Yamaraj said:
It seems to me that Oscar has designed the boards purposely not to work with Value RAMs, keeping in sync with the 'Enthusiast' image. But what about XMS? Corsair XMS isn't a value brand.
Hehe, quite true! Agreed, the DFI is notorious for problems with Corsair XMS sticks. AFAIK people have put up a couple of "settings" to get around with working optimally with them, not sure on this though!
TBH, a LOT has to do with the BIOS. I would go as far as to say that the BIOS is the major component of the entire DFI "package". Not that Oscar has deliberately left the Value-RAM owners out in the cold, but rather the BIOS'es are specifically tuned to bring out the best from high-performance RAM, after all most of the people using these boards have some of the finest hardware at their disposal. There are even releases of BIOS'es with a -1, -2, -3 tag to signify which set of RAM it works best with (TCCD or BH/CH). But to say it is finicky with Value RAM isnt entirely correct, I for one am doing perfectly fine on TwinMos value RAM

hyeah: . FYI, Darky had once picked up a pair of TwinMos BH-5 sticks from me, and put them in his Asus board. At stock these used to crash/reboot and what not consistently, he was ready to send it back and ask for a replacement at one point, until he swapped thm onto his Epox motherboard and the pair ran flawlessly
One down-side however is, often the folks at DFI Street refuse to help much unless you have top-notch hardware along with the board - that includes a high-end PSU, high-end RAM, etc. Now while there is nothing wrong with this concept of putting together good hardware, sometimes it seems downright unhelpful.
I also totally agree with the DFI Fanboyism doing the rounds, you can often see me in the config help threads cursing those recommending to "wait till nov. 20th and get your DFI" , simply for the fact that the board isnt for the average user. As i mentioned before, the BIOS is a crucial part of the motherboard, and thats where the Asus scores in that while it does not offer much scope in fiddling around - it lets you run your system flawlessly off the bat. If you know what you're doing, if you intend to do some serious overclocking, or even if you know nothing about it but intend to learn something on the OC'ing journey - only then would a DFI make sense for you.