Layout
Very much similar to their AMD APOGEE, the P4 APOGEE also comes in excellent, attractive looking packaging. The APOGEE's packaging is what one can call a shockproof package box. It has an attractive looking designed carry box matched with black and gold motif but this time with a tinge of green and not yellow as compared to the AMD counterpart. The back of the box shows the specs and the stuff you get complete with pictures to give you a better understanding of the product.
The P4 APOGEE is an attractive looking board. The pcb itself is colored black, same as the AMD APOGEE, and everything else is colored green including the bundled rounded cables and all plastic parts.
All the metal parts of the ports are coated with a gold color to give it the majestic look. This again has been seen before in the AMD release of the APOGEE, the 7VJL.
The socket is your typical socket 478. Tall purple capacitors line one side of the heatsink retention mechanism.
The location of the atx power switch is for me, the best location. The ATX power supply header is located on the lower right side of the pcb and is directly below the dimm slots. In this position, there is less clutter caused by power cables thereby aiding in the airflow inside the case. The Chaintech 9EJL P4 APOGEE uses the i845E chipset which supports two DDR DIMMs up to 2Gb maximum. It supports DDR200 and DDR266.
Clearance between the agp card and the dimm locks is acceptable. There is more than enough room for you to add and remove RAM without having to remove the agp card. The APOGEE board also comes equipped with an agp lock which is quite handy when moving your rig from place to place as in the case of LANs.
There are 6 PCI slots!, the maximum for the board and one CNR slot. More than enough slots for all your PCI needs. Together with a lot of onboard devices, you'll be assured that you'll never run out.
Embedded USB 2.0 Controller can support up to 6 USB 2.0 ports. Embedded in Intel's ICH4 chipset, it can provide up to 480Mbps data rate. 40x faster than USB 1.1. All USB ports are fully backward compatible to USB 1.1. Included in the package is the extra 4 USB ports incorporated in their exclusive CBOX front panel.
On board LAN chip RTL8100B supports 10/100 bps transfer rate. This is another feature welcomed by a lot of users.
With the P4 APOGEE you get 6 channel (5.1) sound for free. It uses CMI's newest audio chipset, the CMI 8738 HRTF audio controller. It provides 6 speaker channel support, 32 voice HRTF based 3D positional audio, support for Microsoft direct sound 3D and Aureal A3D support for Creative EAX sound effects (environmental audio extensions). It's got full duplex operation for simlultaneous recording and playback.
