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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/230
Shuttle HOT-681 BX Socket-370
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 20, 1999 7:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Never in the history of processor releases has there been a new processor standard released that was met with as many chipset options as the Socket-370 PPGA Celeron processor has. VIA has already shown support from the start for the platform with their Apollo Pro+ adapted to the Socket-370 platform, it won't be long before SiS ports their 5600 chipset over to Socket-370 as well. What about the Celery-hungry boys in blue over at Intel? They've got their own ingredients to this chipset salad. Not only is Intel supporting their low-cost baby with their new low-cost 440ZX chipset, they have even taken the old 440LX chipset out of retirement and paired it up with the 440BX chipset to provide more than one solution for virtually all users.
At its release, the Socket-370 already had 4 chipset solutions ready and waiting for motherboard manufacturers to gobble them up. Although it would definitely be pointless for a manufacturer to release both ZX and LX solutions, luckily they are pin compatible. Modifying a LX Socket-370 motherboard design for use with the ZX chipset isn't too big of an ordeal, a security option most manufacturers are willing to take just in case they ever happen to run out of their supply of overstocked LX chipset parts. And as you might be able to expect, leave it to Shuttle to take their standard, "one-of-each," approach to motherboard manufacturing and release LX, BX, and Apollo Pro+ based Socket-370 solutions.
AnandTech has already taken a look at the low-end HOT-683 LX based solution, but now it's time for a model number downgrade and a chipset upgrade with the 440BX based Shuttle HOT-681. How well does it stack up against the threats from companies like Microstar that have already released proven high-end BX based Socket-370 boards? Let's take a moment to find out...
New Anand Tech Report Card Rating 81/C
Do not compare newer ratings to older ones, the newer ratings are much more aggressive
CPU Interface | Socket-370 |
Chipset | Intel 440BX |
L2 Cache | N/A (on-chip) |
Form Factor | ATX |
Bus Speeds | 66 / 75 /
83 100 / 103 / 112 / 133 |
Clock Multipliers | 3.0x - 6.0x |
Voltages Supported | 2.0v (Auto Detect) |
Memory Slots | 3 168pin DIMM Slots |
Expansion Slots | 1 AGP
Slot 4 PCI Slots (4 Full Length) 3 ISA Slots (1 Shared / 3 Full Length) |
BIOS | Award BIOS |
The Good
If you're going to take the "one-of-each" approach to motherboard manufacturing, why not also take the same approach to expansion slot configuration on your boards? Shuttle's almost classic 4/3/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP) expansion slot configuration will be the discerning factor between the HOT-681 and its competitors, most of which will opt for a more common 5/2/1 configuration or maybe a 4/1/1 configuration depending on the target market. The 4/3/1 configuration can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, from the perspective of a user with an ISA modem, ISA sound card and maybe even an old ISA SCSI card, the HOT-681 is a high-end Socket-370 dream come true (hey, it can happen). | |
From the perspective of a user with a new high speed internet connection, therefore a lack of interest in incredible numbers of ISA slots to populate, as well as a user that already invested in a 3D PCI sound card, and maybe even a high-performance PCI SCSI adapter, the HOT-681's 4/3/1 configuration is a little less than desirable. | |
Regardless of the type of user you are, there is no changing the facts, the HOT-681 comes outfitted with a 4/3/1 configuration to supplement its 3 DIMM slots for a complete expansion package. Bringing back memories from the old Socket-7 TX days, the Shuttle HOT-681 placed Intel's 443BX chip (the larger of the two chip BX solution, the other being the PIIX4e Bus Master IDE controller) due left of the Socket-370 PGA interface, allowing for the airflow of the ATX power supply to cool the processor, and the airflow from the CPU fan channeled through the fins of the heatsink to cool the surface of the 443BX chip's heatsink and help remove heat more effectively. |
The design of the HOT-681 is strictly, by-the-book, ATX laid out, with the ATX power supply connector conveniently placed in the lower right hand corner of the motherboard. The FDD/HDD cable connectors are placed directly to the left of the power supply connector, allowing for easy access and removing many cooling problems associated with stray IDE cables crowding your ATX case. The layout of the HOT-681 also places a CPU fan connector directly adjacent to the CPU socket, with another fan connector on the open side of the AGP port to allow for easier access when you're just blindly plugging in fans into your already filled system.
Like most newer motherboards, the HOT-681 supports wake-on LAN, as well as a handful of other PC98 features and useful BIOS "trinkets" such as system monitoring, etc... The HOT-681 is also paired up with Shuttle's also classic Installation's Guide which serves as a quick pamphlet that contains the core of the setup information about the HOT-681. If you've never used a Shuttle motherboard before, the Installation's Guide is your classic quick reference guide, however featuring only relevant information, and lots of it. You won't find any annoying dry-humor jokes popped in the manual, just the jumper settings you were looking for, and all the information you could ever want to know about your motherboard. Shuttle, like virtually all other manufacturers, bundles the HOT-681 with a Drivers/Utility CD-ROM drive to help you out in need.
As most newer Shuttle boards support, the HOT-681 features Shuttle's SoftMenu-like CPU PnP setup which automatically detects the clock multiplier and voltage settings for your CPU. Naturally, the HOT-681 properly detected the Intel Celeron 366 AnandTech used in the tests and proceeded to allow AnandTech to conduct the tests on the motherboard. The stability of the HOT-681 was somewhat, although not to an incredibly noticeable degree, less than that of Microstar's MS-6153, a truly flattering comparison from a stability point. The performance of the HOT-681 is pretty much average for a Socket-370 board, don't expect performance to fluctuate too incredibly much among Socket-370 boards, just like it does not fluctuate between Slot-1 BX motherboards.
The Bad
The HOT-681's 4/3/1 expansion slot configuration could very well be considered a poor quality of the HOT-681, another reason Shuttle's BX based 681 will probably turn out to be second or third out of Shuttle's Socket-370 boards in sales. Even if the 4/3/1 configuration doesn't bother you, the last ISA slot is positioned in such a manner that it is placed virtually flush against the front panel I/O block, making installing the reset switch and HDD LED an unnecessarily difficult task. Also surrounding the last ISA slot is the clear CMOS jumper, which was carefully positioned in an extremely hard to pull area, placed flush against that last ISA slot. It looks like the 3rd ISA slot is the place to be on this motherboard.
The placement of the first two fan connectors on the board was ideal, however the trend did not carry over into the placement of the third connector, which made its way between the last two PCI slots, a very difficult place to plug a fan into unless you've got any and all surrounding cards out of the way.
Although the 681 detects the clock multiplier and the core voltage (not too big of a deal from a motherboard manufacturer's standpoint with the new clock-locked Celeron processors), it fails to do the same for the FSB frequency. Instead of offering users the option of manually setting up the FSB frequency for overclocking purposes and auto-detecting it for those that aren't interested in overclocking, the HOT-681 simply fails to auto-detect the FSB. If you're going to go with a jumperless setup, you might as well go all the way. Just make sure that if you do happen to come across a HOT-681, that the proper jumper is capped for the FSB setting as very few Socket-370 Celeron 366's will work at 100 x 5.5. Also, the absence of a core voltage manipulation setting in the BIOS or even on the motherboard is a disappointment, especially to those users that may have processors with a potential to be overclocked with a little voltage kick.
In spite of the ease of use the Installation's Guide provides, beginners will find that the guide fails to address the process of installing a motherboard to any great detail, a definite flaw with Shuttle's otherwise excellent documentation.
USB Compatibility
Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0
Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2
USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes
USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes
Recommended SDRAM
Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100
SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com
Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com
The Test
In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.
How I Tested
Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again. All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.
Business Winstone 98 & 3D Winbench 98 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed. If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed
All video tests were conducted using an AGP video accelerator
No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability
All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results
All tests were conducted at 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color
Quake 2 tests were conducted at 800 x 600 x 16-bit color in Software Rendering Mode
Test Configuration |
|
Processor(s): | Intel Celeron 366 |
RAM: | 1 - 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM 1 - 64MB Memory Man PC100 SDRAM DIMM |
Hard Drive(s): | Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA |
Video Card(s): | Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB SGRAM - AGP) |
Bus Master Drivers: | Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers |
Video Drivers: | MGA Millennium G200 Release 1677-411 |
Operation System(s): | Windows 98 |
Motherboard Revision: | Shuttle HOT-681 Revision 1.2 |
Windows 98 Performance |
||||
Winstone | Quake 2 | |||
Business 98 | Business 99 | Quake 2 demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 | |
Intel Celeron 366 (66MHz FSB) | 26.0 | 18.1 | 14.4 | 11.0 |
A true example of the equivalence in performance between the LX and BX chipsets with 66MHz FSB Celeron processors, the HOT-681 performed identically to its LX based sister, the HOT-683.
The BX based HOT-681 doesn't offer any significant advantages over the HOT-683 (LX) to justify purchasing it, simply because most 66MHz FSB Celeron processors aren't of a high enough yield to overclock reliably to their 100MHz FSB counterparts (i.e. 366 -> 550MHz, 400 -> 600MHz) leaving a HOT-681 owner with nothing more than a more expensive Socket-370 board, with a few useless settings. It seems like the sweet spot for Socket-370 may in fact lie in the realm of the VIA Apollo Pro+. Make way for Shuttle's HOT-681V.
AnandTech Motherboard Rating |
|
Business | |
Performance | 81% |
Price | 80% |
Ease of Use | 85% |
Overclocked Stability | 80% |
General Stability | 88% |
Quality | 82% |
Documentation | 75% |
Reliability | 80% |
Overall Rating | 81% |
The
New Rating System
Each motherboard is rated in 8 areas, Performance, Price, Ease of Use, Overclocked
Stability, Stability, Quality, Documentation, and Reliability.
Do not compare newer scores to older ones, the newer scores are much more aggressive
Performance - How well the motherboard compares to others in its class
Price - How competitive the price of the motherboard is when compared to others in its class
Ease of Use - How easy it is to setup the motherboard, jumper settings, jumperless configuration etc...
Overclocked Stability - How stable the motherboard is at overclocked CPU/Bus speeds
Stability - How stable the motherboard is at normal CPU/Bus speeds
Quality - How much effort went into producing the motherboard
Documentation - How helpful is the manual and bundled support manuals
Reliability - How long will this motherboard last, will it fail? Deals with quantity/size of capacitors, known bugs, etc...
Overall Rating - an average of the eight above areas