SINCE THE Zenith 9EJS1 first wowed me with its performance, peripherals, and bundled extras, I've been eagerly anticipating Chaintech's next wave of high-end, enthusiast-oriented motherboards. In the relatively short time since the Zenith 9EJS1 was released, new south bridge chips like Intel's ICH5R have made extra USB ports, Serial ATA support, and RAID available to all. The majority of mobo makers have become hip to the bundle game, too. Extras like rounded IDE cables used to be a novelty, but now they're almost passe. And let's not forget that the performance difference between motherboards based on the same core-logic chipset continues to be largely negligible.

Now that nearly everybody is stacking boards with peripherals and bundled extras, Chaintech's new Canterwood-based Zenith 9CJS must raise the bar again. Can this board and its slick package of extra goodies set the standard for Canterwood-based motherboards? We'll find out.