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Shuttle AK35GT-R KT266A


Date
: 02/24/02 – 03:45:53 PM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: Shuttle
Price: $110

Introduction

Although VIA has just released the KT333, the KT266A -the predecessor of the KT333- is still one of the best socket A chipsets out there. I reviewed several other KT266A motherboards over the past few months like the EPoX 8KHA+ and the MSI K7T266 Pro 2 RU, and today I am adding another board to the list: the Shuttle AK35GT-R.

Shuttle has been increasing its popularity a lot lately, thanks to great motherboards like the AK31, their KT266 board which also is the predecessor of the board I'm reviewing today, the AV40, one of the first P4X266 motherboards released and with their KT266A solution they seem to have hit the jackpot once more. This board comes with all the good stuff and more, making this board an overclockers dream. Don't believe me? If I told you that you can increase the CPU voltage all the way up to
2.3V
, would that classify the board as a good overclocker? And that's not all there is to say. The board is very tweakable, comes with a truckload of features like onboard 6 channel sound, RAID and 6 USB ports.

All the ingredients for a good, solid and stable motherboard are available. The question that comes to mind is: "Did Shuttle manage to make a nice meal with it?". Let's find out shall we?

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

Form Factor

ATX

CPU Support

Socket A CPU
AMD Duron CPU with 200MHz FSB
AMD Athlon CPU with 200 / 266MHz FSB

Chipsets

VIA KT266A
(North bridge)VIA VT8366A
(South bridge)VIA VT8233

Front Side Bus

Including 100/133 MHz (BIOS step-less adjustable)

Multiplier

Jumper-less (BIOS adjustable)

Memory

4 x 184-pin DIMM
No ECC function support

H/W Audio

C-Media 8738
Support 5.1 speakers
C3DX positional audio in 6 CH speaker mode
HRTF-3D positional audio
supporting Direct Sound 3D and A3D interface

Add-On

-Integrated USB Controller
-USB v.1.1 compatible
-Support up to 6 ports
-Expansion Slot:
-1 AGP slot
-Support AGP 2.0 compliant
-6 PCI slots, PCI 2.2 compliant

IDE interface

-VT8233
-2 x UltraDMA/100 Bus Master IDE from VT8233
-80-pin Cable Backward Compatible Legacy ATAPI Devices
-ATAPI IDE CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, and LS-120 Support
-2 x UltraDMA/133 Bus Master IDE from High Point 372
-support RAID 0, RAID1, RAID0+1 function (AK35GTR only)

H/W Monitoring

-Built in Winbond 83697HF
-Smart fan control system
-Support "Thermal Cruise" and "Speed Cruise
-2 thermal inputs from CPU and system temperature sensor
-6 positive voltage inputs (+12V, -12V, +5V, -5V, +3.3V, Vcore)
-2 fan speed monitoring inputs
-2 fan speed control

Power Management

-ACPI v1.0 Compliant
-APM v1.2 Compliant
-Support Power Fail Resume function

Bios

-Built in 2Mb Flash ROM
-Award PnP BIOS
-DMI 2.3

On Board Ports(front/back panel)

-2 x IDE
-1 x Floppy

Connectors

-1 x PS/2 Keyboard
-1 x PS/2 Mouse
-2 x USB
-2 x COM
-1 x Parallel

Shuttle really did their very best to make this a fully featured motherboard. To start of, the board comes with a total of 6 PCI slots, 1 AGP slot and
NO
CNR/AMR/… slots. This is the way I like motherboards to be configured: enough PCI slots to last a lifetime, an AGP slot for your video card and no room wasted to stuff I never use anyway. The fact that there is no CNR/AMR/… slot on this board also means the price can drop a little, or did you think you were not paying for that add-on? I agree that there are people who actually use these slots, but I doubt they are looking for a motherboard like the AK35GT-R. People who use those slots are almost certainly building a low budget system, and I don't see the need for a high-end, fully featured motherboard in those systems. Enough ranting, the show must go on.

Talking about expansion room, the AK35GT-R is one of the few KT266A boards out there that comes with a total of 4 memory slots. The only board I know of that comes with the same configuration is the ABIT KR7A, another great motherboard! The AK35GT-R can take a total of 4GB of DDR memory, using 1GB sticks of course. I doubt many people will be getting that amount of memory, but still … it is possible :). Note that ECC memory is not supported.

Of course, this board wouldn't be a power board if it wouldn't come with onboard RAID, would it? Shuttle is shipping two versions: the AK35GT and the AK35GT-R. That "R" stands for RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) and that's also the version I tortured for several weeks. I am happy to announce that the onboard RAID controller is made by High Point and that it supports RAID0, RAID1 and RAID0+1. Since the controller goes by the name HP372, it supports UDMA133 drives offering you a very fast IDE RAID setup if needed.

Onboard RAID is not the only onboard hardware: there is also a 6-channel soundcard installed, made by C-Media. The sound chip is codenamed C-Media 8738, supports a 5.1 speaker setup (5 satellites and 1 woofer) and comes with C3DX positional audio when using the 6 channel mode. Shuttle includes a woofer output bracket in the box so connecting your speakers shouldn't be too hard. The sound is fairly nice and won't disappoint you, but for hardcore gamers or audiophiles, I advice to go out and get a add-on soundcard.

Besides the standard 2 USB ports featured on all motherboards, Shuttle includes two additional USB brackets that can easily be hooked up to the motherboard. This brings your USB ports to a total of 6. Another board that offers this kind of setup is the MSI K7T266 Pro 2 RU, but that last one also comes with USB 2.0. Still, it's good to see a manufacturer adding the brackets to the box and not listing them as optional!

That pretty much covers the specifications of the AK35GT-R, let's see how the layout holds up …

Page 3 : Layout

Layout

Now the layout is a part that is of great importance to some, and totally ignored by others. For me, the layout of a motherboard is something I tend to look at when choosing a board to install in my personal rig. So what's important about a layout and what should I look for?

The first part is the placement of the ATX power connector. The AK35GT-R sits somewhere in between good and bad on that level. Shuttle's designers installed the connector on the left top of the motherboard, placed vertically. Although this certainly kicks a connector sitting in the middle of the board, I definitely prefer my power connector at the right top of the board, placed horizontally.

The second thing that you need to pay attention to, is the space around the CPU socket. Especially people who want to use more extreme cooling solutions like a Swiftech MCX462A air cooler or water cooling setups with peltiers. If the socket is surrounded by capacitators, condensators, … and other stuff that might stand in the way of your cooling, you're screwed. Shuttle is in the clear here, because there is quite some room around the socket, leaving your cooling options open.

The third factor that can spoil the fun, is the placement of the memory slots. When installed to close to the AGP slot, you are cursed to remove your video card anytime you feel like swapping, adding or removing memory from your system. With the AK35GT-R, Shuttle almost did an excellent job: the first memory slot, the one closest to the AGP slot, is just barely being blocked by our VisionTek GeForce 3. If the slots would be moved a few millimetres to the right side, everything would be perfect. The other three slots are in the clear and can easily be used without having to remove the video card.

The IDE connectors, the floppy connectors and also the RAID connectors are installed fairly easy. Maybe the IDE and the floppy connectors should have been installed a tad higher and the RAID connectors right below them, placed vertically, but in the end I am fairly pleased with it.

To conclude my layout chat, I can say that Shuttle did a pretty good job with the layout of the AK35GT-R. There are a few flaws in the design, but nothing major. Note that the AGP slot comes with one of those AGP retainer thingies that locks the card in there. Interesting for people who move their case around a lot.

Page 4 : BIOS & Overclocking

BIOS & Overclocking

A good overclocking board needs a good BIOS to let you control all the different settings. Shuttle got the message loud and clear and they equipped the board with a 100% jumperless BIOS. You can adjust just about anything: RAM settings like CAS, interleaving, … they are all there. Of course the DDR memory voltage can be increased up to 2.7V (+0.2V as 2.5V is the default voltage) and when it comes to the processor settings, multipliers and front side bus are easily modified. The FSB can be increased all the way up to 200MHz, in 1MHz increments. All the features I mentioned up to now are installed on most other high-end boards as well, but there is one thing that is exclusively available on the AK35GT-R: the CPU core voltage can be increased all the way up to 2.3V!! All the other socket A boards are limiting the core voltage to 1.85V. This is just what you need to get that little extra out of your processor. Be aware that once you hit +1.90V, good cooling is needed to be able to dump the heat! Once you are in the +2.1V zone, I strongly suggest you use water cooling or better.

So, how did the board behave in the torture tests I threw at it?? Very good! The board never showed signs of instability and performed excellent in all tests. For benchmarking goals, I clocked the board to a FSB of 150MHz so we can compare it to other boards we reviewed in the past. The highest FSB mark I reached was 162MHz, which was only obtainable with the DDR voltage to the max setting and the memory timings set to slower settings. I might have been able to hit great speeds if the DDR voltage would go up to 3.0V. The board remained rock stable during all tests I ran at 162MHz.

To keep track of everything, the AK35GT-R comes with the popular WinBond hardware monitoring chip, letting you check processor temperatures, fan speeds, other voltages and more. You can also enter a "shutdown temperature" at which the motherboard will shut down the computer. This is a nice feature for people who leave their box running 24/7, as your fan or water pump can fail during the night and leave you with a dead processor in the morning.

Page 5 : Benchmarking

Benchmarking

So far, the AK35GT-R is in my good book. The only thing left for me to do is run a truckload of benchmarks to see how the board compares to the competition.

Here is the test system we used:

- AMD TBird 1.4GHz
- Shuttle AK35GT-R
- 256MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
- VisionTek GeForce 3
- Western Digital 20GB 7200rpm
- Accton NIC
- Windows 2000 Pro + SP2 + Detonator 23.11 + VIA 4.36a

Sisoft Sandra Memory Benchmark

MadOnion's 3D Mark 2001

MadOnion's 3D Mark 2001 SE

Quake 3: Arena

Demo 001

Torture Demo

The benchmarks are not lying … The AK35GT-R is one fast motherboard and kicks some serious butt in Quake 3 and 3D Mark. The scores in the Sisoft memory benchmark are a tad slower than the competition, but still the numbers are nothing to be ashamed of! Enough said … on to the conclusion.

Page 6 : Conclusion

Conclusion

When I first saw the name "AK35GT-R", I thought it sounded like a fast Ferrari ;). Benchmarks are showing that Shuttle's KT266A board is indeed a very fast Athlon platform that will serve you well. The board comes with all the features to fulfil a power user's needs like onboard RAID, 6 USB ports, a highly tweakable BIOS, CPU core voltage adjustable up to 2.3V and several other features. The fact that the board never showed signs of instability, even when overclocked to a FSB of 162MHz tells me that you can't go wrong with this sweetie. The KT333 may be out there replacing the KT266A chipset, but that doesn't mean you have to forget all about the AK35GT-R. Shuttle has done it again as they have produced a motherboard that is worthy of carrying around the official
Overclockers Online Power Award
!!