Chaintech ZENITH Series : 7NJS nForce2 !UPDATE new review!!!!

[Mem]

Over@[url="http://www.vr-zone.com/Previews/7NJS"]VR-Zone[/url] .Not much info there being a preview but the board looks good.



UPDATE: Go to OCWorkbench for the review!!

 

[mechBgon]

They seem to have left out the kitchen sink Note the Serial ATA RAID! First time I can recall seeing that in a board's specs.

edit: thanks for the word, Mem

 

[Insane3D]

Note the Serial ATA RAID!

Yeah, except it's still handicapped by being on the PCI bus. Performance will likely be barely faster than a standard IDE RAID controller. S-ATA is a waste IMO, until it's natively supported by a southbridge, taken off the PCI bus, and mapped to the HS Northbridge/Southbridge connection.



Edit: Hard to argue that is one hell of a complete package and a damn sharp looking mobo. Looks like it has all the o/c features too, but I will be interested to see how they actually work since their Apogee KT333 board was disappointing..

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
They seem to have left out the kitchen sink

Yeah, that IGP kitchen sink.

But hey, it's got a pretty heatsink!

 

[Mem]

VR-Zone now have the full review up here .

 

[SpideyCU]

Serial ATA on-board might be a waste right now, Insane, but, IMHO, not for that reason. Sure, the performance won't be any better, but heck, the hard drives we've got right now *can't* go any faster anyhow. Limited by the PCI bus or not, the hard drives will have to be the ones to up the throughput from their ends.

Personally I'd just like to take advantage of the significantly smaller cables. But, to use those cables now, I'd need an adapter to my current ATA drives, which I'd rather not bother with. I'll wait 'til legitimate, hopefully faster, serial ATA hard drives start hitting the market next year.

Edit: Question...the board spec lists "Promise PDC20376...1 ATA100/133 IDE port with RAID0/1". Now, with only one IDE channel for RAID capabilities...wouldn't you take a performance hit with having one drive as master and the other as slave, RAIDed together? I was under the impression that the best way to set up two RAIDed drives was to put them on separate channels, given the way current IDE connections work. Maybe I'm just being silly.

 

[clumsum]

Based on my past Chaintech experience (CT7-SID) ........... I won't be jumping on any of their mb's (early models) ..... until they have matured and proved reliable and stable (and the features they advertise are included)!
No matter how pretty they look ....... or how many round eide cables are included.
Just IMO.

 

[Bagheera786]

I really wonder how this board compares at overclocked speeds. From what I saw on the Epox 8k9a2+ review @ vrzone, the kt400 does pretty well w/ a 200 Mhz FSB. What is the performance difference between the 8k9a2+ @ 200FSB w/ synchronous memory speeds and the Chaintech/Asus nforce2 boards at 200FSB 200 mem dual DDR (synchronous)? As I understand it, the kt400 has a performance hit by running asynchronously @ 333 or 400, which is the comparison given in the review of the chaintech board.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: SpideyCU


Edit: Question...the board spec lists "Promise PDC20376...1 ATA100/133 IDE port with RAID0/1". Now, with only one IDE channel for RAID capabilities...wouldn't you take a performance hit with having one drive as master and the other as slave, RAIDed together? I was under the impression that the best way to set up two RAIDed drives was to put them on separate channels, given the way current IDE connections work. Maybe I'm just being silly.

I saw that and I have seen other motherboards with one RAID channel also. I believe that you are right, your RAID 0 will not be any faster than one of the drives all by itself on an ATA100/133 controller. This one RAID channel is a waste IMHO.

Can a Promise RAID controller serve as a standard IDE controller like Highpoints can? If they can then this is the only justifiable reason to have a single RAID channel.

 

[mudboy]

Damn, with all that gold, does it go "bling bling" when you plug it in? I'm surprised that Chaintech didn't just call it the "Type R"

I must be getting old, it's more important to me that my motherboard works rather than worrying about what it looks like.

Pete

 

[Byte]

i can't wait for it to come out. Way better than the Asus boards. I have an Apogee and it totally rocks.

 

[MatthewF01]

Byte, do you have the Deluxe (KT400), or regular (KT333)?


i followed through the 1/5 divider and 166mhz jumper issue in the hopes that id buy one after things cleared


but this nforce board is lookin pretty sweet