ZENITH Power

When it comes to the most bountiful motherboard package, there is hardly any contender that dare stand against the Chaintech ZENITH series. Sitting on the retail shelves, they are easy to identify with their unusually large and eye-catching box design. Early this year, we reviewed the Chaintech 7NJS ZENITH (based on the NVIDIA nForce2 chipset) that pampered us with a wealth of goodies.

Now with the updated nForce2 Ultra 400 SPP, Chaintech too restructured their product with the new 7NJS Ultra ZENITH. Check out the complete package contents:-

Chaintech 7NJS Ultra ZENITH motherboard

I/O Shield

User’s Guide

EZ Manual

2x Rounded ATA-133 cables

2x SATA cables

1x SATA Power cable

1x Rounded Floppy cable

Surround Sound bracket

S/PDIF In/Out bracket

S/PDIF Optical cable

CBOX3 Package

Handigator

IEEE-1394 ACR daughter card

Thermal grease

Drivers CD with Value-Pack 2003

Chaintech 4-in-1 screwdriver set

Now that’s some whopper of a package. Just for your information, Chaintech also has a slightly lighter version of this model under the APOGEE series, but we believe the ZENITH offers compelling enough features to overlook the APOGEE version of the 7NJS Ultra. Below, we have detailed the specifications of the motherboard.

Chaintech 7NJS Ultra ZENITH Technical Specifications

Processor	Socket A for AMD Athlon XP / Duron processors AMD Athlon Processors up to 1.4GHz AMD Athlon XP Processors 1500+ to 3200+ AMD Duron Processors up to 1.3GHz Supports processors at 200 / 266 / 333 / 400MHz front side bus
Chipset	NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 SPP North Bridge Supports DDR200 / DDR266 / DDR333 / DDR400 memory technology up to 3GB 200 / 266 / 333 / 400MHz front side bus AGP 4x/8x (1.5V only) Dynamic Adaptive Speculative (DASP) DualDDR Memory Architecture HyperTransport Bus (800MB/s) NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T South Bridge NVIDIA Audio Processing Unit (with Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder) NVIDIA StreamThru NVIDIA Enhanced Communications Suite NVIDIA DualNet 2-channel Ultra ATA 133/100/66/33 Bus Mastering IDE controller Supports up to six USB 2.0 ports IEEE1394a/Firewire controller Supports AC-97 audio and MC-97 modem codec PCI 2.2 interface HyperTransport Bus (800MB/s)
Cache memory	CPU Built-in 512KB (Athlon XP -Barton core) or 256KB (Athlon/Athlon XP) or 64KB (Duron) L2 cache
System memory	3 x 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM Supports DDR 200/266/333/400 DIMM Module Supports 2.5V DDR SDRAM Supports a maximum of 3GB of memory with 1GB DIMM Dual DDR Memory Architecture
PCI IDE	2 x bus master UDMA-33/66/100/133 IDE ports (up to 4 devices) Support for PIO, UDMA-33, UDMA-66, UDMA-100, UDMA-133 IDE devices Built-in Promise PDC20376 ATA-133 IDE/RAID controller using one ATA133 and/or two Serial ATA drives
I/O Interface	1x floppy connector (360KB - 2.88MB) 2x serial ports 1x parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP) 1x PS/2 Keyboard 1x PS/2 Mouse 6x USB 2.0 ports (2x ports in the rear, 2x ports via CBOX3 and 2x ports optional by cable ) 3 x IEEE1394a/Firewire ports (via Realtek 8801B PHY on ACR card) 1x IrDA TX/RX header for SIR/ASKIR/IRDA Audio ports for on-board sound (Line-Out, Line-In, Mic, Center/Sub, Surround Left/Right) based on 6-channel C-Media CMI-8738-MX hardare sound chip. 1x bracket for S/PDIF Optical input and output 1x bracket for Analog surround outputs 1x RJ-45 10/100 LAN port (NVIDIA controller) CBOX3 for front panel access DigiDoc display and other interfaces
Expansion slots	5x 32-bit PCI slots, PCI 2.2 compliant 1x ACR slot 1 x 1.5V / 0.8V AGP 2.0/3.0 (2x/4x/8x mode) slot
Power Management	Supports ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Supports Desktop Management Interface 2.0 (DMI) WOL by PME WOM by PME Power-on by switch, keyboard Power-off by Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT shut down and switch
Form Factor	ATX Form Factor : 30.5cm x 25cm Fits into regular ATX case
BIOS	4Mbit (512KB) Flash ROM Award Flash BIOS with PnP, APM, DMI, and ACPI support Multi-boot on LS120, ZIP, ATAPI CD-ROM, SCSI, IDE #1, #2, #3, #4