Chaintech 9CJS ZENITH - Intel I875 Reviewed

Motherboards/Intel S478 by jmke @ 2004-01-22

We take a closer look at Chaintech?s flagship P4 motherboard. Powered by the Intel 875 "Canterwood" Chipset it provides an excellent base for any performance P4 system. How does it stack up against the Asus P4C800 and what does "ZENITH" stand for? Find it out in this review.

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Box & Specs

Today I will be taking a look at the top of the line P4 motherboard from Chaintech. The 9CJS ZENITH features support for a wide range of CPU's, even the latest Prescott (support added with bios version 4.0). It’s build around the high performance Canterwood (I875) chipset from Intel. Providing huge amount of memory bandwidth for the P4 CPU by using dual channel DDR and PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology), PAT basically lowers the access time between CPU and Memory thereby increasing performance.

Let’s get started.


In the box:

The Chaintech CT-9CJS comes in a big box; a flashy design makes the motherboard north bridge really stand out!

Madshrimps (c)


There's no mistaken that this is a Zenith series of motherboards, this means it's packed with goodies:

Madshrimps (c)


Extra's:
  • CBOX3
  • Handigator
  • Round Cables
  • CMC with 7.1 channel

    For a detailed list of the goodies and what they are capable of click here


    Specifications :

    This motherboard comes feature packed; it supports 2 SATA drives in RAID, has 2 IDE ports, Dual LAN (one of those is Gigabit) and has high quality onboard sound that supports speakers setups up to 7.1! By using the included CMR (Chaintech Multimedia Riser) card and CBOX3 you get 3 fire-wire connectors, remote control, a status LED and front-panel sound connectors. A massive list to say the least.

    Madshrimps (c)


  • Official Memory Compatibility list (.doc file)

    Here are the official specs:


    Form Factor
    • ATX (305mm x 244mm)
    CPU
    • Supports Intel Socket 478 CPU with Hyper-Threading Technology
    • Supports Intel Celeron/Pentium4 system bus at 400/533/800MHz
    Chipset
    • Intel 875P + ICH5R, supports Hyper-Threading Technology
    Main Memory
    • Four 184-pin DDR DIMMs up to 4GB
    • Supports Dual-Channel DDR266/333/400 ECC/non-ECC memory and Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT)
    Expansion Slots
    • One 1.5V AGP slot for 4X/8X AGP
    • Five 32-Bit PCI slots (v2.2 compliant)
    • One CMR (Chaintech Multimedia Riser) for Chaintech Multimedia Card (CMC 7.1)
    Audio Subsystem
    • On-board 7.1-Channel audio
    • 24-bit resolution audio format support
    • Sampling rates up to 96KHz
    • Multi-channel AC-link supported alternatively
    • Supports S/PDIF Out
    Video Subsystem
    • Video 4X/8X AGP
    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 8 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports
    • Support USB 2.0 High-Speed Device @480 Mb/s Transfer Rates
    • Optional USB adapters 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
    Embedded system monitoring
    • 8 external voltage inputs
    • 2 temperatures sensing for CPU and system
    • 3 Fan speed (CPU, system and Case) monitoring
    Boot-Block Flash ROM
    • Award system BIOS support PnP, APM, DMI, ACPI, & Multi-device booting features
    Software
    • Driver CD (Chipset Autodetect) (WinDVD 7.1CH included)
    • Value Pack 2002/2003
    • APOGEE Overclocking
    Other Feature Back panel I/O connector
    • One PS/2 mini-DIN mouse and keyboard ports
    • Four USB Ports and two RJ45 connectors
    • Two 9-pin D-SUB male Serial ports
    • One 25-pin D-SUB female Parallel port
    • Audio Line-in, Line-out and Mic-in jacks

    Dual LAN

    Intel® PRO/1000CT Network Connection (Gigabit LAN)

    • On-board IntelR 82547EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller supports 2X Gigabit performance through Communication Streaming Architecture and enable ASF 2.0-based secure remote management

    Fast Ethernet Controller

    • On-board Realtek RTL8101L supports 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet

    On-board SATA RAID Controller

    • Build-in ICH5R supports 2 Serial ATA devices for the highest data transfer rates (1.5Gbps burst) with RAID 0/1 solution

    On-board VIA VT6306 IEEE1394 Host Controller

    • Serial bus data tansfer rates of 400Mbps
    • IEEE P1394a compliant and IEEE 1394 Std 1394-1995
    • 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
    • Three 3x1 pin fan connectors
    • 2x1 pin fan connector with housing for Northbridge
    • Two 5x2 pin USB connectors for additional 2 USB2.0 ports, CIR and 6 in 1 Card Reader on CBOX3
    • 6x1 pin Infrared connector
    • 3x1 pin wake on LAN connector with housing
    • 3x1 pin wake on Modem connector with housing
    • 9x2 pin front panel connector
    • 5x2 pin Segment display connector for 2-digits Debug LED on CBOX3
    • 8x1 pin IEEE1394 connector with housing for IEEE1394 port on CBOX3
    • 17x2 pin floppy connector

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