Chaintech 9CJS ZENITH - Intel I875 Reviewed

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.

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!

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

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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.

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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

Performance

Testbed:

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	Intel P4 2.4 "C"
Mainboard	* Chaintech CT-9CJS * Asus P4C800
Cooling	Zalman CNPS7000-CU
Memory	2 * 256Mb PC3700 OCZ Rev.2
Video	nVidia Geforce 4 Ti4600

Performance:

We ran the benchmarks with 2 different settings, one time at default FSB speed of 200, the memory timings were set at CL2 2-3-5. Then we increased the FSB to 250 with memory timings at CL2.5 3-3-7. PAT was auto-enabled during all tests.

Interesting to note is that the Chaintech puts the FSB at 202.9 when running at default speeds.

Let’s start of with one of the most popular DirectX benchmarks:

3DMark2001 SE

	P4C800 @200	CT-9CJS @200	P4C800 @250	CT-9CJS @250
1024x768	12488	12468	13809	13811
640x480	14644	14749	16539	16685

Quake 3 Arena

	P4C800 @200	CT-9CJS @200	P4C800 @250	CT-9CJS @250
1024x768	259.4	260.4	295.5	297.5
640x480	279	280.8	338.1	339.9

Sisoft Sandra 2004

	P4C800 @200	CT-9CJS @200	P4C800 @250	CT-9CJS @250
CPU MIPS	7523	7509	9198	9331
FPU MFLOPS	2995	3049	3731	3752
iSSE2 MFLOPS	5340	5429	6698	6676
iSSE2 Int	18369	18646	22920	22986
iSSE2 Float	26609	25832	32993	31783
RAM Int	4847	4852	5852	5862
RAM Float	4855	4789	5860	5939

PCMark2002

	P4C800 @200	CT-9CJS @200	P4C800 @250	CT-9CJS @250
CPU	5935	6042	7416	7473
Memory	8262	8062	9823	9910

PCMark04

	P4C800 @200	CT-9CJS @200	P4C800 @250	CT-9CJS @250
Global	3702	3784	4541	4561
CPU	3730	3714	4501	4660
Memory	4256	4252	5147	5205
Graphics	3075	3091	3134	3152

The onboard sound has an impact on performance but no more/less than expected.

Quake 3 Arena (Sound enabled/disabled in BIOS)
	640x480		1024x768
	P4C800	CT-9CJS	P4C800	CT-9CJS
Enabled	338.1	339.9	295.5	297.5
Disabled	415.6	416.7	320.3	321

In the majority of tests we see the Chaintech I875 solution pull ahead of the Asus P4C800, solid performance at default speeds and even better when overclocked!

General Impression & Issues

Board Layout:

The board layout is simple and effective; the motherboard ATX power connector is located at the side of the board which leaves the CPU socket area free of cable clutter.

The north bridge cooler is a real eye-catcher:

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But unfortunately it is also the cause of some incompatibilities with some of the popular high end air cooling solutions:

Thermalright SP-94
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Swiftech MCX478-V
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Zalman CNPS7000-CU
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Removing the (Z)-logo ring luckily solves all these problems and I was able to fit all those coolers as it should, but not much space is left I tell you:

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The CMOS reset jumper is clearly marked and easy in use:

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A common issue on motherboards now-a-days has to do with the DDR banks. When installing or removing DDR ram you are forced to remove your AGP video card if the length of the card surpasses that of the DDR banks:

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Not a big problem, but it shows that there is always room for improvement

Extra's & Overclocking

Extra's:

The ZENITH series of Chaintech motherboards comes packed with goodies as mentioned before, the break-out box named CBOX3 offers you a 6-in-1 digital media card reader, USB and Firewire ports, audio connectors, a status LED and last but not least: a remote control option!

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When the CBOX3 is completely hooked up you might end up with a cable mess, Chaintech provides you with the necessary tools and straps to make sure this doesn't happen

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Update:In the picture I switched the cables of the port 80 with those of the sound, this is how they should be hooked up:
Please have the flat grey cable hooked on up port 80 to CN25 of the motherboard and the multicolored wire to CN2 on the CBOC3 (audio) to CN24 on the motherboard. —Chaintech Support
(thank you Kerry!)

The status led cycles through the BIOS self-test and system start-up codes going all the way up to FF. Once the system is up and running the LEDs show FF all the time, although it is nice to have a Frigging Fast system, it would have been more useful to show the CPU temperature. Only at boot up you get to see the CPU temp, but this passes by so fast that you hardly have the time get a glimpse of it.

The remote control however is a very useful gadget, the CBOX3 is connected to the Wake-on-Lan on the motherboard, which allows you then to boot up the PC by simply pressing the "Power" button on the RC! A big round "knob" on the RC makes it possible to move the mouse without too much effort. Other useful functions include play/pause/stop as well as increasing/decreasing the sound volume and when you install the included WinDVD application you can start it up from the RC with the press of a button.
The RC uses a infrared signal to communicate with the CBOX3 which means that it has to be pointed directly at CBOX3 to function properly, unlike ATI's "Remote Wonder" which uses RF.

The included rounded cables are of good quality and stand their ground easily when compared to 3rd party rounded cables. Their colour fits that of the IDE/Floppy connectors nicely, to give it the finish touch.

Overclocking

This motherboard will not disappoint the average overclocker; I was able to reach 280 FSB running the memory at 5:4, any higher would cause lock-ups. Thanks to Corsair who provided us with some PC4400 memory I was able to find the max. FSB limit when running in synchronous mode (1:1), 265-270Mhz is about as high as this board will go, not bad, but no Asus P4C800-E. Extreme overclockers might want to look elsewhere.

Chaintech included an overclocking utility "APOGEE":

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You can change FSB/PCI/AGP speeds, increase/decrease voltage to your CPU, DDR and AGP port! Quite impressive utility and very easy in use.

Conclusion

Conclusion:

Chaintech's flagship P4 product is more then just a "motherboard". The added extras not only make this package stand out from the rest, it turns this I875 powered motherboard into a full blown multimedia station. It has support for a very wide range of storage media, USB2.0 and firewire, remote control and all the tools needed to install it (rounded cables, screwdriver,...)

I found it priced very competitively ($159) at the time of writing, making it one of the best price/performance bundles available for your P4 setup!

PRO
Good performance, able to keep up with the competition without problem
Excellent bundle, massive collection of goodies included
Very nice price, one of the best price/performance motherboards out there.

CON
Minor problem with large north bridge cooling when installing "extravagant" heatsinks.

I would like to thank Danny @ Chaintech.nl for the review sample.

Questions/Comments: Forum Thread