Review of Socket 7 PCI Motherboards
Shuttle
Shuttle HOT-553
This was one of the rare boards which need to be equipped with a VRM module to provide the lower CPU core frequencies. There are a lot of newer boards available and performance feeling is not very exciting. Furthermore there is no support for 75 or 83 MHz (but down to 40 MHz, I was really surprised), due to its age I think. For the same reason, the K6 233 was logged in as K5 at 233 MHz, I had no time to look for a newer BIOS. The TAGRAM (8 Bit) can be replaced by a wider one to be able to 'cache' more than 64 MB. This board is no longer up to date. If you want a HX chipset board, select the ABit IT5H or the Asus P55T2P4, they already have 512 kB pipelined burst Cache and are much faster.
AT format; AT power supply; Intel 430HX; 4x ISA, 4x PCI; 4x SIMM; Award flash BIOS; 512 kB PB-Cache (6 ns); external frequencies: 50, 60, 66 MHz; BF2 jumper not equipped, I/O chip: UMC; busmaster DMA 2 or PIO 4 onboard; FDC onboard; 2x serial 16550; 1x EPP/ECP parallel; 1x PS/2 mouse; core voltages: 3.2, 2.9V, 2.8V.
Shuttle HOT-565
Here we have a very hot board. It comes with Intel' 82430TX chipset and gustily benchmark results. Shuttle always uses larger jumpers, furthermore they are coloured. The 6x86MX produced hangups under Windows NT (entirely at 75 MHz bus), but 83 MHz bus clock ran fine under Windows NT, in this configuration Windows 95 performance seems to be very good as well. The slow motion BIOS settings brought no improvement. The board does support 83 MHz bus clock without a word in the manual, you only have to know that JP36 has to be closed at 5-6.
AT format; AT power supply; Intel 430TX; 3x ISA, 4x PCI; 4x SIMM, 2x DIMM; Award flash BIOS; 512 kB PB-Cache (6 ns); external frequencies: 50, 60, 66, 75 MHz; BF2 jumper missing, I/O chip: ITE; busmaster Ultra DMA 2 or PIO 4 onboard; FDC onboard; 2x serial 16550; 1x EPP/ECP parallel; 1x PS/2 mouse (without connector); IrDA support; core voltages: 3.3V, 3.2V, 2.9V, 2.8V.
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