|
Long time manufacturers of motherboards and video cards, Chaintech has been gaining momentum in mindshare among enthusiasts. Their current GeForce 4 product line breaks away from nVidia's reference design by adding ramsinks and a slightly modified GPU cooler. By thinking about the enthusiasts, they have turned their sights at motherboards and have released a product line dubbed the "Zenith" series. These motherboards are to pack in as many features as possible, while at the same time attempt to be one of the top performers in its class. Today, we'll be looking at their Pentium 4 i845PE motherboard, the Chaintech 9EJS1 ZENITH.
Features
Hardware
CPU: Intel Pentium4/Celeron Socket 478
System Frequency: 400/533MHz
Chipset: Intel 845PE + ICH4
Memory: (2) PC1600/2100/2700 DDR DIMMs (2GB)
Physical Form Factor ATX
Dimensions : 230mm x 305mm
Expansion One 1.5V AGP slot for 4XAGP (v2.0 compliant)
Six 32-Bit PCI slots (v2.2 compliant)
One CNR slot support modem, audio and LAN riser
AV Subsystems Video : 4XAGP
Audio : CMedia 8738-6ch
CPU Supports Intel Socket 478 CPU with Hyper-Threading Technology
Supports Intel Pentium4/Celeron system bus at 400/533MHz
Chipset Intel 845PE + ICH4, supports Hyper-Threading Technology
Main Memory Two 184-pin DDR DIMMs up to 2GB
Supports PC1600/2100/2700 DDR SDRAM modules
Expansion Slots One 1.5V AGP slot for 4XAGP (v2.0 compliant)
Six 32-Bit PCI slots (v2.2 compliant)
One CNR slot support modem, audio and LAN riser
Audio Subsystem Full-duplex operation for simultaneous recording and playback
6 channel speaker audio supports
Embedded 32OHM 5w earphone amplifier
Supports MIDI and dual game ports
32 Voice HRTF 3D positional audio, CRL 3D supports MS Direct
Sound3D, Aureal A3D and Creative EAX APIs
Supports SPDIF
Video Subsystem Video 4XAGP
UltraDMA IDE Ports Supports PIO Mode 4 up to 16.6 Mbps, Multi-Word DMA Mode 2
and Ultra DMA mode 5 up to 100MB/s with Bus Mastering
Bus-Mastering software drivers for all common multitasking operating systems
Embedded USB Controller Three EHCI USB 2.0 Controllers support total 6 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports
Support USB 2.0 High-Speed Device @480 Mb/s Transfer Rates
Optional USB adapter for additional USB2.0/1.1 ports
On Board Super I/O Controller ITE 8712 LPC I/O with system monitors hardware
Two UARTs support serial ports and IR function (up to 115.2Kbps)
for HPSIR and ASKIR
One SPP/ECP/EPP parallel port
One floppy disk drive connector supports up to 2.88MB
Integrates smart card reader function and interface, to be qualified for meeting PC/SC standard
Embedded system monitoring 8 external voltage inputs
2 temperature sensing for CPU and system
2 Fan speed (CPU and system) monitoring with on/off control in suspend
Boot-Block Flash ROM Award system BIOS support PnP, APM, DMI, ACPI, & Multi-device booting features
Software
Driver CD (Chipset Autodetect)
Value Pack 2002/2003
Thiz Linux 6.0
APOGEE™ Overclocking
Promise PDC20276 IDE RAID controller supports extra two UltraDMA-66/100/133 IDE ports with RAID 0/1
On-board LAN controller
On-board LAN chip RTL8100B supports 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet
On-board VIA VT6306 IEEE1394 Host Controller
Serial bus data rates of 100, 200 and 400Mbps
IEEE P1394a compliant and IEEE 1394
Programmable ATA/ATAPI interface supporting PIO modes 0-4, DMA modes 0-2 and Ultra DMA modes 0-4
On board connector for external device
Whew! Quite a list. As stated earlier, this is an i845PE based motherboard, with the Intel ICH4. What that means is features such as Hyper-Threading, USB2.0, ATA100, DDR333 and AGP4x are supported natively. The 9EJS1 ZENITH also features RAID, onboard LAN, and 6 channel audio.
  
Click to Enlarge
The ZENITH is packed into a nice black box, complete with carry handle. The "Z" cutout extends to the inner box, showing off the hardware on the shelf. The handle is fairly useless if your motherboard is inside your PC, but I suppose you can always pack your lunch in there and impress the chicks at the lunch table by hauling it into the cafeteria. Inside, you'll find the motherboard (in it's own plastic shell), as well as the rest of the accessories neatly stowed.
Next Page - The Board
|
Chaintech 9EJS1 ZENITH 845PE: zenith: n. - the highest point; peak; acme: the zenith of someone's achievements. Will the Chaintech 9EJS1 ZENITH be just that? We'll be investigating that today.
