This Shuttle is GO at throttle-up
Written: Nov 12 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 4 DDR slots, 6 PCI, 6 USB, jumperless settings, 6 channel sound, 133 RAID.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: No hesitation recommending this board to anyone wanting a high performance, ultra stable mainboard. Clean design with more features for the money.
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| cudaviper's Full Review: Shuttle AK35GT-R Motherboard |
GENERAL
In the beginning, I did not know anything about motherboards. They seemed to be beyond my understanding. A few name brands were known to me, but my education in this area centered around reading articles. The more I read, one name started to show up more and more. Shuttle. I'm sure glad I took the time to read.
MY CRITERIA
After upgrading my old computers with almost everything available, I became confident enough to think I could actually built one. Motherboards being the heart of a system, I knew I had better do my homework for this decision. I wanted a DDR board, on board sound, and it was going to use the AMD processor. And finally, the price was going to be a factor. After I got into comparing benchmarks and reading articles, the whole project took on a new direction. I suppose I changed my mind about which motherboard several times during this process. Isn't that the way it always goes...
But once I discovered the AK35GTR, and read everything I could find, the decision was easy.
THE BOARD
The AK35GTR is more than I ever expected or really needed in a mainboard. For the money, the performance, stability, and easy of settings and set-up, this board exceeds in all. Quite a number of bigger name board manufactures can not compare to it, regardless the cost. The instructions included were step by step and easy to read and understand, with diagrams clearly showing all the connecting locations. Big plus for a first timer like me. The retail package also contains a CD with all the drivers and utilities needed, ribbon cables for the hard drive and floppy drive, and audio cable for the central channel and bass out.
FEATURES
First off, it has 4 slots for the DDR ram and can handle up to 4 gigs, I presently have 512 megs in mine, 2x256 PC2100. I did not notice a great difference in the speed going from 256 to 512. The board has a VIA KT266A chipset in it, which means the board runs at 266 mhz. PC2100 ram runs at 266 mhz. This is what you want. Matched frequencies. You could use higher mhz ram but it will only operate at 266mhz. The VIA north bridge chipset has it's own heat sink and cooling fan too. Another sign, to me, of a good board.
(note) Win98 OS will only operate 512megs, max. Will not boot with more. But XP can handle 4 gigs, if your checkbook can.
Their are 6 PCI slots along with a 1x/2x/4x AGP slot. Plenty of room for any add on devices, such as a modem, scsi card, etc. It has a great sounding C-Media 6 channel audio support built in. I don't have a 5.1 speaker system to take advantage of this yet but it sounds great with my two 2.1 systems in place. The audio software that came with the board has many features such as an EQ, reverb, echo, etc. Really nice, although I still prefer Windows Media Player 7.1. for my music files.
There are 2 USB ports in the rear with 2 connection slots on the board for up to 4 more additional USB ports. The one piece twin port USB cable for this is an optional purchase on this model.
RAID
The board also has 4 IDE slots for hooking up your devices. 2 are the standard ATA-100 connection, for the CD/DVD-Rom drives and hard drives and 2 are for the ATA-133 RAID.
RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks.
A separate manual covering this feature is provided with the board. Although I have read through it several times, I still know almost nothing about this except I do not need or use it. What I do know is that it does provide 2 more IDE slots for up to 4 additional harddrives connecting at the 133 transfer speed. You can only use it for harddrives, not CD roms and such. ATA-100 means 100 megs per second transfer rate and ATA-133 means 133 megs per second.
A good place to read about what RAID is can be found here,
http://www.uni-mainz.de/~neuffer/scsi/what_is_raid.html
OVERCLOCKING
All the settings for the board can be adjusted during bootup from the bios screen. These include the front side bus speed, the CPU multiplier and even the voltage for the processor and the DDR ram. In addition to many I have no idea of what they actually do. I don't adjust any of those settings, except the front side bus speed. When first booting the board, the default bus speed is 100, and it needs to be reset to 133 to achieve the 266mhz dram clock. Leaving it on 100 will not only result in a 200mhz dram clock but will lower a 1400mhz processor to run at 1050mhz. Raising the FSB above 133 will increase the processor speed but there is a limit before other factors, including adjusting cpu and ram voltage and ram timing, come into play. This is an area that I just do not know very much about and am reluctant to comment more. This board is advanced much more than I am.
But I did do this.
With the bus speed set to 133, my 1.4 gig processor runs at 1400mhz, setting the fsb to 134 caused the processor to run at 1409mhz,
at 135, the processor ran at 1418mhz,
at 136, the processor ran at 1428mhz,
at 137, the processor ran at 1440mhz but would not boot into windows at this setting.
Raising the fsb to 138 caused the processor to run at 1450mhz, boot up was normal along with running regular programs. I ran the machine at this setting but it did cause a couple high end graphic games to lock-up during play, that normally would not under the regular setting of 133. Why it would not boot at 137 but would at 138, I can not say. I have not tried it at any higher setting and currently run it on 133.
The dram clock speed still remained at 266mhz above 133.
Like I stated, there is a whole lot that I do not know regarding overclocking but I will say this.
If I want my computer to run at a higher mhz, I will buy a processor that meets my new requirements instead of overclocking this one, and taking a chance of burning up my investment. To me, the small gain is not worth the risk. This is a high performance board without modifications.
I have found a number of sites that addresses how one can overclock these boards higher. I would think, in the hands of an expert overclocker, this board would be a dream, given all the adjustable settings. Mine runs plenty fast with a 1.4 T-Bird processor and the board is rated to handle any 200/266mhz processor from the DURON series up to the XP2400 CPU.
BIOS
When you access the BIOS, in addition to all the other settings, there is one area called Health. In here, you can check on 2 fans rpm speed, CPU and mainboard temperature, and how close the actually voltages, within the system, are operating at.
12v,-12v,5v,-5v, 3.3v. versus the actual voltage being delivered.
A 300w power supply is what I am using and is the minimum I would recommend on this or any board. I will obtain a 400w for my next one but have not had any problems. I have read that some issues can be avoided by making sure you have plenty of power. Especially if you have a number of power using devices, such as a DVD, CDRW, 2 HDs, and rows of ram but certainly with a high end video card.
(note) Nvidia GeForce series cards, GF2, GF3, and GF4, require a minimum of 250w to operate. Regardless the ram amount or type.
I was informed ATI brand cards require a bit less, but not much.
Also another nice feature is an adjustable warning and shutdown temperature setting. By enabling this, you will not have to worry about overheating and causing damage, say if you were to overclock it or have a cooling fan or two go bad. The board has 4 areas where a 3 pin cooling fan connects. 1 for the CPU, and 1 for the VIA chipset plus 2 more for case cooling fans.
MY INSTALLATION
Ever thought you could never build a computer. Well you can, and it is easy. If you have ever replaced a power supply or added a hard drive, ram or modem, it is pretty much just like that. Except for the total number of add-ons. I followed the instructions to the letter and all went great. Booted up perfect, the first time, just like I had done this before. Here it is in simple terms but I certainly took my time and did it exactly as the instructions state.
Clear the table, put out the cat, get the mainboard and inventory all your items. Some good lighting and a phillips head screwdriver. Time to assembly, 60 minutes. 90 with cat.
1.Put the processor on the board, thermal paste chip, attach the heatsink/fan to it, install the ram. (Done before mounting in case)
2. Install the harddrive, floppy, cd/dvd drives and power supply in the case and attach the devices cables to them .
3. Mount the board in the case....careful now.
4. Attach all the wires and cables from the case devices to the mainboard.
5. Add the video card and PCI cards now.
6. Hook up the monitor, keyboard and mouse.
7. Double check everything.
You are ready to turn it on, format the harddrive, load the operating system and install the drivers. Figure another hour for this. It actually is simple, even if this does not really sound that way.
The board attaches to the case wall by a number of plastic inserts that do not conduct electricity.
One thing to note, I did install a large processor heatsink, 80mmx60mm, this came right up to the edge of the VIA northbridge chipset, but in no way interfered with it and installed fine. But no larger than 80mm square. I believe the average heatsinks are 60mmx60mm, so this should not really be any issue.
SUPPORT
I have never had to contact the Shuttle manufacture but have read, on forums, that it is difficult to receive a reply from them. I can not personally say.
All questions I ever had were resolved quickly by joining AMDMB.com. This group addresses all AMD motherboard issues in a well structured forum, specific to each board manufacture.
CONCLUSION
I will not hesitate to buy another Shuttle for my next computer and recommend this board to anyone wanting a high performance mainboard, with MANY advanced features, at a great price. The board is everything I could have imagined and it came together just great. It performs outstandingly. I have not encountered any problems with installing any devices, upgrades, or running applications under normal settings. But don't just take my word for it, read some expert articles and benchmark results. I believe you will like what you read. Links to 12 such articles can be found here,
http://www.spacewalker.com/ak35gtr.htm
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 85.00
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Epinions.com ID:
cudaviper
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Location: Nashville
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
1953, drummer, photographer, married, car & motorcycle painter, artist, father, grandfather, 4cats, 3computers,
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