Navigate: Advice Beginners BIOS Guide CPUs Links Mainboards Memory Network Storage Video/Sound Cards Contact Forum SiteMap Sponsors WebNews Home	.	.
Prices: CPU Intel P4 2.4C-800 P4 2.6C-800 P4 2.8C-800 P4 3.0-800 P4 3.2-800 AMD AthlonXP XP 1700+ XP 2000+ XP 2400+ XP 2500+ XP 2700+ XP 3000+ XP 3200+ Athlon64 Athlon64 3200+ Athlon64 FX-51 Opteron Opteron 240 Opteron 242 Opteron 244 Opteron 246 Memory Corsair Crucial Kingston Mushkin OCZ Search Prices:

Shuttle AV40R

Shuttle's latest creation based on the VIA P4X266 chipset is certainly a board that is bound to receive widespread coverage. One of the first VIA P4X266-based boards to market sporting the 478 pin interface, Shuttle is heavily promoting the AV40 over the AB30 (Brookdale chipset) and a bit further down, we'll see why.

An excellent layout with an unusual albeit smart placement of the floppy connector at the bottom of the PCB to allow routing of the ribbon cable on the back of the PCB (similar as introduced with the HOT597 and the AV14), an on-board Promise FastTrack RAID (Lite) controller offset the lack of a 6th PCI slot. In the same fashion as the ASUS P4B and the MSI 845 Pro, the AV40 runs the CPU power off the proven Intersil HP6301CB programmable power regulator using a triple phase layout.

The Shuttle AV40R (The Holy Grail of DDR?) features the VIA P4X266 chipset, onboard Promise FastTrack RAID controller and intgrated VIA AC97 sound. For photographic purposes, the premounted CPU / HSF holding bracket was removed. Note the AT power connector that can be used for auxilliary power in case an older power supply is used lacking the additional 4-prong connector. Note the unusual placement of the FDD connector at the bottom of the PCB which can be a problem in full tower cases but otherwise allows the routing of the cable behind the mainboard a la HOT597 or AV14.

The North Bridge receives active cooling via an AAVID cooler with dedicated power connector. Where ASUS has come up with the EZ-Plug to accommodate older power supplies lacking the 4-prong auxiliary connector, Shuttle is using a blast from the past by placing the old-fashioned 6-pin power connector known from AT boards on the AV40. This doesn't mean that any old 230W PSU will work with the board but it does mean that an older, high quality PSU can be used as long as it generates enough power at +5 and +12V. An extremely well written and terse manual, in addition to the fool-proof installation CD makes the installation of the AV40 one of the easiest ever.

The BIOS interface is the well-known Award v6.00PG with its familiar yellow-on-blue layout. Fortunately for everyone, Shuttle has gone away from the home-style settings of slow to turbo and opened up all relevant timing and performance settings to the user. This could certainly be a double-edged sword but the example of ASUS shows that allowing the user to custom-configure the system performance setting is a valid option, as long as the documentation is adequate and the user is made aware of the limitations and the impact of the settings on stability and performance.

One interesting feature offered in the BIOS is the possibility to manually define the DDR burst length as either 8 or 4 meaning that the controller can burst over a period of 4 cycles (which is standard) or else burst 4 words like a standard SDRAM controller which in a DDR configuration will only take 2 cycles. In our article on the new VIA KT266A chipset, we have shown the impact of this setting on performance, meaning that a burst of 4 only delivers marginal performance. However, there is a twist to the story, in that the upcoming DDR-2 specification at JEDEC only allow burst of 4 to avoid early termination of a burst. There are other compensatory measures for the stunted burst like early read commands. However, it needs to be seen how well they will work.

The only drawback of the AV40 we see at this point is the presence of the VIA Audio Codec instead of a real audio chip. Otherwise, it is a no-nonsense performance machine with no fat in form of a superfluous AMR or similar waste of space and resources.

next page:    => test setup configurations =>