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Spec
| Jetway Polaris 400A | |
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Northbridge |
VIA VT8377A KT400A |
| Southbridge |
VIA VT8235CE |
| PCI |
6 x 32-bit, 33MHz |
| Audio |
C-Media CMI8378 6-channel |
| Ethernet |
VIA VT6103 PHY from VT8235CE |
| IDE |
2 ports, 4 devices from VT8235CE |
| Memory |
3GB DDR400, 3 slots |
| USB2.0 |
2 backplate, 4 flyoff |
| Firewire |
2 channel from VIA VT6307 |
| Serial ATA |
2 channels from Promise PDC20375 |
| RAID |
None |
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Jetway go for the middle ground with the Polaris 400A in terms of features. No RAID, but pretty much everything else. We've got some USB action, FireWire, Serial ATA from a Promise 20375, discrete C-Media PCI audio and the regular IDE, memory and AGP features from the KT400A chipset, common to all boards in the roundup.
Better than the bare boards we've seen, not as many PCB crowding features as the Gigabyte and DFI. Middle of the road in that sense, but a good, well rounded feature set when judged on merit.
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Shot
Layout
Looks wise, this was my favourite board out of the pile. Not being a fan of the UV gaudy rubbish on the DFI, the all silver garb of the Jetway was most pleasing to this reviewers eye. Only the IDE ports, floppy port and USB header spoil things. With those in silver, they'd have executed perfectly. As it is, so close, but no Bill Clinton cigar for Jetway, but better than any of the others.
On to the layout, CPU socket right at the very top of the board, north-south oriented, my preferred placement in all aspects. A nice row of capacitors flank the south edge, that should help when you push the board to its limits. Jetway move the passively cooled (excellent, no noise) northbridge over into the middle of the section of PCB it normally occupies. Deviation from the reference design. A sign of thought being put into it? We'll say yes. DDR DIMM slots and the awfully coloured ports for the Promise hardware round off the top half of the board. Oh, the ATX power plug is back in its horrid usual place.
7 port expansion (6 PCI and AGP) means that AGP is a backplane position higher than we like. A large graphics card will cause trouble with memory module access on this board, at the risk of repeating myself for the 6th time.
The silver PCI slots dominate things on the lower section. It's not as crowded as the Gigabyte in the bottom right of the board and everything is cleanly laid out and easy to find.
I'll stop there before you nod off, I know this whole proceeding is dragging on.
Onwards to the Jetway's BIOS, bundle and manual.
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