Bios, System Setup, notes, issues
The bios supplied on this motherboard is supplied by Award, and all the normal setting bar voltage adjustments. Interestingly the Nforce 2 chipset allows asynchronous memory settings. In this case the different memory speeds are expressed in percentages of the FSB, and they range from 50% all the way to 200% in 13 steps. For this review I have chosen to run the memory both at stock speed "sync" settings and 125% ie DDR333. The FSB is also changeable in 1Mhz steps from 100 to 200. Included again is the fan guardian system which can slow the speed of the fan so the noise is at a more bearable level.
All though I havent shown any pictures from the Bios I should point out that it contains everything you would expect in a full sized system. Anyone interested in this as a HTPC should also note the TV-Out can be configured to output in NTSC or PAL.
All in all the bios is as impressive as the Shuttle itself with all options present except the ability to adjust voltages.
CPU voltage cannot be changed from default.
DDR voltage cannot be changed from default.
Even with those limitations above i was able to obtain another 180Mhz from the cpu I used in this review with no trouble.
The usual hardware monitoring options are present.
Here's a quick rundown of the test systems should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.
- Shuttle SN41G2 run in DDR333 and DDR266 mode.
- Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB at stock speeds
- GF4 MX440 64MB at stock speeds
- Integrated GF4 MX 64MB shared memory
Common components
- AMD XP2400+
- 512MB Corsair pc3500 run at 2-5-2-2 at DDR333 and DDR266
- 80GB Seagate Barracuda ATA100 Hard Drive.
- Lite-on 40x CDRW
- 19" Compaq MV920 monitor
Software
- Windows XP Professional Build 2600.xpclient.010817-1148
- Bundled Motherboard drivers
- Catalyst 2.5 Radeon drivers
- Detonator XP 40.72 drivers
- Sisoft Sandra 2003 Professional
- Pifast v41
- Lame v3.91 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end
- Virtual Dub 1.4.10 DVD encoding, Diva 4.12 CODEC
- 3DMark 2001SE
- Comanche 4 benchmark
- Serious Sam 2 Demo
- Quake 3 v1.30
- Code Creatures Benchmark
- UT2003 Demo
Notes
I'm running the memory strict timings 2.5.2.2 in 266 and 333 modes. All benchmarks run with sound disabled.
Stability
I found this Shuttle was able to cope with everything i've thrown at it even when Overclocked.
Issues
I experienced nothing untoward with this system, but i'm not convinced the connectors near the AGP slot are in a good position.
Overclocking
With no voltage options I wasn't put off from trying to see how far I could push it, and managed 2180Mhz with stability.
Lets see how it performed....
