X-bit labs

First Mass Mainboard on NVIDIA nForce3 250: Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-250 Review (page 5)

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 04/07/2004 | 03:15 PM ]

Specifications

You experience a kind of déjà vu taking a look at the Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-250. And really, this mainboard uses the same PCB design as the older product, the Zenith ZNF3-150 (on the nForce3 150 chipset). This somewhat strange solution from the engineering department of Chaintech, which didn’t allow to use the potential of the new nForce3 250 chipset to the full extent, probably results from their vital desire to save time and money on the PCB development and also to be the first in the market, ahead of the competitors. And Chaintech managed to achieve this goal, as their Zenith ZNF3-250 is really the first massively available mainboard on the nForce3 250. On the other hand, this drive for being the first had a negative effect on the resulting product, which we will soon discuss. Right now, let’s take a closer look at the accessories.

Zenith ZNF3-250 comes in a large box, stuffed with various thingies. Like other Zenith series products, the Zenith ZNF3-250 is targeted at the most demanding user, so the rich accessories shouldn’t surprise you. These are the things you receive with the mainboard:

• CDs with drivers and utilities and bundled software, including WINDVD, Norton AntiVirus, ProMagic, Image It and so on;
• Two round aerodynamic ATA-100/133 cables and a similar FDD cable;
• Four SerialATA cables;
• Two power cables for SerialATA HDDs;
• CBOX3, a panel for the front of your system case with a card reader, IEEE1394 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a headphones output and microphone input and DigiDoc, a POST-code indicator;
• Chaintech Multimedia card with two IEEE1394 ports, three audio jacks and an optical SPDIF output;
• Optical SPDIF cable;
• I/O shield;
• A set of screwdrivers;
• A syringe of thermal compound;
• The user manual and a poster with its abbreviated version.

The accessories are really numerous and gorgeous. The Zenith ZNF3-250 is probably the best product in this respect. Anyway, the additional devices are good, but the performance of the mainboard itself is what interests us most.