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Box Contents

Besides, the motherboard, Chaintech includes just enough for the end user to just get started with a pair of SATA cables, a molex to dual SATA power converter, a 80-pin IDE cable, a floppy cable, a manual, a sturdy backplate, a package of processor goop and a couple of CDs. One CD contains the nForce driver package while the second is a collection of utilities and programs.

Board Layout

The VNF4 has a very similar layout to the DFI nF4 series. The first thing that users will probably notice is the positioning of the memory slots. Instead of the traditional place to the right of the processor, Chaintech has also moved the DIMM slots above the processor.

ATX power connector placement is a little bit strange, both the 24-pin and 4-pin connectors are on the left beside the processor. While I do like the fact that they are not split up, the left side of processor is an awkward place to put them as the extra cabling cannot be tucked away neatly in an open drive bay. The power supply cables will also end up impeding airflow a bit somewhat as they will have to pass underneath the exhaust fan on the PSU.

Directly to the right of the processor socket are the two IDE connectors and directly below them are the SATA channels. The IDE headers are in a nice central location so for those with optical drives located high in the case, it will not be as much of a stretch. The floppy connector is located below the SATA ports.

There is a large heatsink fan unit that covers the MCP. Without a second x16 slot, Chaintech can take some liberties with the profile of the heatsink - on all of the SLI boards, this is not possible because the MCP sits directly at the end of the x16 slot meaning that cards will bump into taller coolers.

There are a total of 3 legacy PCI, a single x16 PCIe and a pair of x1 PCIe slots. Both of the x1 slots are located above the x16 slot so dual slot cards will end up eating up one of the PCI slots. It is good to see Chaintech include 3 PCI slots as currently they are still more useful to the end user than the x1 PCIe slots due to the lack of peripherals available for the latter.

The processor socket is located in a central location on the motherboard. For those looking to run oversize coolers like Zalman's CNPS7700-AlCu this is important as the width of the cooler hanging off the board will interfere with the power supply in many cases that do not have a lot of clearance between the top of the motherboard to the powersupply.

The back panel for the VNF4 is standard fare with the highlights being four USB2 ports, enough 1/8" mini jacks for 7.1 channel sound output and a single GigE connector. With the lack of any expansion brackets for additional USB2 connectors, it would have been better to see a few extra USB ports on the back as four is not too many. I personally run a keyboard, mouse, 2 cameras, an external drive, printer, RF module and a USB key on my home computer so more is better - and necessary.