Motherboard Specifications

* Only available for the AMD K6-PR2/266

The Good

I've been closely watching this motherboard for some time now, and I finally received one for testing...I'm very glad I did! To me, the Shuttle HOT-565 has the perfect combination of qualities you would want in a motherboard. It features the basic 4 PCI / 3 ISA / 1 Shared expansion slot configuration, as well as 4 SIMM and 2 DIMM slots, however that's were the line of similarity ends between the HOT-565 and other average boards. The setup and configuration of the 565 is very integrated with this particular motherboard for a few reasons. The main reason the 565 excels in the configuration field is because of its superb jumper setting insert included with the motherboard, in addition to the easy to access jumpers with the most innovative feature I have seen implemented with jumper caps...long handles! Yes, the jumper caps bundled with the 565 have small extensions on the ends of them which allow you to more easily grasp the jumpers, perfect for switching settings between power-ons, and excellent for testing!!! The entire motherboard manual is located on a CDROM included with motherboard, yep, that means that there is no written documentation aside from the convenient insert which in my opinion is more than enough! The stability of the 565 is superb, it runs perfectly and flawlessly at 75 and 83.3MHz bus speeds, crashing at 66MHz bus speeds is basically unheard of with this board, just make sure you use some good SDRAM (see my Recommended SDRAM section below). The 565 also has a very useful setting, especially when using the AMD K6 which requires a tad bit more voltage than a Pentium MMX or 6x86MX (all three of which the 565 officially supports), by uncapping a simple jumper the HOT565 enables the user to increase the CPU core voltage by 2.5%. That came in handy when overclocking the AMD K6 to 208MHz without increasing the core voltage to 3.2v, a great feature in my opinion. Speaking of the AMD K6, the 565 is the only board I've run into that officially supports the upcoming AMD K6-PR2/266 with its 4.0x clock multiplier! Performance wise, the HOT-565 is one of the highest performing TX boards I've tested, and its overall speed is among the best I've benchmarked. However, as I've mentioned before you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the Winstone scores even though they are very good. You should consider the price and features of this board before considering the performance numbers, in any case the HOT-565 is an excellent TX board...

The Bad

The only downside to this board is a limitation provided to us by our friends at Intel with the i430TX Chipset, the limitation of 64MB of cacheable memory should be the only reason not to go with this motherboard. This is a very small downside for most users, however it can pose problems for those of you looking to run Windows NT4 with over 64MB of RAM. On the bright side though, the performance hit when using above 64MB of RAM is only about 10 - 20%.

IRQ Usage

• Allows user to individually set IRQs for each Legacy ISA card

• Allows user to reserve IRQ/DMA Channels if necessary

• Auto-detects PnP Cards after HDD Detection

BIOS Settings

Here are my Recommended BIOS Settings for those of you who have been having problems with the HOT-565 and higher bus speeds. Below are my recommended settings for bus speeds < 66MHz, and 75MHz. If you are using Non-EDO RAM, then use the settings the in the 2nd (Non - EDO) column, if you are using SDRAM/EDO RAM with a 50/60/66MHz bus speed use the 3rd (66MHz Setting) column. The next column should be used if you are using the 75/83MHz bus speeds and EDO/SDRAM. Finally, if you are looking for the safest and most stable setting, use the last column.

Shuttle HOT-565 Chipset Features Setup

Recommended SDRAM

This little addition to my review layout was put in here just so you all can have an idea of what brand of SDRAM I recommend and have tested with the board, just to avoid problems in the future if you decide to purchase the board.

Recommended SDRAM: Advanced Megatrends SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 2 x 32MB Advanced Megatrends SDRAM DIMMs

Manufacturer: Advanced Megatrends
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.megacom.com

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.

Test Configuration

Windows 95 Performance of the Shuttle HOT-565

The benchmarks speak for themselves, the Shuttle HOT-565 is an excellent performer which when coupled with the amazing quality, reliability, and stability you get with the board make it my recommendation for the best TX based motherboard on the market

Disk Performance of the Shuttle HOT-565

The Final Decision

If you are in the market for a TX based motherboard, by all means pick the Shuttle HOT-565. The 565 is great for the average user with a craving for speed as well as the die hard overclocker., kudos to Shuttle on an excellent product (btw...the Shuttle HOT-567 is supposedly the same board as the 565, with an ATX layout just incase you aren't too comfortable with an AT style board)