BIOS
Shuttle continue to use the popular AWARD BIOS with their latest Socket A motherboard.
It's all very EPoX-like here. System performance can be set to one of three pre-defined settings of either Optimal, Aggressive, or Turbo. Expert opens up the full range of tinkering options. FSB frequency, adjustable in 1MHz increments, is now standard for most motherboards. 200FSB support is official, and the BIOS goes all the way up to 250MHz in perfect 1MHz steps. Memory frequency is expressed as a percentage of the CPU's FSB. A number of options are present, but it's best to stick to 100% (synchronous) to avoid the performance penalty of clock buffering. It's handy that you can see the resulting frequency without having to calculate it manually. Memory timings cover the usual latencies that we expect to see. The nForce2's idiosyncratic setting of tRAS = 1 or 2 clocks is present. We'll talk more about these settings on the following page.
CPU's ratio can be selected from 8x through to 23x. The board appeared to unlock our CPUs without any difficulty; a definite plus for the enthusiasts out there. CPU voltage gives a generous 2v when we manually select the 'above 1.85v' option. It's also pleasing to see a minimum voltage of just 1.1v, handy for those looking for possible passive running. So 1.1v to 2v in 0.025v increments. DDR Voltage, however, tops out at an unimpressive 2.70v.
Not a great deal of options in the features section, but at least it's all jumper-free these days.
The AN35N Ultra does tend to under-volt a little on both the Vcore and VAGP settings. We suspect it may do the same for DDR voltage. Further, the CPU's temperature appeared to be a little too low to be fully believable. It's also interesting to note that we don't have any chipset voltage control, yet it's shown as 1.68v here. That's higher than standard specification of @ 1.60v.
