Shuttle AN51R Motherboard Review

Former staff writer - August 31, 2004

Overclocking:

As with most NF3 250 boards I have tested, overclocking is not a simple task. I would like to think that I achieved a stable overclock; but upon cold booting, the system would not post. I have had that problem on both the AN51R and the K8N. After a good bit of frustration, I finally found a stable speed of 240FSB. However, I did get the system prime 95 stable at 245FSb; but then had cold booting issues.

Conclusion:
This board is really geared towards the enthusiast, with the built in CMOS clear in the I/O panel, and the excellent selection of voltages in the Bios this is almost a perfect board, with the exception the low CPU and VDIMM max voltage. This was also the first time I was able to run a 5X HTT frequency at stock speeds and have complete system stability, this was no doubt indo to the boards ability to set a higher Chipset voltage. Knowing Shuttle usually has a lower point while offering the same features as others at a higher price, this with out a doubt will make the AN51R a worthy successor to the immensely popular AN50R. With AMD recently announcing the value based Sempron processors, the AN51R coupled with a 3100+ (Sempron) would make a hell of a fast system for not to much dough.

Pros