Page 4: Shuttle
Shuttle
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About:
</b>
Shuttle has been making boards for quite some time. They survived the motherboard drop out since the super 7 days, and have risen to be one of the top producing companies in their market. They tend to limit their board choices to just a few chipsets, and are willing to take chances to capture new parts of the market. Their popularity is rising.
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Website:
</b>
http://www.shuttleonline.com/
http://spacewalker.com/
Performance:
Shuttle boards are rarely performers, usually they fall into the middle of bunch. Their boards often follow the reference designs. The constantly poor performance these boards obtain shows little for the thought and design that go into their products.
Rating: 5/10
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Stability:
</b>
These boards are often stable, but nothing that is impressive. In fact, they have released some boards which were extremely unstable, so bad that VIA had to correct the board design for them. I don't think that Shuttle's design team is quite capable yet. Overall, they usually produce a decently stable product, even if you have to comprise their features to gain stability.
Rating: 6/10
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Overclocking:
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This is something that shuttle just doesn't do well. They are not the worst, but they often lack good FSB controls, and voltage modifications. In addition to that, their FSB just does not raise that high. They have never, to my knowledge, done anything original further this area of their boards. But at least they still give for some extra performance
Rating: 6/10
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Price:
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This is Shuttle's main strength. They generally offer a basic board for a dirt cheap price. They have been running this way for years, and it hasn't let them down. Now that they are becoming a better known company, they may or may not keep this strategy. They are not always the cheapest, but you generally don't want to buy the cheapest boards.
Price: 9/10
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Features:
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Along with performance, this is where shuttle really fails. They just are not innovative. They follow reference designs, and keep the basic on board sound. Their latest board is offering RAID along with decent onboard sound, which is a true rarity from them. Unfortunately, the board is far from stable, with 3 DIMMs, and very unstable with all 4 filled. I'll say it again, Shuttle engineers just aren't capable.
Rating: 2/10
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History:
</b>
Shuttle's history surprisingly, is not all that bad. They have usually stuck with boards that are plain and cause few problems. There are exceptions like their AK31 rev1 which required the VIA redesign, and AK35GTR which is brand new, and looks awful. Their P4 boards seem decent, and don't cause too many issues. Their earlier socket 7 boards were always reliable. They are a mixed bag, but are much better than some companies.
Rating: 6.5/10
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Support
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Their web support is great, drivers, bios, etc. They also provide a forum on their website for information. I have never heard anything awful about their e-mail support, but nothing amazingly good, except to say that they will answer it.
Rating: 8/10
Products worth mentioning
AK31 rev2 was not a bad board, it was cheap, and that's it. It wasn't even fully designed by them, but I'll give them some credit for making up a horrible name. The SV24 is a ultra small computer, its not the most incredible product out there, but it is very interesting, and with some small modifications, could be almost as good as a full desktop computer. It's truly innovative
Rating: 4/10
Overall Rating: 5.9/10 Shuttle's boards are hit and miss, sometimes they are a disaster, sometimes they shine. If the boards have what you want on them, then you might want to take a chance and get one.
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