 |
| Our
Test System |
| It
cooks... |
|
Intel
Pentium !!! 933EB (at 933MHz & 980MHz),
128MB Mushkin
2-2-2 PC133 ram, nVidia GeForce 2 MX AGP, IBM
22GXP 7200RPM Hard Drive, Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI
controller, Plextor UltraPlex 40max, Windows 98SE,
DirectX 7.0a and VIA 4-in-1 drivers v4.24
 |
| Overclocking
with The AV14 |
| Close
but no Cigar. |
|
The
Shuttle AV14 can overclock your processor but it
is not an overclocker's board. There are
multiple FSB's ranging from 66MHz - 166MHz and you
are able to tweak the voltage via the system BIOS
but that isn't enough to put it in a class with
some Abit, Soyo and Asus boards. The FSBs are not
selectable in 1Mhz increments like some other
products, in fact above 133Mhz the next step is
138Mhz, then 140Mhz...150Mhz and so on. The
processor we used in testing has been clocked well
over 1Ghz on other boards but because the AV14
lacks some frequencies between 140MHz and 150MHz
we were restricted to testing at a maximum of
980Mhz.
 |
| Benchmarking
The AV14 |
| Pretty
Quick |
|
Time for what
you're probably waiting for...some
benchmarks! The Shuttle AV14 actually did
well in regards to performance. Our first
order of business is SiSoft Sandra:
PIII
933Mhz
PIII 980MHz
The
CPU is certainly not stifled by the AV14 in any
way. The maturity of both the VIA chipset,
motherboard drivers and the motherboard itself
equate to excellent performance.
As
we're sure you all know, memory throughput is a
huge factor when it comes to overall system
performance. Upon release the Apollo 133A's
main drawback had been its memory performance.
PIII
933Mhz
PIII 980MHz
The
Intel / VIA combo still can't quite catch a
similarly clocked AMD / VIA combo but things have
come a long way. We were using some
excellent Mushkin RAM that was capable of running
at the Turbo / CAS 2 setting even at a 140MHz
FSB. Make sure you're using high quality RAM
if you plan to overclock or plan to tweak for
maximum performance.
Hard
Drive performance was also tested using SiSoft
Sandra:
PIII
933Mhz
PIII 980MHz
Performance
does not change very much when overclocking.
These scores are right on par with what this same
drive has done on other VIA based boards.
We
also ran the system though a session of ZD
Winbench which gives a good indication of
real-world application performance.
ZD
Winbench
Again,
some good scores, but on par with similar
products.
The
Shuttle AV14 is a good product and is good at many
things...but excels at none. A user looking
for a motherboard to use in a second system would
be very pleased with the AV14. We would recommend
it as an "everyday" board but it's not
for the power user or hardcore overclocker's out
there. Overall the Shuttle AV14 is a great
product that just has trouble standing above
similar boards in any particular category.
We give it a Hot Hardware rating of...
Get
in and air it out in the Hot Hardware Conference
Room!
|
