So, I bought two of these DFI boxes with the intention of making one my router and the other an emulation box. While I did mess about with using the onboard graphics for some light GameCube emulation (at only 720p 
), I knew from the start I’d be juicing this bad boy up.
Naturally, I ordered an R9 Fury Nano for ~$140.
Those of you who may be considered some of the sharpest bulbs on the Hanukkah tree may have noticed that it’s a two-slot card.
Don’t worry, Daddy Dremel saves the day like always.
Guy with a tremor uses a dremel saga
Did some guesstimating, miss me with that measuring shit. I wasn’t about to take the card out (seriously, it’s 4 screws man), so I just held up the various edges of the top to where it should line up on the case and made some marks.
After inhaling enough dust to make 60 new cutting wheels, the first bit is done. I felt like an F1 pit crew member with these wheel changes, it was brutal. One wheel would cut about an inch and a half worth of metal before being no more than a nub.
Whoops, forgot the PCIe bracket that’s also two slots. Yeah, there’s a single slot one available, but the only options are $50 shipping from Europe or wait two months from China, so I made a new option to just make it fit.
Did some touch-up work with old model paint ft. my toes for you sick sons of bitches on here.
See the big stripe underneath the cut? That’s from a pencil eraser, apparently mine erases more than I bargained for.
Okay, so onto the moneyshots.
Teaser :
Finished product
As for emulation performance, hot damn does this box surprise me. It runs GameCube/Wii games at full speed no problem, as well as the vast majority of PS2 games (read: not Shadow of the Colossus, that shit is impossible to run). That’s at a minimum of 1080p internal resolutions.
It runs Cemu (Wii U emulator) okay, I’ve only tested two games so far - Mario Kart 8 and Smash 4.
MK8 runs at playable speeds, ~55 FPS. 1080p IR.
Smash 4? 60fps @ 4k IR. I never dreamt it would work this well on a WiiU game.
More emu info
Super Mario Galaxy @ 60fps with a bluetooth-passthrough Wiimote - that means no compromise of control features. Does the audio and everything. Pretty sweet, but I don’t really play Wii games.
Not pictured: the superior Super Mario Sunshine @ 1080p60.
Smash 4 at 4k, 60fps. I died once in a two-stock game right away taking this picture.
Obviously I still won, lvl9 CPUs ain’t got nothin on my zerosuit gameplay.
An even brighter tool in the shed may note that the power supply probably can’t handle a Fury at full tilt. You’re right, which is why this bad boy is limited to 910mhz at 1106mv, as opposed to the regular 1000mhz at 1218. It had a larger impact than I expected. The card is powered via a single 8-pin, which I have two separate molex lines powering. Plenty of power, no vdroop from using the same line.
The total power usage is surprisingly low - idles around 50-60w, and only breaks 140w in Cemu with Smash 4 (reaching about 220), Dolphin tops out at around 100w and PCSX2 at 130w.
All in all, awesome little box made even better by slapping a Fury in it. I plan on running this thing into the ground.