Friday, December 22, 2000

Introduction

Recently, Shuttle sent us a sample of their latest Socket A motherboard: the AK10. This new addition to the Shuttle line-up comes equipped with the VIA KT133 chipset, and the VT82C686A Southbridge, which gives it support for both ATA66 drives, and PC133 memory. As you may expect, it also comes with an integrated AC"97-compatible sound-card. What you may not expect, though, is the two optional thermal connectors that also come with the AK10, and which allow users to independently monitor the temperature of two separate system elements. So then, if all that sounds exciting - or at least interesting - let's quit with the distractions, and head straight into the analysis.

The features

The Shuttle AK10 is expandable via 5 PCI slots, and an AGP port, but no ISA or AMR slots. There are also three 168-pin DIMM slots available, which can hold up to 1.5GB of PC100, PC133, or VCM memory.

Configuration of the AK10 is accomplished from within the BIOS.

From within the "Advanced Chipset Features Setup" menu for instance, it's possible to set the operating frequency of the memory bus to 3 or 4 times that of the PCI bus (which normally operates at 33MHz). Some care and forethought has to be taken when using this function while Overclocking of course, because it would obviously be a Bad Thing is one were to Overclock the FSB to 115MHz, while using a memory bus multiplier of 4, and thus inadvertently selecting a memory frequency of 153MHz...!

Selection of the FSB frequency is done from within the "CPU/PCI Clock Control" menu, where it is possible to choose a frequency ranging from 66Mhz to 138Mhz, and including: 66Mhz, 75Mhz. 79Mhz, 83Mhz, 88Mhz, 90Mhz, 95Mhz, 100Mhz, 110Mhz, 115Mhz, 120Mhz, 122Mhz, 129Mhz, 133Mhz, and 138Mhz.

Unfortunately, no Vcore, or clock multiplier options are provided.

Technical details

Plenty of space has been made available around the CPU socket, which makes the installation of larger heatsinks a bit easier.

The memory slots are far enough from the AGP port that there isn't any chance of a retention clip coming into contact with the graphics card.

Eleven 1500Mfd capacitors have been placed around the CPU socket.

The CPU locking lever is made of metal, and its shape shouldn't interfere with the installation of heatsinks.

Only 2 fans connectors are included.

Hardware monitoring is controlled by the Southbridge.

Manual assignment of IRQs is not possible with the AK10.

PC Doctor LED Debug is available as an option.

Hitting the "Insert" key at a cold start-up will roll the BIOS back to the last batch of valid settings.

Next: Additional features.