature-filled and highly overclockable motherboard at a competitive price point.  By far the biggest downside to the PRO875 is the fact that Intel’s 865PE chipset is virtually as fast as the 875P, at a noticeably lower cost.  Stay tuned for our 865PE and 875P roundup to see what motherboard you should be looking towards as your next upgrade.