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Shuttle's
HOT-683
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A
Socket 370 - Intel LX Chipset Based Board for the budget minded!
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| Socket
370 boards are an interesting proposition. They have the potential
to provide Pentium II level performance with cost efficiencies that
are unmatched. They also are extremely conservative in realestate
consumption. Shuttle's first effort in the Socket 370 space is the
HOT-683. This board is based around Intel's Legacy 440LX Chispet.
Here's what else is under the hood! |
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| Don't
let this image fool you. This board is SMALL! I like that in a
motherboard. A small footprint means more room for your peripherals
and add-ons! I also like the postion of the ATX power connector,
firmly out of the way! |
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CPU:
Socket
370
Intel PPGA CeleronR 300 ~ 500MHz
Chip set:
Intel 440LX
FW82443LX, North bridge
FW82371EB, South bridge
FSB & Multiplier:
66MHz, 75MHz, 83MHz
X2, X2.5, X3, X3.5, X4, X4.5, X5, X5.5, X6
Cache: 128K CPU built-in cache
Memory:
DIMM
X 3, Up to 768MB memory
Expansion
Bus:
1 AGP, AGP 1.0 compliance
4 PCI, 32-Bit master
3 ISA, 16-Bit
IO:
Winbond 83977TF/EF
2 Serial ports, 16550 Fast UART compatible
1 Parallel port, supports SPP, ECP, and EPP mode
2 USB ports, Rev. 1.0
1 PS/2 Keyboard
1 PS/2 Mouse
FDD, 1.2MB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB
IrDA connector
IDE:
UltraDMA-33
PIO mode 4
Bootable from LS120, ZIP drive
Power management:
APM 1.2
ACPI 1.0
BIOS:
Award
PnP BIOS
DMI 2.0
2MB flash memory
Hardware Monitoring:
Winbond W83781
CPU Temp. monitoring, overheat warning
CPU Vio, Vcore, 3.3V, 5V, 12V
3 Fan speed detect
Other connectors:
Suspend switch and LED
Wake-On-Lan connector
EISCA Fan connector
SB-Link
Form Factor: ATX, 30.5cm X 17cm
Other
Features:
CPU Voltage Auto Detecting (CPU PnP)
Wake-On-Ring
Wake-On-Alarm
Accessories:
1 CD-ROM disc
Intel driver patch for Windows95
Intel AGP Vgart driver
Intel Bus Master driver for Windows95
Shuttle System Manager
Multi-language manuals
1 Easy Manual
1 IDE cable, 1 FDD cable
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| Again,
Shuttle packs in the features! The CPU temp monitoring feature is a
nice addition and a gives you a good sense of security. The board
automatically detects and sets up your CPU for easy installation.
You can also tweak the bus speed settings up from 60, to 66, 75 and
83, which is the top end limit of the LX chipset, with a jumper
bank. I would have prefered a soft menu in the BIOS for this feature
and also the location of the jumper bank is a little awkward in that
it is down in between the AGP slot and first PCI slot. I had to pull
the AGP card, in our tests, out to reset the bus speeds. Let's fire
up those tests... |
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Our
Test System
Mid
Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS, Intel Celeron PPGA 300a, Shuttle HOT-683,
64 MB of PC100 RAM, Maxtor 17Gig EIDE UDMA Hard Drive, Gigabyte
GA-630 Voodoo Banshee AGP Card w/ 16MB, Yamaha PCI Audio Card,
Memorex 48X CDROM, Windows 98 w/ DX6.1
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Overclocking
We didn't have a
lot of luck in this department. I am not sure if this was a function
of the CPU or the HOT-683 but we could not boot complete into
Windows 98 beyond the default 300 Mhz. speed of the Celeron. I have
a feeling, with better than stock cooling, we would have succeeded.
The board was very stable through all our testing which is expected
especially at this speed.
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Benchmarks
WinTune
98
Offline
Test Results
| CPU |
(1)
Intel Celeron A@300 MHz |
| Video
Board |
Gigabyte
GA-630 Voodoo Banshee |
| Video
Mode |
1024x768@16bits/pixel |
| RAM |
64
MB |
| OS |
Windows
98 4.10.1998 |
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Area
Tested
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Value
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| CPU
Integer |
877.2989
MIPS |
| CPU
Floating Point |
349.9677
MFLOPS |
| Video(2D) |
66.90681
MPixels/s |
| Direct3D |
195.8011
MPixels/s |
| OpenGL |
8.001775
MPixels/s |
| Memory |
543.4563
MB/s |
| Cached
Disk |
59.28286
MB/s |
| Uncached
Disk |
3.667905
MB/s |
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| This
is a respectable showing for the Celeron 300a on this board.
Also of note are
the solid disk numbers! On to some ZD Winbench 99 Scores... |
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| Winbench
99 - 800X600 Resolution w/ 16bit Color |
HOT-683 |
| WinBench
99/Business Disk WinMark 99 (Thousand Bytes/Sec) |
2220 |
| WinBench
99/Business Graphics WinMark 99 |
106 |
| WinBench
99/CPUmark32 |
571 |
| WinBench
99/Disk Playback/Bus:Overall (Thousand Bytes/Sec) |
2220 |
| WinBench
99/FPU WinMark |
1600 |
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| OK,
so enough with the synthetic numbers. Let's look at this combo as an
econo-gaming-rig! |
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Quake
2 V3.20 - Timedemo Demo1.dm2 w/ 3Dfx OpenGL
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| These
are very competent numbers for such an inexpensive set up. The
Banshee card is a nice complement to this package and helped in this
area. Imagine, who would have thought you can get a bare bones base
system started with Motherboard, Video and CPU for UNDER $300 ! |
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Overall
Impression
These days it
seems as if PC prices keep getting more competitive by the minute.
It is amazing what your money can buy today vrs. even 6 months ago.
This board is a solid value for the little you'll put out in order
to own one. I have seen it on line for less than $75! Although the
board is somewhat limited by the LX chipset and its lower end bus
speeds, this board performed clock for clock almost as well as a
Pentium 2 setup on a BX board.
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The HOT-683!
Gets a Hot Hardware Temp-O-Meter Rating of....
75
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| -Davo |
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The
Celeron 300a used for testing was sponsored by the good ol' boys
at...
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