Originally Posted by djSlvt
Yea, I read that before posting. It appears I'm going with SRAM chain, instead of cheap KMC.. But we might see about that, if I can find a cheap X9 from KMC then I"m going with that...
I took a small hill with my old chain, in 1st 3rd, and rear last or something like that. From a complete stop. I heard some tearing and stretching, or something that didn't sound nice. So I presume strength of the chain is all relative. I kind of want the strongest.
Can't comment on KMC as I haven't used that brand.
I'm not sure what you mean by "1st 3rd" but it sounds like you may have been crosschained. If you look at your bike from behind you'll see that the front and rear sprockets line up approximately so that the large front is more in line with your small rear (your highest gear) and your small front is approximately lined up with your large rear (your lowest gear).
What you want to try to avoid is having your chain on the large front and large rear or small front and small rear because it would put your chain at a a sharp angle where it meets the sprockets, that's called crosschaining and it's not real good for the gears.
The noise you may have heard could have been the chain straining in a crosschain and rubbing against a derailer cage. Even so, I think there was something faulty in the assembly of your bike, probably the pin where they closed the chain wasn't properly seated, or the derailer wasn't installed correctly. I don't think you have anything to worry about in terms of chain strength with a brand new chain.