Mainboard AK31

Conclusion
For our first VIA KT266 review, all I can say is whoa, this DDR stuff really works. Shuttle’s design really makes the most out of VIA’s latest and greatest chipset. Stability on the AK31 was not to be sneezed at. No matter what, we couldn’t get the board to crash due to chipset errors. We got CPU heat and memory heat errors but no component on the motherboard gave us any problems. Our only gripe is the use of a CNR slot over an ISA slot.

auch online unter:
www.pc-magazin.de/...

Die optimierte Mainboard-Version AK31 V2.0 würde bei einem erneuten Vergleichstest eine Spitzenposition belegen. "So hat sich das Board im SYSMark 2000 mit 256MByte DDR-SDRAM und einem Athlon 1200 auf 233 Punkte gesteigert: einer der höchsten Werte, die wir bislang gemessen haben. (...) Auch die Software gefällt (...)

In particular, these are the good points:

• high stability
• big performances
• lot of overclocking and tuning options
• 6 pci, 6 usb onboard and 4 ddr dimms
• a fantastic price

This is our final valutation: 9/10

Shuttle stepped up to the plate and knocked one clean out of the field (...) Shuttle offered both outstanding stability and phenomenal performance all in one low cost package. The AK31 Rev. 2 is truly a gem when compared to the competition. This DDR capable board costs less than many older KT133A based motherboards with comparable features (plus the AK31 offers 4 DDR DIMM slots).

Pros:

• Cheap 
• Fast 
• Outstanding BIOS 
• Overclocks like a champ 
• Stable, stable, stable 
• Great expansion capabilities 
• 4 DDR DIMM slots 
• Did I mention cheap?

The Shuttle AK31 motherboard is a great performing, matching or beating the other top KT266 motherboards in every test. This review should even further emphasize how close the KT266 chipset is to being able to overcome the AMD-760 chipset. (...) When comparing the AK31 against its current rivals, the Epox 8KHA and MSI K7T266 Pro, I see no reason why you shouldn’t have Shuttle on the top of your list. The board offers all the features, performance and stability you could ask for in a KT266 solution.

If you want a stable extremely easy to use Athlon motherboard this is a serious board to consider as it fits the bill for many different types of applications. For Shuttle to even make a motherboard of this caliber shows that they can produce high end products to the consumer market without missing a beat.

My hat goes off to Shuttle for making such a fine specimen of a motherboard. This is the fastest Athlon motherboard we have tested yet and shows someone took the time to make sure this board was a winner and not lost somewhere in the middle where Shuttle usually lands. This going to be the board I use on my AMD platform test bench for other products reviews as it worked so well. I give this motherboard a solid thumbs up and I am sure their will be reviews all over the net confirming this opinion. Good job Shuttle! Now what is next?

• Performance layout
• Overclocking features
• 4 DIMM slots (DDR)
• Low price

Shuttle's AK31 show that a little layout and BIOS optimization go an incredibly long way, even on the poorest performing of products. One can only wonder what a re-engineered K7T266 could achieve. When the AK31 Rev1 first entered the labs, we had very high hopes for the board. With an excellent layout, 4 DIMMs, and impressive overclocking options, the AK31 looked like the AMD DDR board to have. (...) Now, with the arrival of the AK31 Rev2, the performance side of the equation, and we can easily endorse the board.

Summary: We are astonished by the results obtained. It beats almost every board out there! (...) It performs extremely fast and stable! It's even faster than the SiS735 reference board we tested in some categories.

We have tested so many KT266 mainbords and it seems that this is the first mainboard to support 4 DDR modules. (...) Shuttle AK31 is a jumperless mainboard. It gives you a lot of flexibility to adjust the settings to your likes all within the BIOS. These include the Vcore, DDR Voltage, CPU Ratio, CPU Clock (FSB). Other than that, you can also optimise your ram timings to make it run faster.

AK31 gets a SILVER AWARD for its surprisingly fast performance and its ability to do what's its designed without having to make any adjustments for compatibility with existing peripherals (...) the board had no problems at all in multimedia applications, no doubts on DMA issues in Windows 2000, to sum it up its worth every dime or dollar (...)

Fazit: Shuttle ist hier der einzige Hersteller, der vier DDR-SDRAM-Slots verbaut. Weiterhin kommt das Mainboard mit sechs PCI-Steckplätzen, ist jumper-free und besitzt sehr gute Optionen im Bios. Das Mainboard ist "rock stable" auch bei höheren Frequenzen, (...) Gute Qualität, gute Performance und hervorragende Features machen das Mainboard zu einem attraktiven Angebot, da das Board auch relativ günstig käuflich zu erwerben ist.

Welches Mainboard kaufen? (...) Ein Mainboard hat es uns aber angetan, deshalb verteilen wir neben diesen ganzen guten Noten auch einen Award - das Shuttle AK31 ist schnell, verdammt günstig, besitzt tolle Erweiterbarkeit. Es überzeugt durch perfekte Konfigurationsmöglichkeiten im Bios, weiterhin ist es super stabil.

Translation:

Conclusion: Shuttle's AK31 is the only mainboard in this test, which has four DDR SDRAM slots. Besides, it comes with six PCI slots, is jumperfree and has very good BIOS settings. It is rock stable - even with high frequencies (...) good quality, good performance and excellent features make this board to an attractive offer, because the price is also comparatively low.

Which mainboard should you buy? (...) Especially this mainboard convinced us so much that we have to point it out and give it a special award. Shuttle AK31 is fast, has a damned low price, a fantastic expandibility, a perfect set of BIOS setting and it is also stable, too. (...) we are so impressed by Shuttle's AK31 - it will be placed in our own system!

Conclusions: The AK31 is a very pleasant surprise from Shuttle. (...) It's fast, stable, and has almost everything an enthusiast might want. (...) I can't complain at all about the AK31. It's in the running for the best Athlon motherboard on the market right now, and having it there makes the Athlon platform a little stronger. I'm seriously considering making the AK31 our test platform for future CPU reviews, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone building themselves a new system.

• Entirely Jumperless design
• Can adjust the Vcore voltage from within the BIOS
• Excellent Overclocking results
• FSB adjustable in 1MHz increments
• Excellent performance

In fact, the AK31 is so fast that we were occasionally under the impression that we had mistakenly clocked it much higher than we thought we had... In the end, the AK31 never choked, ran with rock-solid stability, and demonstrated excellent versatility in the Overclocking arena. This makes the AK31 a real contender in our books. For all this and more (not the least of which is its high score), we're glad to award the Shuttle AK31 our "Top Grade Hardware Award", and our highest recommendations.

I was surprised to see how impressive the AK31 rev.2 really is.

'Editor's Choice' Award !

All round, the stability and quality of the board is excellent. This is one of the few DDR boards that has both 6 PCI slots and 4 DDR DIMM slots ... so expansion is not a problem. If you're an overclocker, don't ignore this board ... it's got some great BIOS options including a maximum of 166FSB at 1Mhz increments, x14 multiplier and voltage tweaks for DDR (upto 2.7v) and VCore (upto 2.0v+). I was able to overclock my 1Ghz AXIA to 1.52Ghz (9.5x160). There's also memory tweaks which can be done via this BIOS page. This can greatly improve memory performance and bandwidth. The package is simple with no extra innovative goodies, but with a solid board and a mature KT266 chipset, the AK31 rev.2 is one motherboard that could make Asus run hard, for it's money. All in all, a very impressive board ... well done Shuttle.

The AK31 deserves a top position!
The AK31 litterally started flying, delivering some of the highest scores ever achieved here. (...) The AK31 put away even the most aggressive settings shows that there is a huge stability margin even at 150 MHz FSB. (...) All in all, the AK31 was one of the most positive surprises in the mainboard scene in awhile.

Shuttle has delivered one of the best KT266 boards out there for overclockers. Overclocking is easy with this board since everything is within the BIOS: CPU voltage, DDR voltage, CPU multipliers, 1 MHz increment Front Side Buses. Providing users with a good price/overclocking/features ratio, the Shuttle AK31 earns our Value All-Star award.

The AK31 (...) is still able to surpass nearly all competition in terms of performance for a very low price.

I would easily say the AK31 is the best DDR, overclocking board that I have played with.

ClubOC is proud to introduce Shuttle's new and improved AK31 version2. AK31, a new KT266 based motherboard, has a clean layout. The Via northbridge even comes with a heatsink and fan attached. 4 Additional USB Ports! This just rocks. You get a total of six USB ports. Not having to go buy a USB hub is a bonus in my book. Memory! Four, 184-pin DDR Dimms that support a total of 4Gbytes of DDR RAM. With the inexpensive DDR price and the 2.1GB per second peak bandwidth, DDR is the way to go. FSB Settings, you get FSB settings from 100MHz to 166MHz. Voltage Control, you also have full control of the vcore setting. This is the choices you get. -0.025~ -0.100v, or +0.025~+0.275v from default. The board is a standard ATX layout board so installation was pretty easy. The one thing I really liked about this board was the owners manual. This owners manual is one of the best that I've seen. I was very pleased with the results of this board. On the Iwill KA266-R, I was only able to get 1400Mhz (10.5 x 133) stable. The Shuttle AK31 was able to take the same CPU and take it to 1500MHz (11 x 136) and with the small voltage adjustments, I could get it stable at 1.8v.

Stability: The AK31 got a perfect score simply because we saw no crashes or any hint of instability during testing (...) also didn't have any problems with overclocked bus speeds.
Performance: The AK31 performed very well.
Overclocking: The AK31 excellent at overclocking. The totally jumperless design is a dream come true for overclockers and tweakers alike. It offers the highest voltage boost we've seen to date as well as multiplier and front side bus speed selections.
Price wise we think this motherboard is one of the best-especially considering the performance you get out of it.
Summary: Totally jumperless and trouble free! (...) This is the most overclockable DDR motherboard we've ever received. (...) We're extremely impressed with Shuttle's first offering to us.

• gute Stabilität
• gute Performance
• durchdachtes Layout
• Onboard Sound serienmäßig (deaktivierbar)
• 6 PCI Slots
• 4 DIMM-Steckplätze

Der testende Hardware-Redakteur in einer EMail an uns: "Das Board hat sich wacker geschlagen und ich muss sagen, daß ich sehr begeistert von ihm bin. Jedenfalls werde ich es schweren Herzens wieder ausbauen. Ab wann wird es den im Handel erhältich sein, da ich evtl. beabsichtige, ein AK31 zu erwerben?"

Pros

• Look at the features up above - loads of it baby!!
• If your a DDR board manufacturer - be afraid, very afraid!
• The first DDR board to be recommended by AMD! 
• The most Seriously Jumper less system out there.
• Even ‘Rocky Bilboa’ couldn’t be this stable. 
• I’m using a generic 225 Watt PSU - talk about board efficiency!
• Excellent Overclocking results.
• WIN98SE is like a Duracell battery - its still going and going crashlessly strong after a week - amazing!!
• On a low spec system it is murderous. On high spec - you’ll die from pure joy!
• Playing Quake 3 Arena will never be the same…Again.
• Low price

Positiv fallen die sechs PCI-Slots und vier DIMM-Steckplätze auf. Somit steht einer Bestückung mit maximal möglichen Komponenten und einer Speicherausstattung nichts im Wege. Ein Alleinstellungsmerkmal des AK31 ist die justierbare CPU-Core-Spannung bis 2,025 Volt. Diese Tatsache lässt die Herzen aller Duron-Besitzer höher schlagen, die damit die optimale Performance aus der kleinen und preisgünstigen CPU herausholen können. Ergonomisch erscheint der Einsatz einer AGP-Halterung, die ein Herauskippen der Grafikkarte wirkungsvoll unterbindet. (...) Die Performance des Boards kann durchaus überzeugen: Bei vielen Benchmarkdisziplinen belegt die Platine einen vorderen Plätze.

• Excellent Performance
• Good Value
• 4 184-pin DIMM connectors
• Nice Board Layout
• KT266 Chipset

Erreicht 94% der Punkte!!!

• Excellente Geschwindigkeit
• Günstiger Preis
• 4 DDR-DIMM-Steckplätze
• Gutes Board-Layout
• KT266-Chipsatz

Auch volle Punktzahl in Ausstattung und Kompatibilität!

I would say this board has a everything you would need extra ram slots over the AMD 760 chipset driven boards, onboard sound, very well featured BIOS, stability is 100%, build is a 100%, it does what its designed for and with a bit of tweaking it goes beyond its specification. The jumperless design which makes tweaking easy. VCORE, VIO, Multiplier and FSB are all adjustable through BIOS.

Translated in English: Shuttle AK31 - the only board of three reviewed which has 6 PCI and 4 DIMM slots. Considering that now the most widespreaded are 128 MB PC2100 DIMMs, AK31 is the only choice if PC with 512 MB of RAM needed. Another distinction of Shuttle AK31 is chipset's North Bridge active cooling. BIOS has all the overclockers' features which exceed competitors (e.g. memory voltage tuning).