Shuttle

Shuttle had quite a large stand at Computex, and they used this space to showcase their latest motherboards and barebones systems. Shuttle have become very popular in recent months with the release of these barebones systems, as they offer high performance for use as a home entertainment system or game server, yet feature such a small footprint. One of their latest barebones systems was hooked up to a PC to show exactly what a Shuttle barebones system is capable of. This particular system was called the S540G which consisted of an AthlonXP running on a SiS740-based motherboard with onboard video.

Shuttle also had a variety of motherboards on display. The first one that caught my eye was their P4X333 board, the AV49N. It features DDR333 memory support, AGP 8x, 6-channel onboard audio and 6 USB 2.0 ports. We'll have our P4X333 reference motherboard review posted within the next week or two.

They also had their i845G and i845GL boards on display. Both of these feature onboard graphics and DDR266 support, however, the i845G includes an AGP slot and the i845GL does not. We found that Intel's "Extreme Graphics" solution used in the i845G chipset was sufficient for the non-gamer, however, it could not run current games at a sufficient framerate. As well as DDR266 support and onboard video, Shuttle's i845G (MB45N) and i845GL (MB47N) boards feature 3 PCI slots, 4-channel audio, 6 USB 2.0 ports and onboard 10/100 Ethernet. The i845G/GL chipsets are great for people looking for a cheap, integrated motherboard, however, enthusiasts will most likely want to steer clear.

A Crush18D reference board was another interesting product on display at Shuttle's booth. The Crush18D chipset supports DDR400 memory and will be directly competing with VIA's KT400 chipset and ALi's new chipset. Unlike the Crush18D board we showed you yesterday, the board at Shuttle's booth featured integrated video and will come with an AGP riser that adds TV and DVI outputs.

Remember the new SiS648 chipset we talked about in yesterday's coverage? Well, Shuttle had their SiS648 based motherboard on display at their stand, called the AS45GT. It features DDR333 support, AGP 8x, ATA133, Serial ATA and 6-channel audio.