Wednesday, November 29, 2000

Introduction

The Shuttle AE22 is the most recent i815E based motherboard to arrive on our doorstep. The first impression we got was an immediate sense of craftsmanship, coupled with a lots of high-technology. Simply put though, the Shuttle AE22 is designed as an all-in-one solution which incorporates both audio, and 3D video in its circuitry. Unlike mciro-ATX i815 based boards however, the AE22 has been designed in ATX full size format, which offers greater room for expendability. That said, let's get down to the review.

The features

The AE22 is expandable via 6 PCI slots, an AGP port, and a CNR slot. There are also 3 168-pin DIMM sockets available, which can support up to 512MB of PC100, or PC133 memory. The 512MB limit, however, is not a result of the motherboards design, but rather an internal limitation of the i815E chipset. Unfortunately, no ISA expansion options are provided.

Configuration of the AE22 is accomplished, for the most part, from within the BIOS. On the board itself, we find jumpers J1, JP3, and JP5, which can be used to force the FSB to operate at 100MHz, or 133MHz. To really get into things, however, most Overclockers will want to skip to the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu within the BIOS. From there, it is possible to choose from a range of FSB settings ranging from 66Mhz to 160Mhz, and including: 66Mhz, 75Mhz, 83Mhz, 100Mhz, 112Mhz, 124Mhz, 133Mhz, 140Mhz, 145Mhz, 150Mhz, and 160Mhz. Within the "Chipset Features Setup" menu, there also lies an option permitting the CPUs clock multiplier to be set manually, but this feature is of little use in an age of Intel CPUs with multiplier locks...

Also within the "Chipset Features Setup" menu, there lies a function which allows users to set the memory bus frequency to 100MHz, or 133MHz.

No option is provided for the adjustment of the processor's core voltage.

Technical details

A fair amount of space has been left around the CPU socket for the installation of a large heatsink.

The memory slots are located too close to the AGP port, which makes in possible for the retention bars to come into contact with any card that may be installed in that slot.

Seventeen 1000Mfd capacitors are located around the CPU socket, which is too little in our opinion.

The CPU retention bar is made of metal. Thus, there is little chance of it breaking.

Only 3 fan connectors are located on the board itself.

Hardware monitoring features are controlled by a Winbond 83627HF circuit.

Manual assignment of IRQs is not offered on this board.

A function allowing the BIOS to be "rolled-back" to the last batch of valid settings is accessible by hitting the "Insert" key.

Next: Additional features.