It's not a secret that Chaintech motherboards lost their former attraction in recent time. The quality of the boards is rather low and the prices are comparable with ones of their competitors. At least this refers to Socket A boards, because I have tested a couple of borads, one of which is based on KT133A and another one is on KT266A. And I couldn't recommend any of them (a better choice always could be made). Chaintech issued the first KT333 board after all the other motherboard manufacturers have done this. Actually, Chaintech had a board on KT333+VT8233 pack. That is Chaintech 7VJA4.
But it was not noted on mass sale and many reviewers started making conclusion about a fall of the company. It looks like Chaintech managers realized that only immediate actions should be taken to improve the situation.

But what can be invented at the present when the competition among motherboard manufacturers has reached its peak. The first solution is to improve characteristics of the boards to the limit and to add new functions. But now all the motherboards have approximately the same characteristics. Concerning additional features, it seems like manufacturers tend to install as many accessories as possible (the typical example is Asus P4B533-E on i845E).

The second solution is to develop a particular feature and advertise it (e.g. overclocking). In this case it would be necessary to compete with well-known manufacturers like Epox, Abit and Asus. And the market share of sophisticated users is very low.

There is a third solution: to attract customers with expanded set of accessories. Surely, in order to have the best result one must develop the all three ways. Chaintech tried to do a similar thing with issuing a new series of boards consisting of Zenith, Apogee and Summit models.

Zenith series is intended for strictest users. Boards from this group have up to 4 DIMM slots, RAID controller, Firewire controller and already habitual network controller. Surely these boards will support USB 2.0. Besides extension capabilities, appearance is not forgotten. Zenith boards will have such characteristic features as an obligatory north bridge cooler, black or dark brown surface and golden connectors. For overclocking fans, a broad range of possibilities is provided, starting from core voltage increase to Vagp and Vio increase. Furthermore, a set of accessories is enriched with round IDE and FDD cables, special headphones and expanded set of software including Linux operating system. Besides that, Zenith boards will be equipped with CBOX2 super-panel, which is installed into 5?`` bay of computer case and contains USB, Firewire and infrared ports. A LED indicator of POST codes, temperature and fans rotation speeds will be installed on this panel as well. Smart card reader and a set of audio connectors will be installed on the panel.

Obviously, boards of this series will be expensive for many customers and such a rich set of features will not be necessary for many users. Another set of boards with simplified set of accessories and less possibilities. This is Apogee series, the representative of which will be discussed here.

And finally, Chaintech offers boards of Summit series for those who need just a motherboard without any knick-knacks. Summit is the most reduced variation of those boards either with its possibilities or its package.

The most interesting boards haven't reached Russia yet, unlike boards of Apogee series, which have already appeared on sale. So, let's start from chipset description.

Chipset

We used to discuss KT333 chipset before, but we were talking about a link between VT8367 north bridge and VT8233(A) south bridge. Virtually all the boards of this chipset are built on a combination of these two chips. And only in this and previous months, information about boards with new VT8255 started to appear.

What is special about this south bridge except its built-in support of USB 2.0 and ATA-133? Let us remember the beginning of spring and the mist about KT333 chipset caused by VIA. They were talking about V-Link bus, which is designed to provide connection between north and south bridges. In VT8367+VT8233(A) combination both chips support only V-Link 1.0 with 266Mb/s bandwidth. It was promised that after VT8235 is issued, there would be a possibility to manufacture boards on a combination of VT8367 (CE edition) and VT8235 (I was discussing about this version in my review of Epox 8K3A motherboard). As the result, bandwidth between bridges increases up to 533Mb/s.

Chaintech 7VJL Specifications

The Box

The board was bought in a luxury package with a handle for carrying.

Actually, selling motherboards (or sometimes videocards) in boxes with handles becomes a regular practice among motherboard manufacturers. This is a particular feature of Epox, and more rarely Abit and Gigabyte.

In my opinion, it is very easy to transport such box (I used to transport it for 90 km, however I was taken for a commercial traveler).

• Page1 - Specifications
• Page2 - Box Contents
• Page3 - Layout
• Page4 - Overclocking and Stability
• Page5 - Performance and Conclusions