--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AV45GTR Manufacturer: Shuttle
Article Date: 4th December, 2001 Author: Abbas Jaffarali
Product Score: 95- Editor's Choice Get more Info / Ask Questions on this Product
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quick Summary
Well, what do you know. Shuttle impresses once again with the AK35 being the fastest board to enter t-break labs. If you're really thinking of getting something for yourself for the holiday season, get this motherboard with an Athlon XP 1900. You'll be fastest kid on the block- hell, forget the block, you'll be the envy of the entire city! Over the weekend, we're gonna put an Athlon XP 1800 with a GeForce 3 Ti 500 card on the Shuttle AK35 and overclock them to the extreme. Come back to see the numbers. I'm sure you wont be disappointed 😉
The Report Card
Layout: The capacitor between the memory slots and the CPU socket should be moved as it will cause problems with certain heatsinks. Also, the power connector would be better off below the CPU socket as its current position above the CPU blocks airflow because of the thick power cable. 7/10
Features: The High Point 372 controller with ATA-133 support is a good welcome and we've always liked Shuttle's jumperless board. Onboard audio is also pretty decent and BIOS gives you almost all the options to tweak your system. Maybe Shuttle should look into adding some diagnostic or Dual BIOS options in their future boards. 13/15
Stability/Compatibility: No problems with the Shuttle AK35 whatsoever in this department. It managed to run flawlessly with all the hardware we threw at it which is pretty good considering the board has four memory sockets- something most motherboard manufacturers shy away from. 20/20
Performance: Say hello to the new king of performance at t-break labs: The AK35 is the fastest board we've ever seen- faster than nVidia's nForce chipset based MSI K7N420 in both gaming as well as business benchmarks. What more do you need to know? 24/25
Overclocking: What can we say- the AK35 managed to push our CPU to new heights. It's got Multiplier adjustments, FSB settings between 133MHz to 200MHz, and DDR voltage adjustment, but the icing on the cake is CPU VCore adjustment upto 2.3V- and it works! About the only thing missing is AGP Voltage. 14/15
Price/Packaging: The pricing is pretty good, just like all Shuttle boards but we do wish that Shuttle changes its future packaging as the subtle box doesn't exactly give the look of a power board. 12/15
Overall experience of reviewer: I think Abit is the best at producing fastest boards that can be taken even faster with their overclocking options. But the speed at which Shuttle is going, I don't think Abit will be able to hold the top position for a very long time. Love this board. +5
Final Score
95/100