The AK32 Motherboard

The KT266 board used for our tests was Shuttle's AK32 motherboard. Equipped with six PCI slots, two 184-pin DIMMs for DDR SDRAM, and two 168-pin DIMMs for SDR SDRAM, the AK32 is a very flexible motherboard. The AK32 also comes with two 2-port USB brackets, and features connectors on the motherboard for the last two USB ports as well as an RJ45 Ethernet connector.

Note the RJ45 connector

Like all of ABIT's newer motherboards, Shuttle's AK32 is fully jumperless - no dipswitches or jumpers are required to change any system settings. In particular, the board supports bus speeds ranging from 100-166MHz in 1MHz increments, clock multiplier adjustment (5.0-12.5x in 0.5 increments), and CPU core voltage (with voltages ranging from -0.1V to +0.275V in .025V increments) adjustment. The only voltages we couldn't adjust on the AK32 were for system memory and the KT266 chipset.

1MHz increments for adjusting bus speeds

Adjusting memory settings

Here's a quick list of some of the board's features:

Features

VIA VT8366 & VT8233 chipset

2 DDR DIMM/2 SDR DIMM; up to 2GB for register DDR SDRAM module/ up to 1GB for unbuffered SDR SDRAM modul

1 AGP (4X), 6 PCI, 1 CNR

Supports 1X/2X/4X AGP Mode

CPU clock ratio from 5.0 to 12.5

2 dual-channeled enhanced PCI Bus Master IDE connectors provides Ultra DMA 33/66/100

Like many of the newer motherboards we've tested, the AK32 utilizes a 3-phase power solution to dissipate heat and features active cooling on the VT8366 North Bridge. As a result, our KT266 system ran relatively cool, even when overclocked.

Shuttle has implemented one very nice touch feature on their AK31 and AK32 KT266 motherboards: a small metal plate on each side of the Socket 462 interface. You see, with many of today's heatsinks, a screwdriver is required to clamp the heatsink down to the processor socket. It takes a careful, steady hand to properly clip the Socket. If the end user rushes the installation, you can easily scrape the heatsink clamp against the surface of the motherboard, potentially ruining your board! With Shuttle's unique metal plates in place, you'd simply scrape the top of the plate rather than the surface of the motherboard itself, saving your board. Quite honestly, we feel this is a feature every motherboard manufacturer should include on their products, and we applaud Shuttle for being the first to implement it.

The metal plate: saving motherboards lives' each day!

We'll save a more detailed analysis of both the AK31 and AK32 for a future review, right now let's get to the test results!