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Quality and Setup of the
Shuttle AK35GT2/R Motherboard |
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Looks Familiar... |
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The layout
of the AK35GT2/R is virtually identical to its predecessor,
the AK35GTR,
which we reviewed back in February. Back then we
covered a lot of the physical aspects of the board, but
we'll still touch on some of the more common features here.
Unless we were to pull the heat sink off of the Northbridge
of the two motherboards, exposing the different chipsets,
it's almost impossible to tell the two apart. The only
major change on the surface is the lack of active cooling on
the chipset. This time around, the Northbridge comes
with a standard heat sink and nothing more. We're
curious to see if the use of an ordinary heat sink will play
a major role when it comes to overclocking this board.
Back when we reviewed the original KT266A model, the system
overclocked exceptionally well with its active cooling.
We'll get to overclocking in a moment.
The layout of the board also
remains unchanged, with intelligent component placement and
ample elbow room between the major parts. Shuttle
allowed for adding an oversized heat sink to the CPU,
leaving an excellent amount of free space around the socket,
Although it isn't a major strike against it, the AGP slot is
positioned a bit too close to the DIMM slots, requiring the
removal of the video card if the RAM needs to be removed.
The retention clips can open slightly, but full clearance is
most desirable. The AK35GT2/R comes with 6 PCI and 1
AGP slot which allows for maximum expandability.
In fact, I find it difficult to think of enough components to
fill all of the slots. The ATX power connector isn't
in our favorite location, yet, it does favor the edge of the
board enough that the ATX power cables won't drape over the CPU.
An ample amount of capacitors and coils are located
in close proximity to the CPU socket and DIMMS to insure
that steady current is provided to these critical
components.
The ATX connectors are the
standard fare seen on so many motherboards these days.
The AK35GT2/R comes with 2 PS/2, 2 USB, and 2 Serial ports
as well as a parallel port, game-port and audio connectors.
The systems supports 5.1 speakers as well as CD3X positional
audio, in 6 CH speaker mode, thanks to the on-board C-Media
CM8738 codec. One of the major highlights of the
system is the inclusion of the High Point HPT372 RAID
controller chip that supports ATA133. Although it
isn't a standard yet, I think it is safe to assume that
ATA133 will grow in popularity and it is good to know that
if you purchase the AK35GT2/R, it will be able to grow with
you.
Although this isn't one of those
flashy motherboards with the high end price tags, it has a
lot of the key components that make it a real contender in
the performance market. When we get to the
benchmarking section, not only will we compare the AK35GT2/R
to a KT266A motherboard, we'll run it against a competitors
top-of-the-line KT333 motherboard and see if the Shuttle board can
hold its own. But first, let's take a look at the BIOS
and see what ties all this goodness together.
The BIOS of the
Shuttle AK35GT2/R
Motherboard:
Like its older brother, the
AK35GT2/R come with the popular Award BIOS v6.00. This
a well equipped model of the well-known chip, offering an
excellent arrangement of performance settings. In
particular, I'd like to focus on some of the features that
really let the user tweak their system for the best possible
performance. To start off, the BIOS allows for bus
speeds from 100MHz. up to 200MHz in 1MHz. increments., a range that is more than
adequate for overclocking a system. For you folks
running unlocked processors, you'll find that the BIOS
Multiplier can be set from 5X to 14X and the
CPU core voltage setting ranges from +0.025V ~ +0.20V
topping out at 1.85V. The DDR voltage control can bet
set for 2.5, 2.6 & 2.7V.
As usual, we're pleased to
find the "CPU Warning Temperature" and "Shutdown
Temperature" settings under the PC Health Status Screen.
All of us here are big fans of overclocking our rigs,
squeezing them for
everything they are worth. Nonetheless, it kills us
when a reader writes in that they damaged their board or
cooked their CPU. Enabling these settings can only
help in insuring that the less experienced overclocker stays
out of too much trouble. The screen also provides
insight on how voltage is being supplied to each key
component as well as monitoring system temperatures and fan
speeds.
The HH Test Machine, Overclocking &
Sandra 2002 Pro
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