Shuttle AV32 Motherboard Review

Author : Wayne Date : 19th April 2001

3DVelocity would like to thank Shuttle Computer group and especially Jeurgen Bloch of their German branch office for their help and courtesy in providing this motherboard for review.

First Impressions :

At first glance, the AV32 holds a couple of surprises. The first thing most people will notice is the two pairs of DIMM slots. This of course is so you can install either conventional SDR SDRAM, or the newer, faster DDR SDRAM. The drawback to this solution is that you only get two banks to fill, but the advantage is that you can upgrade now and get the benefits of AGPx4 or ATA100 support without having to dash out and buy more expensive memory, allowing you to upgrade to DDR later. If on thing's for sure, it's that the price of DDR SDRAM will fall, and with the far from stellar improvements we've seen when using it, this must happen before we start to take it too seriously.

The next thing that might catch your eye is that the PCI slot next to the AGP slot is offset slightly. This is beacuse it's not a PCI slot at all, it's actually a rather less usefull ACR slot. Similar to the AMR and CNR slots sported by other boards, ACT does at least add a few new features such as 10/100 LAN, but its uses are still rather under-used, and I dare say some would have sooner seen an ISA slot in there instead. Unfortunately all these standards rely on your CPU to perform hardware emulations and tie up valuable clock cycles.

The ACR slot looks pretty much like a PCI slot soldered in backwards and slightly offset. The good news is that its fully compatible with earlier AMR cards should you own one.

Another nice touch is the addition of a retainer on the AGP slot. Slated by many as a pointless feature, I have personally had a graphics card come unseated as a result of moving the computer and the torque placed on it by the rather stiff monitor cable, so I for one am glad to see it there.

To remove your graphics card, you simply lever back on the end of the retainer and remove as normal.

Unfortunately, Shuttle have fallen into the same trap as a great many board manufacturers and not allowed enough clearance between the AGP slot and the RAM retention lugs.

As you can see from the picture, just about any available graphics card will need removing in order to add or remove memory, not such a problem when you're assembling the first time, but a real ball ache when you want to alter your memory configuration later on.

I was glad to see Shuttle had used a metal release arm on the socket. I've never had any problems with the plastic ones myself, but I've heard quite a few stories about people with the manual dexterity of a Buffalo somehow ripping them off completely or snapping them.

As you can see there's also a good clear area round the socket to allow for bigger heatsinks you might want to fit.

Over to the left is the ATX power connector, and while its positioning isn't quite perfect, It's certainly not problematic, allowing you to route the cables well clear of your processor and HSF. Why I've read complaints that its position interferes with HSF operation is a mystery and I can only guess they had the board in the wrong way round :)

Of course as you'd expect, a heat sensor sits slap in the middle of the socket. I wasn't able to bend this to sit nearer the CPU, but that's not something most users will sweat about as it still offers reliable information on general heat conditions.

To be fair to Shuttle, while most of this board's features seem somewhat unspectacular, it's hard to find a fault. The layout seems pretty well thought through and the components are nothing if not good quality. If I were going to be picky, I'd perhaps have liked to see the IDE connectors a little closer to the CPU end of the board, but as all my cables reached their destined components without straining, I'm kicking the choirboy for singing.

 

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