BIOS
We focus on the BIOS because a decent, well-tuned BIOS brings out the best in a motherboard. System integrators often go with the most compatible timings, Enthusiasts, however, usually want to fine-tune their BIOS for maximum performance. A straightforward yet concise BIOS is what we're after.
I've manually inputted the maximum frequencies and voltages available from the our review AB60PS03 BIOS. The FSB is limited to only 233MHz. That's nForce2 and not Springdale / Canterwood territory. We had no trouble in running at the maximum 233MHz. Hell, every single Springdale / Canterwood board we've tested has managed to hit 250MHz+ without batting a eyelid. With respect to our findings the FSB limit is rather low. We'd like 300MHz as a bare minimum, really. The CPU's maximum available voltage is nothing to write home about.
Very much in the vein of ABIT, the Shuttle AB60RS offers a number of fixed speed options. We've come to notice that no-one is prepared to offer any S-ATA clock deviation. You can't go wrong with the fixed 66/33/100 option, and that would be our recommendation too.
The memory latency screen just as we like it. The DDR-400 memory selection is only available once you select a 200FSB+ CPU setting. Much like the plethora of other boards we recently seen, one also has the ability to set the memory asynchronously at either DDR-320 and DDR-266, assuming a CPU FSB of 200MHz+. Standard 133FSB CPUs are only offered DDR-333 (synchronous) and DDR-266 options.
The discrete PCI Silicon Image controller has its own BIOS, pre-OS screen for defining the levels of RAID. The on-chip ICH5 S-ATA can be set to varying modes. The disabled setting, as the name implies, removes S-ATA from the equation. You're then left with the standard P-ATA channels. Combined allows you to use both S-ATA and P-ATA channels, but you can't use both Primary and Secondary P-ATA channels together; it's either Primary or Secondary (plus S-ATA). Enhanced opens up the full array of options. 2 S-ATA drives are designated Master on each channel + the use of both Primary and Secondary P-ATA ports. You can imagine what S-ATA only does.
The mediocre VCore on offer is further hampered by the noticeable under-volting on the CPU line. Our test Samcheer 420w PSU has its lines pre-tweaked for a little extra on each rail. We still don't expect to see 12.80v on the 12v line. Interestingly, the DDR voltage seems to around 0.15v higher than specified manually in BIOS. A hardware monitoring section is only useful if it's accurate. The temperatures shown don't seem to correlate well with other board's.
One idiosyncrasy of this board was the fleeting inability of BIOS to pick up the names of any IDE devices. A 41GB hard drive and 52x CD-R/RW were installed, yet BIOS often insisted that nothing was present. Even with nothing deemed present, the board booted perfectly into our OS of choice.
