SUMMARY: The original nForce chipset from nVidia did not turn out to be much of a success for the then new player in the chipset sector. nVidia have since learned from their mistakes and given us the nForce2 dual channel DDR-333 and DDR-400 chipset for the AMD Athlon platform. Today Cameron "Sov" Johnson gives us a full run down on Chaintech's feature-packed Zenith 7NJS nForce2 based motherboard. Have nVidia really learned from their mistakes? Read on and find out!
nVidia have once before dabbled in the motherboard chipset sector with great disappointments, compatibility issues and horrid reviews. The original nForce chipset was designed with what was on paper, ground breaking features, but with the AMD Athlon CPU itself not able to take any advantage of these new features, i.e., them being beyond the AMD’s capabilities to utilise, it was more than a flop for nVidia.
While being somewhat of a flop, these technologies have merged and grown for use with nVidia’s new nForce2. Personally I would have tried to distance my company from the nForce name, but we will see if that is a factor. Dual Channel Memory system was taken from the original nForce and updated to support DDR-333 and 400 memory technologies, the APU (Audio Processing Unit) has been used again in the new Southbridge as well as the original nVidia MAC.
nVidia has taken its time to release their nForce2 chipset into the retail market. This could have been a fatal flaw due to VIA and their KT400, but as we have seen in earlier tests, the new nForce is able to take out VIA in every test.
Today we have in our labs the new nForce2 based motherboard for Chaintech, titled the Zenith 7NJS. This board is supposed to be Chaintech’s most feature-packed and full on motherboard to date, continue on as we give you a run down on it.
