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- Date:
- Thursday , January 09, 2003
- Author:
- Sean Pelletier
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Chaintech Zenith 7NJS Review
What does the word Zenith mean? Should the 7NJS be any hint or indication, it likely is another word for performance as this board has turned in some spectacular results using the new nForce2 chipset from NVIDIA.
Introduction
Having established themselves as a formidable player in the graphics card market, Chaintech was looking to build a name for themselves as a high-performance motherboard vendor. After the successful inception of their APOGEE line and the market’s acceptance of them as a quality vendor, Chaintech began setting higher goals. Not content to be seen solely as a quality vendor, Chaintech set their sights on the major Tier I vendors such as Asus, ABIT, and MSI. In order to combat these vendors in the marketplace, Chaintech introduced the Zenith product line. The Zenith models would represent a no-compromise approach to high performance motherboards and would come with nearly every feature and accessory imaginable. Having only one Zenith board per platform at launch, it came as no surprise that Chaintech had selected the feature-rich nForce2 chipset as the basis for their AMD platform.
A quick glance at the specifications for the 7NJS ZENITH is enough to put a smile on any hardware aficionado’s face. Here, we find the support for AGP8X, SATA, RAID, FireWire, SPDIF for digital audio, 333MHz FSB Athlon XP processors, as well as the infamous dual-channel DDR400 memory architecture. In this respect, the Chaintech motherboard proves to be a viable long-term solution as all the latest and greatest features are supported and incorporated.
CPU | AMD Duron/AthlonMP/AthlonXP Socket A |
Chipset | nVidia nForce2 SPP/nVidia nForce2 MCP-T |
FSB | 100/133/166 |
BIOS | AwardBIOS |
Memory | 3 x 184 pin DDR SDRAM DIMMs, up to 3 GB |
Expansion Slots | 1 AGP / 5 PCI / 1 ACR |
Onboard IDE | 2 ATA 133 / 1 ATA 133 / 2 SATA 150 RAID |
USB | 2 onboard / 4 front panel (6 Ports Total) |
AGP | 1 AGP 4x / 8x |
Audio | 6 Channel CMedia 8738 |
NIC | 1 10/100 nVidia nForce2 LAN onboard |
A complete list of specifications:
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Board Layout
Perhaps the first thing one notices about the Chaintech motherboard is the loud color-scheme, which accompanies every facet of this package. A trendy yellow theme graces nearly everything, from the memory headers, PCI slots, IDE headers, to a handful of capacitors. Still, we have to think the AMD side of marketing should have been green...anyway. If the color is not enough to grab one’s attention or warrant the use of a case window, Chaintech has included a trick-looking heatsink assembly for the nForce2 chipset. The golden heatsink comes with a clear fan assembly to actively cool the chipset and a fan-guard which mimics the Chaintech Zenith emblem.
A quick glance at the motherboard's PCB illustrates how rich in features the 7NJS truly is. From end to end, one would be hard-pressed to find any available space on the board, as there are chipsets, slots, and headers galore. The sole exception of this characteristic is the area where we find the memory traces heading towards the northbridge. In addition to this convenient gap, there is an absence of tall capacitors close to the CPU socket. This is excellent news to those who would be looking to use a hefty aftermarket heatsink. A large Thermalright AK-7 heatsink was used throughout the review with no issues whatsoever. Overclocking enthusiasts can celebrate further as the Chaintech board comes equipped with the four mounting holes surrounding the CPU socket. As such, waterblocks and intricate heatsink assemblies alike can be mounted securely to the motherboard with ease.
Directly behind the rear-panel, one can see the first fault of the 7NJS. Perhaps due in part to the lack of room on the PCB, Chaintech engineers have decided to position the ATX power header in a small gap between the panel and a row of capacitors alongside the processor socket. When installing the motherboard and assembling the system, I was disappointed to find that even my small hands seemed too large to easily access the power header. To make matters worse, this location causes the thick power cable to be routed dangerously close to the processor’s fan. Those not using a fan-guard could encounter a situation where the power cable actually obstructs the movement of the fan. Should this happen, users could find themselves with a new Athlon keychain. At the very least, the position of the power cable will inhibit the airflow both above the heatsink and below the power supply fan, unless of course you take a moment to route it carefully.
Looking at the rear-panel of the motherboard, we see an impressive array of connectors. In addition to the standard PS/2, parallel, and serial ports there are MIDI, Ethernet, and two USB 2.0 ports. We also find the audio inputs for line-in, line-out, and mic. Chaintech has opted to position the remaining audio ports on separate brackets to keep the rear-panel clean and easily accessible.
Continuing down the side of the motherboard, we see the usual grouping of AGP and PCI slots. The AGP slot comes standard with a locking mechanism, which should prevent expensive graphics cards from reeking havoc inside the case during transit. Five PCI slots reside next to the AGP slot, and the board ends with the inclusion of an ACR slot. In this case, the ACR is here to accept the included IEEE1394 Firewire card.
Turning the board, we begin to explore a very densely populated area of the motherboard. Here, we come across SATA headers and the Promise PDC20376 chipset which provides SATA support as well as single-channel RAID functionality. Although this chipset seems to provide all the flexibility one could ask for in terms of hard drive support, there is an unfortunate characteristic inherent to the chipset which severely limits the combination of hardware which can be used. Though the chipset allows a RAID 0 or 1 array to be constructed from both SATA-exclusive and SATA/IDE combinations, it cannot build an array between two parallel IDE hard drives. Given the lack of any volume presence for SATA hard drives at the time this review is written, this trait certainly creates an issue to those individuals looking for an onboard-RAID solution for traditional IDE hard drives. Those set on using an onboard RAID setup can solve this issue by using a SATA adaptor that is relatively inexpensive.
Directly above the Promise chipset, we find the nForce2 MCP-T chipset. Acting as the SouthBridge, this chip incorporates a number of impressive features. The standard MCP chipset provides support for AC97 sound, Ethernet, StreamThru, and six USB ports. The Chaintech 7NJS takes things one step further by utilizing the enhanced MCP-T (Turbo) chipset. This version provides additional features such as the APU (Audio Processing Unit) which supplies full Dolby Digital 5.1 support. In addition, the MCP-T also comes equipped with DualNet functionality, where both NVIDIA and 3Com Ethernet controllers are present. Furthermore, the chipset includes an IEEE 1394 FireWire controller, USB 2.0 support, and ATA133 support.
Now that you’re excited about the exceptional features the MCP-T chipset offers, I must inform you that Chaintech has decided to make a few changes. The Dolby Digital APU has been disabled in favor of the inferior C-Media CMI8738 6-channel audio chipset. This onboard solution has limited 5.1 functionality, as using any more than two speakers will negate the possibility of using the S/PDIF optical output. In addition, Chaintech has decided to utilize only one of the two onboard Network Interface Cards. Here, the 3Com NIC has been disabled, leaving the user with the “NVIDIA” NIC as the sole solution.