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Starting off with a modified ATX design the GNB Max is built around the E7205/Granite Bay chipset which consists of two major parts the NB E7205 and the SB 82801DB(ICH4) supporting the P4 Northwood core CPU line. Featuring a 400/533MHz FSB and Intel's highly successful Hyper-Threading technology which supports Dual-channel DDR266 memory capability. One of the key elements about E7205 chipset is its ability to support a high capacity of up to 4GB of PC1600/2100 (ECC) memory featuring a double bandwidth rate of up to 4.2GB/sec. Intel chipsets are known to take advantage and manage memory performance better than the competition.
Power requirements are not to demanding and any ATX 350W or better 12v approved power supply should prove sufficient for the job. The board mounts via its nine mounting holes that have built in washers as to not short out the board and sizing in at 30.5 cm (L) x 24.7 cm (W) in a fairly standard ATX Form Factor the board should fit any standard or larger compliant case. The power supply headers are located in adequate places that should not cause too much of a cable tangle mess as well. One is located by the memory slots and the other by the rear of the board by the ZIF Socket478 interface.
The layout itself was designed well with everything being as ergonomically placed within the design parameters as allowed to maintain functionality. I mean the Promise ATA controller would be better if it was by the other IDE connections, but it needs to be located near its chipset to function properly which only allows so much flexibility in the placement options. The NB supports two ATA100 IDE controllers and the Promise PDC20376 controller supports dual SATA150 Serial ATA RAID drives or one standard ATA133 controller allowing for up to six drives to be used simultaneously.
RAID Mode One (Striping) a configuration of two identical hard drives being made into one large faster disc accessing drive, or Mode Zero (Mirroring) a configuration of two identical hard drives one being the main drive and the other a constant mirror image backup of the primary disc used for optimal information protection are both supported by the Promise controller. The Serial ATA cables are very small and offer the least resistance when trying to keep your case as uncluttered as possible. The SATA connectors are located near the bottom of the board allowing their cables to be easily tucked and tied out of the way.
Audio control is provided by the C-Media 8738MX chipset and supports 2/4/6 channel speaker output including a digital SPDIF out connection for the clearest and cleanest sound. The on-board sound is suitable for most applications and I mean suitable as the C-Media chipset is CPU dependant and uses about 7-11 percent of your total system performance although the sound quality itself is quite good. What this equates to is frame rate loss of up to 20 FPS which depending on your other system parts will either be an issue or it won't. If you have a high speed HT Enabled CPU and a rocking VGA card of say RADEON 9700 or NVIDIA GF-4/FX card style you will probably never notice a few frames rates, but if you have a low speed CPU and a not so spiffy VGA card you may rue the day you did not just buy a PCI sound card. Alas gamers and audiophiles take the wallet hit with a smile as they want as much performance as possible.
Intel's 82540EM chipset provides Integrated Fast Ethernet MAC and PHY in one chip supporting 10Mb/s, 100Mb/s and 1000Mb/s network configurations in compliance with the PCI 2.2 standard and also supporting the ACPI Power Management function. There is an RJ45 adapter on the rear I/O port for connecting up to the Internet or Network. There are five 2.2 32-bit Master PCI slots and one 50W 4X/8X AGP Pro port that supports the 1.5v standard and will not work with the older 3.3v 1X/2X VGA cards. Strangely enough there is a VIA chip on this Intel board as the IEEE 1394 connectors are controlled by the VIA VT6306 chip allowing for up to three devices to be hooked up via a 1394 cable that connects to three headers located on the board. There also an S- Bracket for the digital audio and another called the D-Bracket 2 which is used as system hardware monitoring device. All in all the board is very well stocked feature wise and offers the user an abundance of available options for added appeal, lets move on and see how well the board installs and how it performs to get a more rounded feel.
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