by FastSite
01/08/2003 | 12:00 AM
Today we will once again talk about the Small Form Factor PC concept. And we would like to point out first that the system to be reviewed today is quite different from the recently-tested small form-factor barebone system from FIC (see our Samba(SM)-1845: Small Form-Factor PC from FIC article). <%BANNER[article]%>
The thing is that advanced users became interested in SFF PCs, although initially they were targeted at unsophisticated users for work with office applications, surfing the Web or watching video at home or office. Well, it's really convenient to have a noiseless and stylish-looking system case rather than a big and roaring desktop PC. Of course, such solutions with pretty small dimensions are not universal, but many users would feel quite happy with a PC featuring a powerful CPU, an AGP graphics card, one HDD, one optical drive and only one expansion card. So, the small but powerful SFF PCs have their guaranteed niche in the market.
So, there appeared manufacturers willing to occupy this vacant niche. Especially, as the whole semiconductor industry is suffering a long-time crisis and companies search for more opportunities to sell their products.
The Shuttle Company was the first one to start producing powerful SFF PCs and to succeed in this filed. We should note that although the barebone PCs from Shuttle may be used for rather high-performance computers, they are also positioned as competitors to the classical Small Form Factor PC for home and office.
So, let's have a look at SFF PCs from Shuttle. They do break all our presuppositions about small and noiseless computers. For this review, Shuttle provided us with two top-end configurations: for AMD Athlon XP and for Intel Pentium 4 CPUs.
The two Small Form Factor PCs from Shuttle, which we've got into our test lab, are SK41G and SB51G (their common name is XPC). They support different processors and differ a lot by their specs. So, let's discuss them one by one.
The first barebone PC reviewed here is Shuttle SB51G. It supports Socket478 Intel Pentium 4 and Intel Celeron processors that work at 400MHz or 533MHz system bus. The system is built on the integrated i845GE chipset from Intel. It supports external AGP 4x graphics cards, too. It should be noted that, thanks to the one of the most up-to-date chipsets, SB51G can theoretically work with the top-end CPUs from the Pentium 4 family and fully support the Hyper-Threading technology. This SFF PC also differs from similar products by the available support of high-end DDR333 SDRAM. Note that the ICH4 South Bridge provides SB51G with a lot of useful qualities: from USB 2.0 to networking and 6-channel sound. Shuttle also equipped the mainboard used in SB51G with a few extra chips to add IEEE1394 ports support.
Before we introduce to you the Shuttle SB51G, let's take a look at its package (another SFF PCs from Shuttle come in similar boxes).
This box contains a nice little "cube", which is the new barebone system from Shuttle. In order for you to better understand how big it is, we made a snapshot of it beside a traditional mini-tower from Inwin:
Note that while Small Form Factor PCs from other manufacturers are designed like "thin" rectangles, Shuttle chose the "cubic" shape. This engineering solution has a number of advantages, the main is the opportunity to squeeze in more components. This brick is also stylish-looking, which is emphasized by the translucent plastic that covers the front panel of the reviewed SFF PC. By the way, this plastic can be easily removed to insert some picture beneath. So, the user's got a lot of opportunities to change the look of the "brick".
Here are the specifications of Shuttle SB51G:
The package also includes a cooling system and an optional riser card, which is installed into the AGP slot to implement TV-Out and DVI outputs when the integrated graphics core is used.
Note that Shuttle doesn't ship a 3.5" 1.44MB FDD with its barebone system. Today it's not a necessary part for a computer, thus this may be even regarded as an advantage.
The second barebone system is Shuttle SK41G. It looks a lot like its above-discussed mate. At first sight there seem to be only two external differences: different front panel color and a TV-Out instead of the SPDIF out at the back panel.
But the external similarity conceals quite a different stuffing. Shuttle SK41G is based on the VIA KM266 chipset and supports Socket A CPUs with 200MHz and 266MHz system bus. Unfortunately, Athlon XP CPUs with 333MHz bus are not supported due to chipset limitations. But as there are no integrated chipsets in the market with higher functionality, SK41G will be the top model in the barebone series from Shuttle for AMD processors. Well, this is going to end with the beginning of mass production of the nForce2 IGP from NVIDIA. If we disregard the fact that Shuttle SK41G doesn't support new Athlon XP CPUs and works only with DDR200/DDR266 SDRAM, all the other characteristics of this SFF PC will not be any worse than those of analogous products for Intel processors.
Shuttle SK41G allows using both: the integrated graphics core and external AGP 4x graphics cards. It also has an expansion slot. The up-to-date VIA VT8235 South Bridge supports USB 2.0, LAN and six-channel AC'97 sound. Just like in SB51G, IEEE1394 ports are implemented via an external chip.
SK51G comes in a similar box, which contents doesn't actually differ from that of SB51G. Here is the full list of Shuttle SK41G specifications:
Note that TV-Out support is available in the standard Shuttle SK41G configuration, while DVI output cannot be implemented by the integrated graphics core in this system.
As the both "cubes" look very similar to one another, we will talk about both of them at a time here.
The front panel of the both SFF PCs carries two USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE1394 port, a headphones output, a microphone input and an optical SPDIF output. There are also Power-on and Reset buttons. Besides, there are two brackets that cover front sides of the bays where the 3.5" FDD and 5" optical drive may be installed. We should note, though, that if you install into the bay a device with an "output", the stylish color palette of the front panel would be somewhat disturbed, because the external part of the bays is not covered by any lids or the like as in barebones from other manufacturers.
Let's come up to Shuttle SK41G and SB51G from behind. Besides the power supply connector, the back panel carries two serial ports, a video output for the integrated graphics core, two IEEE1394 connectors, two USB 2.0 ports, an RJ45 connector for network, six-channel audio outputs and PS/2 connectors for the mouse and keyboard. Moreover, SK41G features a TV-Out, while SB51G - an SPDIF output. Note that among all this stuff there is no parallel port, so you will have to use USB printers with these Shuttle barebone systems. You can also see two brackets that stand instead of expansion cards, one of which is against the AGP slot and the other is against the only PCI slot. Note that DVI and TV-Outs in Shuttle SB51G may be implemented via a daughter-card plugged into the AGP slot. SK41G doesn't support DVI displays when the integrated graphics core is used.
We would also like to say a few words about the case in which Shuttle integrates its SFF PC or, if you don't mind, XPC. As the company positions its SFF barebone systems somewhat higher than an ordinary noiseless computer, they made the case of pure non-colored aluminum. As a result, the XPC from Shuttle is lighter than competitor products and looks somewhat unusual. It's a known fact that aluminum conducts heat better than traditional steel so, considering the small size of the case, the choice of this material may be of some help for the heat takeoff.
To emphasize the fact that Shuttle SK41G and SB51G are something more than an ordinary barebone system, the company offers a few accessories to make the exterior of the product more unusual. Among them: multicolor plastic covers for the front panel, bulbs to highlight it and a bag to carry the XPC in.
We had at our disposal a luminous cover for the front panel. After we replaced the ordinary panel with the luminous one (it can be done very easily), the XPC from Shuttle served not only as a computer, but also as a desk lamp. :)
The luminous panel package also includes a required inverter as well as a mounting six-rib spanner.
To sum up our overview of the barebones from Shuttle, we have to say that in order to transform the carcass into a fully-fledged computer, you will need a processor, memory, a hard disk drive and an optical drive. Optional are a 3" FDD, an external AGP graphics card and a PCI expansion card.
Now let's take a closer look at the components of our barebone systems. First come the mainboards used in Shuttle SK41G and SB51G. Although the two mainboards support quite different processors, they have got a lot of similarities in their design and functions. This is largely due to the peculiarities of the case the mainboards are installed in. We will discuss the mainboards one by one, though. So, first we will look inside Shuttle SB51G, where we find the mainboard for Socket478 CPUs.
This barebone system is built on FB51 mainboard also manufactured by Shuttle. Although this mainboard was developed specifically for SFF PCs, it can be purchased separately, too.
FB51 is a very compact product based on the i845GE chipset with ICH4 South Bridge. As you know, i845GE is the integrated version of the new Intel's chipset, i845PE, with an integrated 266MHz Intel Extreme Graphics core.
The North Bridge provides support for AGP 4x slot and DDR memory (there are two 184-pin DIMM slots onboard). Shuttle FB51 is compatible with all Socket478 processors from Intel, the new Pentiums 4 with the Hyper-Threading technology included. As for memory clock-rate, it is set in BIOS Setup at 200, 266 or 333MHz depending on the type of memory used.
Shuttle FB51 is equipped with an external AGP 4x slot and one PCI slot. The upgradeability of the product ends here. But considering the number of integrated controllers onboard, these two slots must be quite enough. Moreover, the AGP slot may serve either for graphics subsystem upgrade or for the implementation of additional DVI and TV outs with the help of a special riser card.
As for the PCI slot, the only application for it that comes to mind is installation of a modem. An average user just won't need anything more in an FB51-based system. Just look: the mainboard has six USB 2.0 ports implemented in ICH4 South Bridge (Shuttle SB51G case has four ports), three IEEE1394 ports (VIA VT6306 controller), a network Realtek RTL8100B controller, a six-channel AC'97 sound (Avance Logic ALC650 chip) and two ATA/100 channels support.
As we mentioned above, the XPCs from Shuttle lack a parallel port, but the mainboard itself isn't the one to blame. This port has been laid out on it, but there was simply no place at the back panel of the PCB to place it. As a result, this port is available via an external connector, attached to the onboard connector. The external connector is not included into the shipment package, but can be ordered optionally.
We should also point out to you that the FB51 mainboard boasts a few features, which cannot be found in Shuttle SB51G SFF PC. For example, the mainboard allows connecting an infrared port through a special socket. The port itself is not designed in the "cube".
Shuttle FB51 mainboard has no jumpers, except Clear CMOS. No wonder as it is installed into small cases where you can hardly get inside. So, the configuration of the integrated devices is done via BIOS Setup, which is based on the Award BIOS 6.00PG code.
The BIOS of Shuttle FB51 offers certain opportunities for CPU overclocking. Since Shuttle SB51G SFF PC is positioned as a competitor to desktops, this option stands to reason. So, BIOS Setup allows setting the FSB frequency from 100 to 165MHz with 1MHz increment (the 100-132MHz range is for CPUs with 100MHz bus, the133-165MHz range is for CPUs with 133MHz bus). So, some overclockers may come to like the small systems from Shuttle. At the same time, the mainboard used in SB51G has no options for voltages adjustment and AGP/PCI frequency adjustment so this PC shouldn't be regarded as an overclocker's platform after all.
Now, let's have a look at the Shuttle FX41 mainboard, which is used in the barebone system for AMD processors.
The FX41 mainboard is based on the VIA KM266 chipset with the VIA VT8235 South Bridge supporting USB 2.0. As you probably know, the standard configuration of KM266 includes an older VIA VT8233 South Bridge with less attractive features. Today, KM266 is the most up-to-date integrated chipset from VIA for Socket A platforms. This chipset is equipped with the S3 Graphics ProSavage8 core with internal AGP 8x bus support and hardware DVD Motion Compensation support.
Besides the integrated graphics core, the chipset supports an external AGP 4x port of Shuttle FX41. As for the memory, KM266 works with DDR200/DDR266 SDRAM. FX41 is equipped with two DDR DIMM slots for 184-pin memory modules. The memory bus frequency, like in FB51, is set through BIOS Setup, but unlike FB51, FX41 doesn't support DDR333.
The list of supported processors looks limited, too. Shuttle FX41 can only work with AMD Athlon XP, Athlon and Duron CPUs with 200 and 266MHz bus. The new Athlon XP CPUs with 333MHz bus are not supported because of the chipset limitations.
FX41 carries the same integrated equipment onboard as FB51, so there is no need to describe it once again. The only difference is a Chrontel 7005C chip that implements a TV-Out. The DVI-output is not available by FX41.
Funny enough, Shuttle FX41 has not only the standard power supply connector, but also an additional 12V connector that's usually used in Pentium 4 mainboards. But it doesn't mean that FX41 sets any special requirements for the power supply. It's just that the barebone systems from Shuttle intended for Pentium 4 and Athlon XP processors both use the same power supply units.
Like all present-day Socket A mainboards, FX41 features an integrated CPU overheating protection system. If the temperature measured by the external Socket A thermistor is above some threshold value (as set in BIOS Setup), the system shuts down and a special onboard LED lights up indicating that the shut-down has occurred because of overheating.
The BIOS Setup in FX41 offers some overclocking options. Thus, this platform may be considered as a solution for advanced users. The onboard jumper allows changing the basic FSB frequency between 100 and 133MHz. You can further fine-tune it in BIOS Setup: from 100 to 165MHz with 1MHz increment. The BIOS Setup in FX41 also allows adjusting all the main memory timings. From the overclocker's point of view, the FX41 mainboard has two serious disadvantages, though. Firstly, you cannot manually adjust any voltages. Secondly, and it's more important, this mainboard doesn't allow changing the CPU multiplier.
The power supply units are important components of SFF PCs. They should be small and at the same time provide enough power. Both reviewed XPC from Shuttle come with the same power supply unit, which should comply with special requirements. As Shuttle positions its systems for high-end market, this power supply unit must be able to work with most powerful CPUs and graphics cards.
So, the company chose to use in its Shuttle SK41G and SB51G a 200W small-size PSU from ACHME. This should be enough to supply the CPU (up to 100W), the graphics card (up to 50W), the HDD (up to 15W) and all the other system components. It's also handy that this PSU has six cables for connecting various devices, besides the 20-pin cable for the mainboard. After connecting the additional 12V cable to the mainboard, and connecting the HDD, optical drive and FDD, there remain two "tails" left. You can use them for powering a second HDD or a graphics card like ATI RADEON 9700 PRO that requires extra power.
We would like to mention that the power supply unit from ACHME has no ordinary 110V/220V switch. The point is that this PSU can work at any supply line voltage lying within this range without any additional effort on user's part.
There is a small fan in the PSU that serves to cool the internal PSU components.
The most interesting technological solution in the barebones from Shuttle is the cooling system, of course. The small size of a SFF PC does not allow putting several fans into it. That's why most manufacturers try to do with one fan only. Moreover, with a not very fast one, so that the system could be quiet.
Both reviewed XPC from Shuttle follow this design. They both have only one 80mm fan mounted at the inside of the case back panel. This fan blows the air throughout the entire case and also takes heat off the CPU. Under the fan there is an additional heatsink that receives heat from the CPU. The heat comes to this heatsink in a simple and effective way: the Shuttle system uses heat pipes technology.
In order to understand the way the CPU is cooled in this system, let's get acquainted with the construction of the CPU cooler that was created with the help of I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine) brand name technology.
The CPU cooler itself consists of three parts: the heatsink, through which the fan blows the air, a small heatsink with aluminum or copper sole mounted right onto the CPU and four heat-conducting pipes that connect the heatsinks. The system works this way: after the heatsink mounted on the CPU is heated up, the heat is taken via the pipes to the first heatsink. The hot air is blown off it by the fan. This rather simple description conceals a witty technology of heat-conducting pipes functioning.
George Grover, an engineer, invented the first heat-conducting pipe as we know it in 1963, although the concept was borrowed from contraptions used by English bakers for over a hundred years. The heat-conducting pipe is a soldered-up pipe with some liquid inside: actuating fluid. For example, the pipes used in Shuttle I.C.E. are filled with a solution, 95% of which is water. The pressure inside the pipe is much lower than the atmospheric pressure, so that the boiling-point of the liquid is about 30-35oC. After the "hot" end of the pipe, which is built into the CPU heatsink, is heated to this temperature, the water inside the pipe begins to boil and the hot vapor ascends up the pipe. Here it meets the upper heatsink, cools down and gets condensed. The condensate drops down onto the pipe walls and flows down to repeat the cycle once again. So it becomes possible to effectively transfer heat from the CPU to a remote heatsink. For example, some estimates show that heat-conducting pipes are twice as effective as an ordinary copper shaft. Thanks to that, the CPUs feel all right in Shuttle XPC systems, although there is just a small heatsink without any fan over it.
One more thing to mention is that the company equips Shuttle SK41G and SB51G with fans changing their rotation speed depending on the temperature. This helps to reduce the noise. Thus, the fan in Shuttle SB51G can rotate in three different speeds depending on the current CPU temperature. In the "noiseless" mode, the cooler rotation speed is 2000rpm, in the "normal" mode - 3000rpm. If the CPU temperature is above 80oC, the fan rotation speed reaches 3500rpm.
Shuttle SK41G can boast a similar system. But since the external thermal diode is less accurate, the critical value is lowered to 65oC. If this value is reached, the fan speeds up to 4500rpm. We should acknowledge that at regular work the XPC from Shuttle does produce less noise than ordinary cases. But this holds true only until the cooler switches to the "fail-safe" mode. After the rotation speed grows up to 3500rpm or 4500 rpm, the noise produced is not that low. Fortunately, the fan in XPC rarely works in this mode.
The cooler in Shuttle SK41G has no copper sole, although AMD recommends using it in cooling systems for new Thoroughbred based processors. This shouldn't be considered a drawback as Shuttle engineers took another material instead of copper with no worse thermal conduction. As for the cooling system of the other XPC, the CPU cooler for Pentium 4 has a copper sole.
Both coolers (for Pentium 4 and Athlon XP) boast a very smart fastening mechanism. The SB51G cooler is pressed to the CPU with a smart latch, and in SK41G the cooler is fastened with four spring screws. The Shuttle SK41G package also includes a copper shim laid onto the CPU, preventing the cooler from leaning sideward, so that it could be mounted straight without damaging the processor surface.
As we have said, in order to transform the barebone from Shuttle into a fully-fledged computer, you will need to install a CPU and memory and to connect drives. Some users might also want to connect an external graphics card and an expansion card. Luckily, Shuttle engineers kept this in mind when designing their systems, so that all these operations will not require too much effort from you.
The barebones come with a detailed assembly manual, while the inner component layout is very smart. It's nice that Shuttle even thought about the best way to locate the cables inside the case, and enclosed ties, double-side scotch and special clips.
The installation of hard disk drives, floppy drives and optical drives doesn't arouse any problems: the special bay can be detached easily. After that, you can access all the mainboard components to install the CPU and memory modules.
The expansion cards, including the AGP graphics card, are installed after the drives bays are back in their places. Note that these small "cobes" can accommodate not only small graphics cards, but also massive ones like NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600. The only cards that won't fit into Shuttle SK41G and SB51G are GeForceFX based ones and cards with massive cooling systems like ABIT OTES (see our article called "Overclocker's Dream: ABIT OTES Review") as they require additional space around the card.
The only tool you will need during the Shuttle barebone assembly is a brace screwdriver for detaching the drives bay and mounting the drives into it. The case cover and cooling system can be removed without any tools as they have very easy to undo screws.
To illustrate the above-described procedure, let's go through Shuttle SB51G assembly step by step:
As you see, all is nice and simple. The only strange thing is that Shuttle didn't use round IDE and FDD cables that could come in handy in small cases like that thanks to their better aerodynamic characteristics. Shuttle offers two flat cables instead and one flat cable cut into stripes, which are gathered in a bunch.
Now, we are passing to practical tests of the XPC from Shuttle. The first issue we want to check is the temperature mode of both systems. Although the manufacturer claims that the cooling system used is very effective, we still doubt that one low-speed fan can cool very fast processors inside such a small case.
First of all, we should point out that our powerful system built inside a Shuttle barebone solution will include two components generating a lot of heat: the CPU and the graphics card.
As for the graphics cards, they can be cooled rather easily, which our tests confirmed. The thing is that beside the AGP slot there are holes in the case. The cool air from outside gets sucked through the holes and is then blown away by the cooler. This is enough for the graphics card to work stable. We checked it with both: ATI RADEON 9700 PRO and NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600. Both cards did well inside the XPCs, no problems occurred.
As for the CPUs, we revealed certain problems dealing with insufficient cooling. The first to undertake our tests was Shuttle SK41G for AMD CPUs. As this XPC doesn't support 333MHz system bus, the top model that can be used in this system is AMD Athlon 2600+. So we installed this CPU into Shuttle SK41G and got the following results:
| AMD Athlon XP 2600+ | CPU temperature | System temperature | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shuttle SK41G, integrated graphics | Idle | 49 | 42 |
| Burn | 60 | 47 | |
| Shuttle SK41G, ATI RADEON 9700 Pro | Idle | 50 | 43 |
| Burn | 61 | 48 |
As the tests showed, the temperature remained acceptable in all the modes. The CPU operation doesn't deserve any reproach. We should note, though, that when a graphics card was installed, the cooler in Shuttle SK41G sometimes switched to the "fail-safe" mode, speeding up to 4500rpm. In this mode Shuttle SK41G proved a rather noisy system. Nevertheless, Shuttle SK41G copes with the cooling all right even when the "hottest" components possible are installed.
Next, the same tests were run with SB51G. This XPC supports processors from the Pentium 4 and Celeron families and, as the manufacturer claims, can work with the most powerful Pentium 4 CPUs with Hyper-Threading technology.
However, it was not all that well in practice. After we installed a Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor, the cooling system proved too weak for it. No wonder: when releasing its new processors, Intel toughened the cooling systems requirements for its CPUs. When Pentium 4 3.06GHz is used, the temperature in the case goes up to 50-55oC, so it's quite natural that this warm air cannot properly cool a fast processor like that. Athlon XP is very easy to deal with in this respect, as it can function at higher temperatures than Pentium 4 processors. So, Shuttle SB51G couldn't work stable with the most powerful Pentium 4 processor available today.
Then we checked how the things stood with a less "warm" CPU. It was Pentium 4 working at 2.53GHz. The heat dissipation of this CPU is lower and it doesn't require anything specific from the cooling system. As a result, the system worked absolutely stable. Here are the temperature data for Shuttle SB51G with a Pentium 4 2.53GHz processor:
| Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz | CPU temperature | System temperature | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shuttle SB51G, integrated graphics | Idle | 42 | 41 |
| Burn | 68 | 45 | |
| Shuttle SB51G, ATI RADEON 9700 Pro | Idle | 44 | 42 |
| Burn | 69 | 48 |
As Pentium 4 dissipates more heat than Athlon XP, the internal temperature of Shuttle SB51G turned to be a little higher. But in the "idle" mode Pentium 4 is cooler thanks to the Halt command that brings the CPU to a full stop. The i845GE chipset also seems to contribute to the inner temperature a lot, as it seems to be heating much more than VIA KM266 used in Shuttle SK41G.
So, we may say that Shuttle SB51G cannot work with the top-end model of the Pentium 4 family because of the not very efficient cooling system. At the same time, Pentium 4 CPUs working at about 2.53GHz are quite stable in this XPC.
Next thing we did was checking the performance of the systems assembled in the barebones from Shuttle. We benchmarked the systems with both: integrated graphics core and an external ATI RADEON 9700 PRO graphics card. The testbed configurations looked as follows:
| Shuttle SK41G | Shuttle SB51G | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Athlon 2600+ 266MHz FSB | Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz 533MHz FSB |
| Memory | 256MB DDR266 SDRAM | 256MB DDR333 SDRAM |
| Graphics Card | Integrated ATI RADEON 9700 Pro graphics core | |
| HDD | Fujitsu MPG3409AH | |
The benchmarks were run in Windows XP Professional operation system. The BIOS Setup settings of both systems were adjusted so that we could get the maximum performance.
We obtained the following results:
There are a few points that are worth mentioning. First, it's quite clear that Intel Extreme Graphics integrated core is much faster than ProSavage8 from VIA-S3. In fact, the integrated graphics core by Shuttle SK41G can only provide comfortable work in 2D office applications. The results ProSavage8 shows in 3D are simply catastrophic. Meanwhile, Intel Extreme Graphics can show an acceptable fps-rate in some games. New games, like Unreal Tournament 2003, load the graphics core so heavily, though, that even the Intel's graphics cannot cope with it. So, gamers shouldn't rely on the integrated graphics.
Moreover, ProSavage8 has some problems with 2D, too. In the 1024x768 resolution, there appears some evident "fuzziness" of the picture. The 2D however, appears to be no problem for the Intel Extreme Graphics.
After we installed a fully-fledged graphics card, the performance of the both XPCs rose up to an acceptable level even in games. Overall, Shuttle SB51G shows better results due to faster memory subsystem as well as faster system bus of the Pentium 4 processor family.
As for applications which need a lot of computing power, Shuttle SK41G wins them all with Athlon XP 2600+ having higher "pure" performance than Pentium 4 2.53GHz.
On the whole, we should admit that the small "cubes" from Shuttle are not a kid's toy. These small-size and elegant XPCs can brow into serious competitors to big and noisy desktop PCs from the performance point of view.
Today we have discussed two quite excellent products from Shuttle. This company succeeded in demonstrating that the big and clumsy cases used in modern PCs are not a vitally necessary thing. High-performance computers can live in small cases of original design, too. That's the main outcome of this review.
As for the reviewed products in particular, we should note that Athlon XP processors are better fit for Small Form Factor PCs, however strange it may seem. Lower performance of solutions based on these CPUs can be explained by the absence of good integrated chipsets for them. That's why we are looking forward to meeting an XPC from Shuttle based on the NVIDIA nForce2 IGP, SN41G, showcased by the company at the last Comdex Fall:
To wind up the review, let's list all the advantages and drawbacks of Shuttle SK41G and Shuttle SB51G:
First comes Shuttle SK41G.
Highs:
Lows:
Now the highs and lows for the Shuttle SB51G.
Highs:
Lows: