Motherboards in 2001 Preview: Part 2

Shuttle

Compared to other companies, Shuttle has fewer DDR solutions - only two for Intel processors. We did not see any i850 solutions either, but we did see some interesting products that show Shuttle is clearly focused on OEM system builders.

This is the AV31, one of the two DDR solutions from Shuttle. It uses the VIA Apollo Pro266 chipset and has 4 DDR DIMM slots and 6 PCI slots.

The AV32 is very similar to the AV31, but it has 2 DDR DIMM slots and 2 SDR DIMM slots, giving users the flexibility to stay with their older PC100/PC133 SDRAM. It also has 5 PCI, 1 ACR, and 1 AGP slots.

Here we have the FV22 from Shuttle. If you look carefully, this board does not have any expansion slots at all. It uses the VIA PL133 chipset, which has integrated S3 Savage 4 video. They use the 686A South Bridge, which features a total of four USB ports. It also has on-board sound as well as a LAN controller. Therefore, we can see that this board is designed solely for OEM builders looking to build extremely small and extremely cost effective products - possibly even some set-top boxes could use such a product. We expect the price of the board to be quite cheap, since everything is integrated and it is in the Flex-ATX format.

This is the MV16E, which also uses the VIA PL133 This time, the South Bridge is the VIA 686B, giving it Ultra ATA 100 support.

The board above, the MV17E, is very similar to the MV16E, except that it uses the VIA PM133 chipset. Both the VIA PL133 and the VIA PM133 chipsets have S3 Savage 4 video integrated in the North Bridge, but the PM133 chipset supports an extra external AGP device if you want to upgrade later. Remember that both the PM133 and PL133 are based on the core design of the VIA Apollo Pro 133A.