Chaintech's motherboard products are divided into three categories based upon their performance potential and the bundled accessories. At the top of the heap is their Zenith series that boast the highest performance, latest features and fancy components. These boards are for the user who wants it all; rounded cables, SATA RAID and even a remote to access frequently used programs and functions are some of the items that can be included in this line. In the middle is the Apogee series targeted at overclockers and gamers. Apogee boards boast great overclocking ability and the best price/performance ratio and can include many of the features of the Zenith line. Finally we are left with the Summit series of boards whose focus is on price and stability. These boards will not come with rounded cables or any accessory software. With a very basic feature set that incorporates low-cost components, they are precluded from vying for any kind of performance crown.

The board I have today is from Chaintech's Summit series. The SKT600 is a very affordable board that will accommodate any SocketA Duron or AthlonXP CPU and DDR memory up to 400MHZ. While this board does not support dual-channel memory or RAID, it does offer 5.1 channel audio, AGP 8x, two SATA ports and onboard 10/100 LAN. The big question of course is what kind of performance can we expect from such a modest board? Read on to find out.



Link: TTL