Motherboard: Shuttle AK31A V3.1 Review :: Introduction

Shuttle, the long time kings of mediocrity, have shed their old skin and re-invented themselves by leading the technology race instead of following it. Last year I sat down with Alan Lee and we discussed the future plans of Shuttle and how it could seriously compete in the world market with all the recent changes and the rapid decline of the desktop marketplace.

At that time I told Alan that being in the middle of the road is the worst place to be and that they should shift gears in their R&D department to focus primarily on the latest and greatest chipsets. Although risky it has a much better pay off when the product is well received by the market. Lately this new attitude and change have helped them immensely, and with those changes have come greater acceptance by the enthusiast buyer.

Being a leader is new for Shuttle but they seem to be catching on quick. The last few motherboards they have released have all been very uptown in quality and cutting edge in technology making them very appealing to a new audience of people who before would never have even considered a Shuttle product. The AK31 V3.1 is based on the the KT266A produced by Intel's main pain VIA. VIA is giving AMD's CPU line a major boost in performance especially with the release of the new AMD XP CPU's. This is a nice package. Read on to get all the goods on Shuttles latest Spacewalker venture.