Shuttle's HOT683


Shuttle's HOT683 - Page 1

 

Shuttle's HOT-683

A Socket 370 - Intel LX Chipset Based Board for the budget minded!

 
Socket 370 boards are an interesting proposition. They have the potential to provide Pentium II level performance with cost efficiencies that are unmatched. They also are extremely conservative in realestate consumption. Shuttle's first effort in the Socket 370 space is the HOT-683. This board is based around Intel's Legacy 440LX Chispet. Here's what else is under the hood!

Don't let this image fool you. This board is SMALL! I like that in a motherboard. A small footprint means more room for your peripherals and add-ons! I also like the postion of the ATX power connector, firmly out of the way!
     

CPU:
Socket 370
Intel PPGA CeleronR 300 ~ 500MHz
Chip set:
Intel 440LX
FW82443LX, North bridge
FW82371EB, South bridge
FSB & Multiplier:
66MHz, 75MHz, 83MHz
X2, X2.5, X3, X3.5, X4, X4.5, X5, X5.5, X6
Cache: 128K CPU built-in cache

Memory:
DIMM X 3, Up to 768MB memory

Expansion Bus:
1 AGP, AGP 1.0 compliance
4 PCI, 32-Bit master
3 ISA, 16-Bit

IO:
Winbond 83977TF/EF
2 Serial ports, 16550 Fast UART compatible
1 Parallel port, supports SPP, ECP, and EPP mode
2 USB ports, Rev. 1.0
1 PS/2 Keyboard
1 PS/2 Mouse
FDD, 1.2MB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
IrDA connector

IDE:
UltraDMA-33
PIO mode 4
Bootable from LS120, ZIP drive
Power management:
APM 1.2
ACPI 1.0

BIOS:
Award PnP BIOS
DMI 2.0
2MB flash memory
Hardware Monitoring:
Winbond W83781
CPU Temp. monitoring, overheat warning
CPU Vio, Vcore, 3.3V, 5V, 12V
3 Fan speed detect
Other connectors:
Suspend switch and LED
Wake-On-Lan connector
EISCA Fan connector
SB-Link
Form Factor: ATX, 30.5cm X 17cm

Other Features:
CPU Voltage Auto Detecting (CPU PnP)
Wake-On-Ring
Wake-On-Alarm
Accessories:
1 CD-ROM disc
Intel driver patch for Windows95
Intel AGP Vgart driver
Intel Bus Master driver for Windows95
Shuttle System Manager
Multi-language manuals
1 Easy Manual
1 IDE cable, 1 FDD cable

     
Again, Shuttle packs in the features! The CPU temp monitoring feature is a nice addition and a gives you a good sense of security. The board automatically detects and sets up your CPU for easy installation. You can also tweak the bus speed settings up from 60, to 66, 75 and 83, which is the top end limit of the LX chipset, with a jumper bank. I would have prefered a soft menu in the BIOS for this feature and also the location of the jumper bank is a little awkward in that it is down in between the AGP slot and first PCI slot. I had to pull the AGP card, in our tests, out to reset the bus speeds. Let's fire up those tests...
     

 Our Test System

Mid Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS, Intel Celeron PPGA 300a, Shuttle HOT-683, 64 MB of PC100 RAM, Maxtor 17Gig EIDE UDMA Hard Drive, Gigabyte GA-630 Voodoo Banshee AGP Card w/ 16MB, Yamaha PCI Audio Card, Memorex 48X CDROM, Windows 98 w/ DX6.1

 


Overclocking

We didn't have a lot of luck in this department. I am not sure if this was a function of the CPU or the HOT-683 but we could not boot complete into Windows 98 beyond the default 300 Mhz. speed of the Celeron. I have a feeling, with better than stock cooling, we would have succeeded. The board was very stable through all our testing which is expected especially at this speed.

     

Benchmarks

WinTune 98

Offline Test Results

 

CPU (1) Intel Celeron A@300 MHz
Video Board Gigabyte GA-630 Voodoo Banshee
Video Mode 1024x768@16bits/pixel
RAM 64 MB
OS Windows 98 4.10.1998

 

Area Tested

Value

CPU Integer 877.2989 MIPS
CPU Floating Point 349.9677 MFLOPS
Video(2D) 66.90681 MPixels/s
Direct3D 195.8011 MPixels/s
OpenGL 8.001775 MPixels/s
Memory 543.4563 MB/s
Cached Disk 59.28286 MB/s
Uncached Disk 3.667905 MB/s
     
This is a respectable showing for the Celeron 300a on this board. Also of note are the solid disk numbers! On to some ZD Winbench 99 Scores...
 
     

 

Winbench 99 - 800X600 Resolution w/ 16bit Color HOT-683
WinBench 99/Business Disk WinMark 99 (Thousand Bytes/Sec) 2220
WinBench 99/Business Graphics WinMark 99 106
WinBench 99/CPUmark32 571
WinBench 99/Disk Playback/Bus:Overall (Thousand Bytes/Sec) 2220
WinBench 99/FPU WinMark 1600
     
OK, so enough with the synthetic numbers. Let's look at this combo as an econo-gaming-rig!
     

 Quake 2 V3.20 - Timedemo Demo1.dm2 w/ 3Dfx OpenGL

These are very competent numbers for such an inexpensive set up. The Banshee card is a nice complement to this package and helped in this area. Imagine, who would have thought you can get a bare bones base system started with Motherboard, Video and CPU for UNDER $300 !
     

Overall Impression

These days it seems as if PC prices keep getting more competitive by the minute. It is amazing what your money can buy today vrs. even 6 months ago. This board is a solid value for the little you'll put out in order to own one. I have seen it on line for less than $75! Although the board is somewhat limited by the LX chipset and its lower end bus speeds, this board performed clock for clock almost as well as a Pentium 2 setup on a BX board.

 

 

The HOT-683! Gets a Hot Hardware Temp-O-Meter Rating of....

75

 

-Davo 
     

The Celeron 300a used for testing was sponsored by the good ol' boys at...


Tags:  Shuttle, hot

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