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Shuttle
Spacewalker HOT-681Z
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Intel
ZX
Based Socket 370 Motherboard
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| Socket
370, Intel's answer to the low end system market. After the
staggering success of the Slot 1 Celeron, Intel had a problem.
Though its marketing machine was busy pushing to the main stream end
users that the Celeron was a much lower end cpu and not as capable
as its big brother the Mighty P2, the online community learned other
wise. Overclocking the Celeron was a snap. Motherboard manufacturers
began bending an ear to the throngs of web denizens who wanted the
ability to over clock the rather inexpensive cpu. As a result, they
built overcloccking as a feature into their motherboards. Thus the
Celeron started to encroach on Intels P2 sales. Quickly jumping into
action, Intel Releases a new type of Celeron that fits into a new
type of socket, the Socket 370. The new socket plus a new lower end
chipset that promised to be even more inexpensive than a Slot 1
Celeron and a BX motherboard. My personal take on this was that
Intel was trying to get rid of the Slot 1 Celeron to get things
rolling again with the P2/P3. The debate rages on to which answer is
really true but one things is for certain, the Socket 370 based
Celerons are just as overclockable as their Slot 1 cousins. |
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| Enter
the Shuttle HOT-681Z... |
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HOT-681Z
Image not available. This is the HOT-681 which has the same layout
but with only 2 DIMM Sockets. We
will update this when it is available.
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- Processor:
PPGA Celeron? processors 300 ~ 500 MHz.
- Chipset
Intel: 440ZX AGPset
- Memory:
Supports two banks of normal or PC100 SDRAM maximum memory size
up to 512 MB
- Configurable
support for EC(Error Checking)
- Accelerated
Graphics Port Interface: A.G.P. 66/133MHz 3.3V devices supported
- Power
Management: Provides four power management modes: Full on, Doze,
Standby, and Suspend
- Low EMI
(Automatic clock shut-off of unused PCI/SDRAM)
- "Advanced
Configuration and Power Interface" Ready for PC'97
- Dual Function
Power Button with Suspend/Soft
- Power-off
- PS/2
Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse and Modem Ring Power-on
- Bundled with
Intel LDCM (LANDesk Client Manager
- Software) for
remote monitoring of system resources
- Temperature
Monitoring and Alert
- Voltages
Monitoring and Alert
- Fan Status
Monitoring
- AGP
(Acceleration Graphic Port) slot x 1
- 32-bit PCI
bus slot x 4
- 16-bit ISA
bus slot x 3
- 2-channel
Enhanced IDE port support Ultra 33/DMA
- One floppy
port
- One parallel
port supports SPP, EPP and ECP
- Two 16C550
compatible UARTS serial ports support
- Infra-red
communication
- One PS/2
mouse port and one PS/2 Keyboard port
- Two USB
(Universal Serial Bus) ports
- One EISCA
Cooler Connector
- One SB-Link
Connector
- Award PnP
BIOS
- ATX-Format,
dimension: 305 mm x 170 mm
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| Shuttle's
Hot 681z Motherboard is a socket 370 mothboard based on the low end
ZX chipset. There are two rather painful problems with this chipset
and the socket 370 architecture. First there are only 2 Dimm
Sockets. The other, the fact that it takes only Celeron PPGA based
CPU's leaving not a fantastically large upgrade path. Rumors abound
about a socket 370 P3 but until that is confirmed, there is only one
type of CPU for this chipset as well as any socket 370 board. |
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The
layout of the board is well thought out. Ide and floppy connectors
located close to where you will be attaching said devices. The fan
power placements on the motherboard were also convenient. The board
was set up in the 4/3/1 standard for the expansion slots. Personally
I prefer the 5/3/1 but with the introduction of newer video cards
that really don't require a daughter card for 3D acceleration , this
configuration still has some life left to it. My only real problems
with the board design itself were the placement of the jumpers for
over-riding B21 (66/100 bus auto detect), for the clock speed/bus
speed and for clearing the CMOS.
Yup... you read it right, jumpers. The U CPis fully configurable on
the motherboard via jumpers. Bus speeds up to 133mhz and multipliers
up to 8x. Shuttle has lofty ambitions for the Socket 370 chipset and
maybe they know just a little bit more about what is coming down the
pipe for the chipset than we do. For now, having the additional
multipliers up to 8x really does not gain you anything considering
all Celerons are locked at a multiplier (our 300/a was locked
lovingly at 4.5x). The bus speed range was quite varied and helpful
for the overclocker in all of us (66/75/83/100/103/112/133). We
managed to get the system up and pumping at 464mhz with no problems
what so ever . We did manage to post and go into DOS at 504mhz, but
that's all we managed to do. :>
Please remember..when overclocking your mileage may vary with the
parts you choose. That's why I recommend checking with our
sponsor
for some guaranteed overclockable cpus. :> |
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| Working
within the awkward confines of this chipset, Shuttle has managed to
produce a rather acceptable board. HotHardware used a Celeron 300/a
ppg CPU provided by Triptonics
for our testing purposes (thanks guys! you rule!). The CPU itself
was automatically detected during the posting process and the system
booted with actually nothing needing to be done in the bios or on
the motherboard itself. Those of you interested in a board that can
quickly be installed without to much hassle should take note. Just
look to the info-sheet provided for info on the motherboard setup. |
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Our
Test System
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Full
Tower Addtronics 6890A w/300 watt ps
Intel Celeron 300/A PPG
Shuttle Hot-681Z
128mb PC100 CAS 2 Ram
IBM 7200rpm 10Gig EIDE UDMA Hard Drive
ATI Rage Pro 2x AGP (OEM) (1024x786x32bit)
Sound Blaster Live!
Hi-Val TrueX 40x Cdrom
Windows 98 w/DX6.1
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| Here
is the smack on the board as laid down by CPUBench 99! |
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ZD
CPU Bench 99
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300MHz.
4.5x66MHz.
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450MHz.
4.5x100MHz.
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464MHz.
4.5x103MHz.
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| Integer
Ops (MIPS) |
878 |
1318 |
1354 |
| Floating
Point (MFLOPS) |
346 |
520 |
534 |
| Integer
Application Sim. |
69 |
106 |
109 |
| Floating
Point App Sim. |
74 |
111 |
114 |
| MMX
App. Sim |
69 |
105 |
108 |
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| It's
very obvious that the best solution for this cpu and motherboard
combination is just to bump the clock speed to 100mhz. The
performance is rock solid and the risk is minimal when you use
correct heat precautions. These are great numbers for the CPU on
this board and are in line with their cousin, the Pentium 2. |
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| The
bottom line is that this is a very decent low-end motherboard. For
those of you looking to save some money when putting together your
gaming rig, I would have no problem whatsoever recommending you the
HOT-681Z with 2, 64Mb PC100 DIMMS, a Voodoo 3 3000, and a Socket 370
Celeron . You'll find it easy to configure. Although you take a step
backwards by configuring the CPU via jumpers instead of their usual
soft-menu like interface for their bios. The quality of the
components of the board itself as well as the layout, will lead you
to a simple setup for your Celeron gaming machine. |
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| We
gave the Shuttle HOT-681Z a Hot Hardware Temp-O-Meter rating of... |
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77
-Chris
Jackson
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