Barebone systems have become very popular lately. If the sets including a small PC case and a mainboard used to be acquired as a basis for an office PC, now these systems get more and more beloved by the regular users willing to get a nice solution for home use. This can be first of all explained by the fact that some barebone system makers have drastically changed their own attitude to these solutions. Now a barebone is not just a small low-cost system. This is a stylish-looking PC case with a mainboard inside, which boasts all the latest and greatest features despite its relatively small size.

The one to cause all these changes appeared Shuttle Company. Having predicted the growing demand for barebone systems among home users, this company suggested and put into life their own concept of Small Form Factor PCs. Barebones from Shuttle intended for SFF PC assembly are completely different from what the other manufacturers offered a while ago. Shuttle was the first company to pay due attention to the fact that SFF PCs were convenient, easy to use systems, and designed the whole family of excellent barebone systems shaped as small cubes and stuffed with the latest full-featured mainboards.

Shuttle “cubes” very quickly turned into bestsellers. The company, which had never sold any barebone systems before, very rapidly became the leader in this market. A very successful example of Shuttle cubes proved highly convincing, so that today there are a few more manufacturers ready to ship their SFF “cubes”. So today we are going to take a closer look at three different cubes based on i845GE chipset offered by Shuttle, Soltek and FIC.

All of them are of similar shape and size, and boast similar features, but still each has something unique about it. Let’s try to find out which cube of the three is the best: the good old Shuttle buddy or the newcomers from Soltek or FIC.