nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
by Wesley Fink on July 5, 2005 10:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Chaintech VNF4-Ultra: Features and Layout
| Specification | Chaintech VNF4-Ultra |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Express | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.90V to 1.70V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Default, 2.7V, 2.8V, 2.9V |
| Chipset Voltage | Default, 1.6V, 1.65V, 1.7V |
| Hyper Transport Ratios | 1x to 5x in 1x increments |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| LDT Voltage | Normal, +0.1V, +0.2V, +0.3V |
| CPU Ratios | Auto, 4x to 25x in 1x increments |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, 100, 133, 166, 200 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slots 2 x1 PCIe 3 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard NVIDIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 No Firewire |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit PCIe Ethernet by Vitesse VSC8201 PHY |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 6 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and optical SPDIF |
| Other Features | AMD Dual-Core (X2) Support with 5/18 Beta BIOS |
| BIOS | Award 6/03/2005 |
The Chaintech was one of the motherboards that we had looked forward to testing. It is very inexpensive, and the last Chaintech that we tested, the Socket 754 VNF3-250, was an Editors Choice for value. Chaintech has repeated an outstanding selection of useful overclocking adjustments in the VNF4-Ultra BIOS. The features are also first rate for an Ultra board selling for $89 street price, with Firewire being the only missing feature of importance to some buyers. Even the excellent NVIDIA "any-drive" RAID for SATA 2 and IDE is fully supported, along with the standard NVIDIA chipset-based Firewall and LAN features. Chaintech has also implemented a really nice boot screen option. When selected in the BIOS, the boot screen shows post codes during boot so that you can see exactly what is going on and where problems might be.
Click image to enlarge.
The only real compromise that Chaintech made with the smaller board was placing the 24-pin ATX and the 4-pin 12V between the CPU and rear panel connectors. No matter how you run the bulky 24-pin cable, it gets in the way of something - memory or CPU or IDE/SATA connections - and none of the routing options is really a great choice. Chaintech builds to a price point, and if this is the concession that had to be made for performance, we will find a way to live with it. That doesn't mean that we have to like it though.
At first, we thought that Chaintech had omitted an optical or coaxial SPDIF port, but looking closer, we found that the top left audio port (the blue connector) does double-duty as an optical SPDIF out port.
When we first received the Chaintech for evaluation, it was supplied with a passive heatsink for the single-chip nForce4 Ultra chipset. Chaintech sent an announcement that they had updated the design for active chipset cooling due to high temperatures with the nF34 chipset. Soon thereafter, we received an active cooling kit for the VNF4-Ultra that was a very easy installation. Chaintech tells us that current boards should be equipped with active cooling for the chipset.
Biostar NF4UL-A9: Overclocking and Stress Testing
Chaintech VNF4-Ultra: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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Zebo - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Does ECS build EPOX's boards? just curious because they look pretty cheap like ECS IMO..Heidfirst - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
"[b]#19 and Others - I'm sure you must have noticed that some web sites have never posted a negative review of an Abit board. Also water cooling and asynchronous ram is hardly comparable to our air-cooled tests.The first thing I did was check other reviewers and users of the Abit board. The great majority are running into problems at about 250 FSB - although a few are getting better performance. Abit has had so many complaints about the OC performance of this board that I would fully expect a hardware revision on the horizon.[/b]"
Well the Fatality AN8 SLi, AN8 SLi, AN8 Ultra, AN8 V2.0 & AN8-V are effectively the new revision as I pointed out. Why buy a Fatality AN8 when the AN8 Ultra has better Vcore, better sound & is cheaper?
& people have had HTT395 & DDR660 out of them on air ...
Heidfirst - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
#19 and Others - I'm sure you must have noticed that some web sites have never posted a negative review of an Abit board. Also water cooling and asynchronous ram is hardly comparable to our air-cooled tests.The first thing I did was check other reviewers and users of the Abit board. The great majority are running into problems at about 250 FSB - although a few are getting better performance. Abit has had so many complaints about the OC performance of this board that I would fully expect a hardware revision on the horizon.
Abit set the expectation that the AN8 Fatal1ty was the best of the best with a price tag to match. It's an interesting board with many interesting features, but it's performance as it now stands is nowhere near the best.
TheGlassman - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I think that a round up such as this would serve the readers better if three types of memory were used and various dividers used.My Chaintech VnF4 is running at 256x11 quite happilly, so I know it will run well over 245 with a divider with my memory, and I'm sure most of the other boards as well. And yes, many people run it over 300 HTT with lower multi cpu's.
This is not to say that 1:1 testing is not important, but since this is a round up, the various needs and budgets of your readers should be taken into account.
Seeing bios's used that are dated during the testing, with a known single memory may if repeated cause readers to think that Anandtech doesn't deserve it's well earned reputation as a fair and complete tester of all things important to PC ethusiasts.
Using memories with 3 different types of chips and using relevant dividers to find maximum HTT's and cpu speeds with each, while being more work, I think will be worth while to your readers, especially in a round up where boards are compared directly to each other.
This current round up implies that most nF4 boards are not capable of high HTT's, but the truth is you have only shown that most do not run one type of memory at very high speeds. You have not exposed the limits of the boards, nor do we know if the situation is the same with any of the other commonly used memories.
bldckstark - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Xpose-Not too early. I don't have my board yet. I have been waiting on X2. Using your same logic that means that nobody has a board yet right? I mean, since I am the only person I know that is going to build a A64 system soon then I should assume that nobody has one.
Geez
xpose - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
This Editor's Recommendation for best motherboard is at least 3 months too late. We already have had all of our boards.Also, to say that the VN4F Ultra is a bad overclocking board is completely wrong. I have a 3000+ CPU running at 2.67gz now. That is about 49% OC and damn good reguardless of the MB.
Son of a N00b - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
great article! you can clearly see the hours of hard work you put into it. Great Job, I enjoyed it and it was jam packed with info.one quuestion though where was the gugabyte board ultra board?? sure you may have reviewed it in the SLI roundup, but then did you not do the same with DFI? Plus you had great results with the reference gigabyte board, but not the revision 1 board...i'd like to see how ir fairs now...maybe i missed something why you reviewed the DFI board again becuase I am not familiar witha ll their variations and naming scheme, but to me it looked the same...why review that one and not the others? sure its great to rehash what a great board the DFi one is but....
just wondering as I have always had great success with gigabyte boards...but i probably missed something even thought i read it back to front, sorry if i did as i know that you would never do something without a good reason behind it...
anyway thanks, keep the awesome articles rolling...
smn198 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Hi Wesley, thanks for the clarification on the HTT. do you know if it would have any more of an impact when dual core is brought into the equation?Thanks again. Good article BTW!
BigandSlimey - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
#18 I really like that idea, would probably be a headache to make it and keep it updated though.