Around 10 years ago, everyone envisioned the year 2000 as being the time when we'd all be driving around in flying cars and talking to robots about last night's basketball game. While that may be a stretch, everyone envisioned the turn of the millenium being the point at which technology would truly become more of an integral part of our lives. Depending on the type of computer user you are, this may or may not have already come true. The point is this, computers are becoming an increasingly popular presence in the home, and with that the fight over using a single computer in a home where more than one person is interested in using it is becoming increasingly popular as well. The solution?

For many, the solution has been building a second system. Usually, when constructing a secondary system you don't want to spend an incredible amount of money, so cutting corners is encouraged. The most popular way of doing so, instead of going out and buying the latest in crap-peripherals, seems to be turning towards the idea of a motherboard with integrated sound/video.

Shuttle, a company that is notorious for releasing enough products to tend to the needs of virtually any consumer, has jumped on the highly integrated motherboard bandwagon, especially with their latest release, the MB11. Let's have a look at those specs...

New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
79/C-

The Good

The MB11 features Shuttle's standard pseudo-jumperless CPU setup, which basically allows for the CPU to be configured either via jumpers or once inside the Award BIOS setup. Fortunately, the Socket-370 standard does have its benefits in this area. Since all Celeron processors are multiplier locked, they cannot possibly run at any frequency other than what they're designed to operate at unless you change the FSB setting. Because of this, as long as the MB11 remains at its default setting of 66MHz, you can just stick in any Celeron and boot 'er up at the proper speed without spending a minute of time on configuration.

Building on the trend of integration, the MB11 features an integrated Creative ES1373 audio controller, which is a welcome change from the poor quality integrated sound controllers that dominated the market just a year ago. The ES1373 is a PCI audio solution, and is definitely able to provide for your basic needs, although it's not the latest in 3D audio, it'll pump the sounds you want at a cost that is quite affordable (due to the decrease in manufacturing costs vs a full sound card).

Shuttle provides a complete set of drivers included on a bundled CD for the Rage Pro, and the ES1373. Also included to supplement the CD-ROM is Shuttle's standard Quick Installations Guide and the full set of written documentation on the CD-ROM.

The stability of the MB11 seemed to be average during AnandTech's torture tests, but that can be expected from a motherboard directed at the low-cost market. Nevertheless, the MB11 comes through as a motherboard that is able to produce the bare minimum for a low-cost second system, with a decent feature set.

The Bad

Does Shuttle get the recommendation?   Unfortunately, no.  Usually AnandTech refrains from making comments on a motherboard's performance, simply because of the fact that most motherboards perform within a few percent of one another.  However the MB11 performed noticeably worse than even the slowest of Socket-370 motherboards AnandTech has reviewed.  This could be partially attributed to the 2D performance of the on-board ATI Rage Pro Turbo accelerator. 

If the performance isn't a discouraging factor for you, there are a few design issues that need to be addressed.  The placement of the electrolytic capacitors around the Socket-370 interface make it quite difficult to clamp a heatsink/fan combo onto the processor, especially for those users with slightly larger fingers. 

Secondly, the pseudo-jumperless configuration has been a feature that Shuttle has stuck with for quite some time for very little reason.   It is time that the company pursues an entirely jumperless configuration for those users that do want to experiment with higher FSB settings, while the CPU PnP features are implemented, it's about time to get rid of the jumpers. 

The Installations Guide is a helpful tool if you want a quick spec sheet on the motherboard, however it would be preferred if the motherboard were to come with both a quick guide as well as a hard copy of a full fledged user's manual.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 256MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM DIMM (for compatibility testing only)

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 256MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM DIMM (for compatibility testing only)

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

AnandTech Motherboard Testing Methodology

The Final Decision

AnandTech has been giving out final decisions for close to two years now, and during that time a number of manufacturers that normally have incredible products have received a thumbs down.  It's not a recommendation that is intended to ruin a company, rather it's a call to action.  Shuttle has between now and September to get their act together, and Intel is providing three new chipsets for them to try their hands at.  Let's hope, for Shuttle's sake, that they can put the 810 and the upcoming 820 to good use.

How it Rates

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.