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Posted by
Toby Crundwell
on January 21, 2002
Manufactured by: Shuttle
Product: AK35GTR
KT266a Socket A motherboard
Find
low Motherboard
prices here.
The AK35GT-R still has it's problems
which Shuttle should correct before offering the board to
the public if they don't want to fall in the mediocre
category. Based on a common solution like VIA's KT266a,
gives it an advantage and remains as one of the fastest
Socket A boards I have tested (not that there are many
discrepancies between different KT266a boards in terms of
speed). One of the most notably odd things found on the
Spacewalker AK35GT-R was the awkward keyboard support. More
USB ports, preferably USB2, could have gone a lot further
with this package. Using up a whole backplate for just the
LFE/Centre channel really annoyed me as well; I had to
sacrifice my radio card to make space for it.
The AK35GT-R on a whole isn't overly
stable as it did crash from time to time, usually whilst
playing games. The previous three motherboards I was using
with the same peripherals had no such problems. However it
did go for several days without restarting at one point, and
I didn't notice any loss of stability when overclocking the
board.
At time of post I still wasn't able to
find this particular board on pricewatch or pricegrabber
which confirms my belief that the board isn't ready for
prime time yet. Sibling boards from Shuttle without RAID
were available for $77, certainly not dear, if Shuttle can
keep the low prices with the AK35GT-R this might end up as
the cheapest addition to your system. With a strong
performance and good overclocking ability, it is redeemable
as a performance/overclocking board. Had it included a
better choice of extras, and perhaps a keyboard controller
that worked all the time, it would be a very formidable
board. As it is, it's a rather quirky offering from Shuttle
that is more adequate than than good, but offers a very good
turn of speed.
Pros:
Cons:
Manufactured
by: Shuttle
Product: AK35GTR
KT266a Socket A motherboard
Find
low Motherboard
prices here.
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