As fast as it sounds ....GT2
Written: May 17 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 333 chip-set, ATA133, 4G DDR ram, 5.1 sound, 6 pci, stable and fast.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: Highly recommend this board to anyone wanting a stable high performance system with the ability to easily overclock.
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| cudaviper's Full Review: Shuttle AK35GT2 Motherboard |
General:
This is not my first Shuttle motherboard, it's my 6th. I wrote about my AK35GTR-266 (http://www.epinions.com/content_79794572932)
and it was a great board. When I bought this one and used it a couple days, I sold the GTR right away. I liked it so much I bought another and presently have 5 of these.
Features:
The first thing about this board is 2 UltraDMA ports with an ATA133 interface to the hard drive. Maxtor hard drives, I believe, are the only ones that support ATA 133 and you can tell a difference in speed. Not earth shattering but noticeable. An ATA 133 hard drive transfers data at 133 megs per second.
ATA100 transfers 100 megs a second.
The GTR 266 board I had was 133 capable but only through the RAID controller, which I never setup.
The next great feature would be the VIA KT 333mhz chip-set. This allows running a front side bus speed of 166 when using PC2700 DDR ram. PC2700 operates at 333mhz. When you do this, you have entered the overclock zone. I will expand on that farther in the review. The northbridge chipset has an aluminum heat sink as opposed to the small cooling fan found on the 266 GTR model. I suppose they determined it did not get that hot after all. In many reviews and forums I understand that the 333 is actually as fast or faster than the 400 chip-set. Why, I can not say but have read it from more than one source.
Next would have to be the ability to use 4 gigs of PC1600, PC2100, or PC2700 DDR ram. There are 4 slots for the ram unlike most that only feature 3. I do not know who would need to have 4 gigs of ram but the fact it is capable, is comforting to know and says a bit about the construction of the board. I, personally, have never seen a need for more than 512 megs. And to some that is probably a little overboard for everyday applications.
It has a 32bit AGP slot which will support a 1x, 2x, and 4x device for your video card along with (6) 32bit PCI slots for other accessories such as a modem, SCSI cards, etc. Some of the newer version boards have an 8X AGP slot but what I have read, so far, indicate they are hardly noticeable in speed difference.
There are 2 USB connections in the rear along with the ability to add 4 more through a dual line split cable included with the retail version. Also included on the board are (4 ) 3 pin fan connection, two of which will
monitor fan RPM through the on screen bios.
The on-screen menu also allows for numerous adjustments,
monitoring all system functions as well as the health status of the system. Including cpu and inside temperature along with the actually voltages going to the +12v, +5v, and +3.3v on the board, just to name a few.
The GT2 is rated to handle any Duron or Athlon 200/266 fsb processor, as well as the Athlon XP up to the XP 2800. The front side bus speed is adjustable from 100mhz to 200 mhz in 1mhz steps through the frequency/voltage control in the bios setup feature. (Default front side bus is set at 100, you need to change this to 133 for correct readings at stock settings.) This has been corrected with the latest bios update but is not being shipped with it. The Shuttle website has all the latest bios and drivers available for download.
(http://us.shuttle.com/specs.asp?pro_id=261)
On Board Sound:
The GT2 has a great sound system built into the motherboard. The C-Media 6 channel sound supports 5.1 speakers. It contains a utility called Audio Rack which includes a CD player, a 24 bit digital recorder, MIDI recorder and sound mixer. The mixer allows for the addition of adjustable reverb, echo, and surround sound to your music. The only down side is that it must be played from pre-recorded music on the hard drive to use these features. I still prefer Window Media player as these features can be used without pre-recording if you download the upgrade. I do not have a 5.1 speaker system but use two 2.1 Altec Lansing systems. And it sounds really great.
Installing:
It will be much easier to install some components now, rather than after the board is in the case. Install the cpu, thermal grease, and heat sink on the board. Attach HS fan to motherboard.
Depending on your heat sink mfg., the clip is sometimes difficult to attach to the board. I use Cooler Master heat sinks on all mine and are fairly easy to attach and to remove. (BTW, never take a heat sink off a hot cpu).
Next install the ram. I prefer 1 stick of 512 instead of 2 sticks of 256. Or 1 256 instead of 2 128, keeping it simple.
My next suggestion is to install all your other items into the case, hard drive, floppy, cd roms and power supply. Make sure you have the master/slave jumpers on these set correctly. Minor pain afterwards to change if not. Attach your ribbon or I prefer round cables to their devices, as well as their power supply leads.
Lay the case on its side and carefully set the motherboard into place. Attaching the board is done by either screws or push through clip attachments. Depends on the case mfg accessories. Secure with all or at least 4 attach points.
Now insert your video card into place, either the AGP slot or PCI, depending on your type of card. I only install the video card until I've loaded the system and know all is functioning correctly. Will add modem and anything else later. Makes trouble shooting easier if ever needed.
Now connect your devices, CD-ROMS, HD, and floppy drive to the boards IDE slots. Hard drives go IDE 1, CD or DVD Roms go IDE 2, floppy has its own.
Next connect the cases front panel switches, these control the on-off, reset, hard drive lights, etc. The instruction book included with the board is well thought out and has diagrams showing all the attach points for every function. Now attach the main power supply.
Triple check your work and it's ready to boot for the first time. Follow the instructions that are well stepped out in the book for installation of your operating system and motherboard drivers. I have never had to contact the manufacturer but on occasion have had a question about something. I highly recommend the website AMDMB.COM. There, you will find a section for the forums. They have a specific forum for the Shuttle motherboards as well as all others. It is well structured and I have ask or found the answer to any question I might have had concerning this board.
Overclocking:
In my review of the GTR266 board, I did not overclock. Well not enough to speak of but things have changed. I have read a great deal on the matter and decided, done correctly, there are some surprising benefits to it. The GT2 is a great board without any modifications but is also setup to adjust many of its unique features through an on-screen menu.
......................WARNING.....................
WARNING: The following info is from my personal experience and risk and I assume NO responsibility for any damage or problems you may have as a result from doing anything I mention here. There are many sites that cover how to overclock correctly without any damage. Done incorrectly or going overboard and you got trouble.
With that out of the way, here's what this board has done with some minor modifications. There are 2 main functions this board has that allows for major overclocking. All of which are accessed during the boot-up by hitting the delete key when prompted. It will appear in the bottom left corner and will let you enter the setup screen. The menu has a number of specific areas which address certain functions. One is changing the multiplier, another is changing the front side bus. The multiplier will change the speed of the processor, nothing else. The front side bus changes the speed of the entire system. This is my preferred way. Other adjustments, tweaking, can be made to the voltage going to the processor and ram and the ram timing. One thing that will definitely raise the heat level is a voltage increase. My voltage is stock. I do not know much about ram timing and do not adjust those settings either. Just make sure you buy quality name brand ram, low density. One stick instead of two is my preference. The voltage adjustments can be increased to the processor and ram only if there is a need.
A very good heat sink and fan are necessary regardless if you overclock or not. My heat sink has a copper base which is better at heat removal than aluminum.
The machine I'm using right now has an AMD XP 1700 thoroughbred processor rated at 1.47 ghz or 1466 mhz. This is achieved by the stock settings of a multiplier set at 11 and the fsb at 133mhz. Another GT2 system I have is using the XP2100 thoroughbred processor. Both are version B processors. The 2100 runs at 1.73 ghz or 1733mhz stock.
I presently have the XP1700 (1466mhz) running at 1833 mhz by raising the front side bus from 133 to 166. No other adjustments. That's almost a 400 mhz increase. And the Xp2100 (1.733mhz) is running at 2166mhz. Also by just raising the fsb to 166. There are many who are getting much higher results but I am very satisfied with mine as is.
A download of the latest bios from the manufacture website was needed for the overclock. It's usually good to have the latest drivers and bios for any system device.
The RAM:
If you are NOT going to overclock the system, then buy PC2100(266mhz)ram, there will be no difference in performance using PC2700(333mhz)unless you raise the fsb.
But what a difference if you do.
And there is one more good thing to know, if you were to make a mistake or go to far overboard and the system would not boot-up into anything at all, on the board is a reset switch called the CMOS jumper. You simply remove it from the 1-2 pin position and place it in the 2-3 position for a couple seconds and return it. This will reset the board back to the factory settings. The instruction book tells the exact procedure.
Conclusion:
I am sold on the Shuttle GT2. It does everything I need and is well laid out and appears to be well made. I would recommend it for the many high performance features and especially for the easy adjustments with the over-clocker in mind.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 68.00
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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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