Chaintech 7NJS Zenith

Company: Chaintech
Product: 7NJS Zenith Motherboard
Street Price: ~$160 USD
Date Reviewed: April 16, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345
Overall Rating: (9.6/10)

Board Layout:

The layout of this motherboard is all pretty basic. We only saw a few minor flaws. The first thing that we noticed was that the AGP slot was terribly close to the DIMM slots. There is no possible way that the memory can be removed without removing the video card as well. Our Radeon 9700 was just short enough so that it did not cover the last two DIMMS but when we placed our TI4800 in the slot, it totally covered all three DIMMS and made memory access frustrating. This is not a big issue with some people but for people who switch out memory all the time, it can get agitating.

The power connection is to the left of the CPU socket and has some capacitors near it. With this placement, the 20-pin ATX cable could interfere with the heat sink on the CPU. We generally like to see this connection placed at the upper right side of the motherboard so that it does not obstruct other parts.

Here are some good things about the layout. The CMOS jumper is easily accessible since it is at the very bottom of the motherboard. Users will not have to go digging around looking for it when they need to reset the CMOS. The IDE and floppy connections are high enough on the board so that most cables can reach them even in full tower cases. Besides that, the 60 cm cables provided with the board are long enough to reach those drives that are far away from the ports.

In addition, there is enough room around the socket to fit some of the larger heat sinks on the market. This is a plus for consumers who use the large Swiftech or Alpha heat sinks. Around the socket, four mounting holes also help to mount some of the large heat sinks and water blocks.