Chaintech 7VJDA KT266A Motherboard
Chaintech CT-7VJDA
As you take this board to your hands the first thing you notice is the oversized heatsink on the north bridge. The last time I saw a heatsink this large was in a AMD 760Chipset board, which is still a good performer. As the specifications say the board comes equipped with 5-PCI slots, one 4x AGP slot, one ACR and a CNR slot. Personally I really don’t see any point behind the inclusion a the ACR and CNR slots since other than OEM customers, hardly any home user makes use of these slots. It would have been much better if Chaintech utilized the space for additional PCI slots.
The board includes 3 DIMM slots, supporting a total of 3GB of unbuffered memory. I know some of you overclockers would like to know that the 7VJDA does not offer any voltage tweaking for memory. The board supports both PC1600 DDR as well as PC2100DDR. The board however, offers voltage manipulations for the CPU and it goes up as high as 0.35v. Now this is pretty good even by good overclocking standards.
As we mentioned before you need to select the jumper to 100Mhz or 133Mhz through the jumper in the mainboard depending on your processor type. This however is not the best solution unfortunately if you’re a regular overclocker. Sadly it does not end there, the CPU multiplier setting have to be set through a set of DIP switches located in one corner of the board as opposed to having this feature in the BIOS. From what I can see the 7VJDA couldn’t have been aimed at hardcore overclockers in mind. While the board offers decent overclocking features, accessibility hinders everything unfortunately. On a plus side the board offers FSB adjustments from 100Mhz to 166Mhz in 1Mhz increments. Also make sure that you adjust your core voltage levels as well which is located in the BIOS.
While Chaintech have maintained good spacing between the CPU socket and the North-bridge, the ATX power connector seems to located a bit too close to the AGP slot. It won’t pose a be a big problem, however it makes one a bit concerned. The board offers 3 fan connectors, which is adequate for good overall cooling of your CPU and case. However remember not to use these connectors if you’re using a high-powered fan. It’s always better to provide direct power from the power supply for these fans.
The CT-7VJDA uses the C-Media CMI8738 PCI sound chip for on-board sound. Lately I have been a big fan of the on-board sound that’s provided with these boards. It’s one of the cheapest 6 channel audio solutions I have ever come across, and best of all they sound good too. I you currently don’t own a sound card, save the cash; these on-board chips have come a long way since their introduction years back. If you could fish out a few buck get the optional 6-channel audio adapter card.
The BIOS
The 7VJDA has a AWARD 6 BIOS, and includes all the standard features offered in most new boards today. However most overclocking features have not been incorporated into the BIOS unfortunately.
We managed to get hold of a few other KT266A boards in time for this review. The boards are the SOYO Dragon Plus, DFI AD70-SR, and the Shuttle AK31. Lets see how well this board can perform in our real world test simulations.
