DFI Lan Party is Dead(?)

[poldo]

Let's all pause for couple of minutes to give thanks to the brand that started it all...

As a rule of thumb, companies we've visited over the years have always and will always want to talk about their products. My arrival was unannounced - if you discount the multiple emails I sent - but it's not often a UK journalist turns up on the doorstep. Even when we've caught people off guard (cold calling for a story, or catching them an event) there's usually a positive outcome as a result of showing an interest. In complete contrast to those past experiences, our meeting at DFI was fraught with nervous smiles and no comments about everything we wanted to address. Clearly something isn't right.

This visit coincided with another set of events. I finally contacted some other people associated/previously associated with DFI's LANParty group in Taipei, and arranged several meetings during Computex. Today, we finally got our answer: DFI told its LANParty team in 2009 there would be no more LANParty products. The division was losing money continually through 2009 and late in the year the sales team were told to clear their inventory before being moved to the far more profitable industrial division.

This didn't go down too well at all and as a result many of the LANParty sales and marketing team left DFI for new ventures. We have heard that famed product manager and senior engineer for the LANParty division, Jerry Chang and Oskar Wu, stayed on at the company but have moved to the industrial division instead. We tried contacting both but were told by others not to bother: DFI is taking a muted approach to inquiries about LANParty - no-one in the company is allowed to say anything, which explains the outcome of the conversation before.

As a result of our investigations, we feel confident in saying that the game is officially over for LANParty. One of the original and at one point, most well known enthusiast brands has died.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/06/03/the-lanparty-is-over-for-dfi/2

 

[slyfox2151]

as good as DFI was, there latest products were not up to standard it seemed they were going down hill from 2008.

 

[Yukikaze]

Dang...

The LanParty brand was the one brand I was close to becoming a fanboy of (as evidenced by me having two of their boards).

Abit went splat, then this.

A sad day...

 

[Mussels]

as good as DFI was, there latest products were not up to standard it seemed they were going down hill from 2008.

my x48 board is sweet as


pity about oskar wu, that guy was really good (if you want to know why DFI boards could clock so high, he's why)

 

[Tatty_Two]

This is a great shame, I have owned 4 of their boards, the first 3 were great, sadly their early x58 offerings had problems, their contribution to the enthusiast community has been major.

 

[r9]

When I hear DFI Lanparty is like hearing Bugatti Veyron. So this is not good news for me.

 

[PaulieG]

From the AMD 939 to Intel s775, DFI was king in terms of bios layout and overclocking. I'm not sure what happened, but I think any lack of sales came primarily from always coming late to the game with offerings, and lack of effective marketing. This is a very sad day.

 

[SK-1]

I spent some time at the old DFI Street. What a site it was.

 

[poldo]

i'd like to pay my respect... excuse the ghetto mods...

 

[qubit]

Damn, this is a crying shame. I'm an enthusiast and look for enthusiast features on my motherboards. That's why I exclusively bought Abit for years until they went downhill and then bust. They had some really nice innovations, such as the Guru Clock, which no-one else has done. Oh and I was a sucker for their orange motherboards.

I bought my current Gigabyte motherboard in Feb09, but did my research beforehand. I read the DFI reviews and they sounded great with some awesome BIOS features. However, when I looked at their range of motherboards on the website and the number of recent reviews, it was clear that they hadn't updated their range for a while and I got the impression they were going downhill, which I unfortunately ended up being right about, I see.

Therefore, I went for the Gigabyte board as the next in line. This has some pretty good enthusiast features too, including the overclocking options, BIOS profiles, extra thick copper tracks (Ultra Durable 3) and all with a very nice blue colour, so I'm pretty pleased with it.

I guess the smaller enthusiast players are going under, because PCs are increasingly being seen as commodities, so the number of us enthusiasts is diminishing. Shame.

 

[Arrakis9]

this is sad, i always loved their "look at me im fcking nutts" look of their boards

 

[newtekie1]

Sad, I've been been a big fan of DFI LANParty boards, but they were definitely good boards. However, it is always a sad day when a well known enthusiast brand dies.

 

[Disparia]

Had a great run with my NF4 Ultra, used it a couple years, then handed it down to my brother and he used it for a couple more.

My DFI 790GX boards on the other hand... !

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I hope I don't get screwed over when it comes to RMA time.


And why don't they just come out and say LANParty products have been discontinued? Why are they acting all suspicious about it? That doesn't make sense. Are they trying to keep their stocks from taking a dive? If that's their only reason, pathetic.

 

[sneekypeet]

cant say as I didnt see this comming

DFI was my company for 5 years, you couldnt shake me, but with what I went through with my X48 T3RS, I knew things werent good, at least in the US market.

 

[Laurijan]

Sad, real sad, i owned 3 DFIs and all were impressive to me.

 

[iamajunky]

I'm rocking my dark edition x48 getting my qx9775 4.2 on air

 

[_JP_]

OMG, I heard this last year as a rumor, never thought it would became true!
I guess it is a big loss for the enthusiast world, because when I started to take interest in computers, everybody, every review, every enthusiast would tell me that LANParty boards were the ultimate in taking the PC to the limit! The best ones there were. I aimed to get one when i got the money for it. Guess I'm too late.
I was really hoping to get one for a Thuban.
Oh well, guess I've got to start redirect my aims for the new rig.

Fare well LANPartys!

 

[LittleLizard]

a mourn day for pc enthusiasts :S

 

[erocker]

DFI has been virtually dead for some time now. I liked their motherboards at one time, but it seems they have lost focus/interest in creating new stuff. Their website has always been horrible and difficult to navigate. I would like to say it'll be missed but I cannot.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Most people buy OEM systems, not individual parts. The larger business is always catering to the likes of Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc., not replacement/enthusiast market. I wouldn't be surprised if more of the smaller manufacturers get out of the consumer market.

 

[claylomax]

Most people buy OEM systems, not individual parts. The larger business is always catering to the likes of Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc., not replacement/enthusiast market. I wouldn't be surprised if more of the smaller manufacturers get out of the consumer market.

That is so true.

 

[Geofrancis]

I owned a dfi lanparty p45 micro atx board probobly the best overclockers board I have ever owned it got my q8200 2.33ghz chip to 3.6 ghz!

 

[SonDa5]

I owned a dfi lanparty p45 micro atx board probobly the best overclockers board I have ever owned it got my q8200 2.33ghz chip to 3.6 ghz!

DFI JR P45 T2RS with Q9400:

4GHZ

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=425441

DFI JR P45 T2RS with Q9550 E0:

Green Machine
Date Submitted: 16/Aug/2009 14:24:44
Result: 9.343 sec
Views: 5
CPU Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
Core: Yorkfield E0
Clock: 4341.2 MHz
Front-side-bus: 2042.9 MHz
Cache Size: 12288 KB
VCore: 1.25 V
Motherboard DFI Inc. LP JR P45-T2R

http://wprime.net/Scores/4080/View






DFI taught me the meaning of tweaking. I hope this is just a rumor and DFI will not stop building MB.

My DFI P45 JR.

 

[Geofrancis]

my watercooled dfi