Introduction

Looking through the vast selections of motherboards available in the market today, it is really difficult to make a clear decision over a certain product as all of them almost always come with the standard set of features. Of course, a motherboard will always be a motherboard and there's little manufacturers can do to make it ever more interesting. However, once in a blue moon, we receive products that are totally more than just the motherboard alone. We're talking about products with extremely high-end bundles, something which most probably would appear in some classy Japanese computer hardware store.

The new 7VJL Apogee is Chaintech's new line of motherboards with very extensive bundles that would get even the most hardcore user drooling all around the store. The packaging alone is worth the mention here as it comes in a cool black box with a carrying handle. The weight alone would indicate that there's more than just the motherboard. Packed inside, you'll find very useful bundles that gives the board an added touch of class. More on this later.

The attractive Apogee box - the front.

Here's another look at the box...

The motherboard is based on VIA's current KT333 chipset and it comes with expensive gold plated connectors - even on the PS/2 ports. The board features up to six PCI slots controlled by the latest VT8235 south bridge. The new VIA VT8235 south bridge supports USB 2.0 natively and this helps keep the cost of new KT333 boards low as it does not need to rely on discrete USB 2.0 controllers anymore. The North/South bridge V-Link speed is now capable of transferring up to 533MB/s (previously 266MB/s) with the VT8235 but it does not benefit the overall system much as the KT333 north bridge still communicates at only 266MB/s.

The specifications of the board is shown in the table below.