Thoughts
Chaintech's gone about designing an nForce3 250 motherboard in a strange way. The usual method is to take a base chipset and add on discrete feature controllers to make up for on-chip inadequacies. It appears as if Chaintech's jumped on the nForce3 250 HyperTransport link bandwagon and little else. There's no on-chip SATA, GbE, or masses of USB2.0. Instead, Chaintech's opted for a glut of external controllers. It's difficult to see why. Perhaps getting nForce3 250 boards out so early in the game has translated to the firm going with the controllers that it knows best. Whatever the case, the Zenith ZNF3-250 ratchets up the feature count in a bizarre manner.Chaintech will also do well to regularly update its site for new BIOSes. The board shipped with a BIOS dated 16th January 2004, and no further updates were available. It bears mentioning as the supplied BIOS lacks multiplier adjustment and the Cool'n'Quiet function. Also, discrete controllers and extravagant bundles have the unfortunate side-effect of pushing up cost. We're looking at a retail price on the wrong side of £100.
There's nothing much intrinsically wrong with the Zenith ZNF3-250. Great audio. FireWire, external boxes and a mouth-watering bundle are definite plusses. We, however, would recommend a revision B board with more of the nForce3 250's on-chip goodness, possibly a Gb version with integrated firewall, and an updated BIOS that lets the enthusiast push the Zenith to the limit.
