From all of the reviews I got the impression this box would be very quiet, but
this was not the case. With expectations given by these reviews I must say the machine
keeps quite a loud humming sound. It has 4 fans in it, but the loudest is the one
connected to the cpu heatpipe in the back. The metal casing is also sensitive to resonance
sounds which are quite annoying.
Installing the sata drive was also quite an annoyance.
Apart from that the machine does perform quite well, and is optically pleasing.
I see recommendations to go with an 865G system, but no actual SFF recommendations - would anyone care to provide some? I'm looking to rehome my 533Mhz P4, not bothered about overclocking and I like the look of the G4 case, as it's quieter and temps are lower. However, I do wish to use a 9800 pro graphics card, so I've been also looking at the Soltek EQ3401, however, this has no card reader and the temperatures are higher although it is slightly cheaper.
The ICE exhaust fan has always been 80mm on Shuttle systems. I use a Panaflo fan to make my system quiet. The picture of the rear of this unit seems dated because the new power supply has a new grill with less restrictions. Unless they changed that. The power supply in my Shuttle ss40G sounds ok to me, with a 2400+ Thorton installed and a Hitachi 120GB drive with Linux and Distributed Folding running it goes around 41C internal and 51c for the processor.
why no temperature readings...i can make a very quiet case too if there are no fans inside...i think that whenever you have a review with sound measured, you should always measure the temperature of the case too...
Well, from what I've been reading on the manufacturer website, there actually is a floppy connector on the mobo, and a cable, so you could install with an open case and leave the floppy hanging out in order to have the drivers for the SATA RAID when it asks for them.
Still, in the future it'd be nice if actual useability issues like this were addressed a bit more. I'm not asking you to imagine all possible configurations, or anything, but if it says it supports something, a quick test to see if it's practically useable might be nice :)
Just as an aside, there is apparently a way to embed drivers (for such things like RAID controllers) into you Win2K/XP/2K3 discs. I don't think that method was used in this case.
In my free time, I'll have to see if this method actually works.
Looks like a nice small and quiet box for a caravan, dorm-room or the like, but it could never replace my main box.
Its nice to see Intel have a sense of humour with their "Extreme" graphics, or is it meant to stand for "extremely slow"?
One slight typo on page 11- "As we have done on other SFF tests, the ST61G4 was loaded just as a user would likely set up their SFF system. We installed a 3.0 P4, 1 Mb DDR400 memory..." - personally I'd install slightly more memory in my SFF system ;)
The IGP performance was stellar... if your going to be using the onboard graphics, this box looks like a good choice... but if your going to be using the AGP slot, the i865G looks better.
i think my laptop is running the same ati igp chipset and apart from the crappy celery i noticed performance could be somewhat better..but i don't think that the memory timings are forced that slow.. could it be that the shuttle wanted to keep off any possible temperature issues? i noticed anything video and or memory intensive turns my rather quite laptop into a godzilla.
i reckon anyone purchasing SFF should still get the shuttle and wait for a bios update....that should close the resulting performance gap
The onboard nForce2 was tested in a previous review, and had better onboard video performance with a processor that cost $80(Athlon XP 2600+) instead of $260(P4 3.0). Not sure if the settings were the same, as the previous article did not list what settings it was tested with. ATI 98 FPS Q3, 50 UT 2003 Flyby, and 38 UT Bot NForce2 129 Q3, 66 UT Flyby, and 38 UT Bot. Not bad for giving up 1 Ghz on the processor.
this may sound stupid, but how do you install Windows to the onboard RAID without a floppy for the RAID driver? Not to mention... where does the other drive in the RAID go? :)
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marvinpa - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
From all of the reviews I got the impression this box would be very quiet, butthis was not the case. With expectations given by these reviews I must say the machine
keeps quite a loud humming sound. It has 4 fans in it, but the loudest is the one
connected to the cpu heatpipe in the back. The metal casing is also sensitive to resonance
sounds which are quite annoying.
Installing the sata drive was also quite an annoyance.
Apart from that the machine does perform quite well, and is optically pleasing.
Johnmcl7 - Sunday, April 4, 2004 - link
I see recommendations to go with an 865G system, but no actual SFF recommendations - would anyone care to provide some? I'm looking to rehome my 533Mhz P4, not bothered about overclocking and I like the look of the G4 case, as it's quieter and temps are lower. However, I do wish to use a 9800 pro graphics card, so I've been also looking at the Soltek EQ3401, however, this has no card reader and the temperatures are higher although it is slightly cheaper.John
sprockkets - Friday, January 30, 2004 - link
The ICE exhaust fan has always been 80mm on Shuttle systems. I use a Panaflo fan to make my system quiet. The picture of the rear of this unit seems dated because the new power supply has a new grill with less restrictions. Unless they changed that. The power supply in my Shuttle ss40G sounds ok to me, with a 2400+ Thorton installed and a Hitachi 120GB drive with Linux and Distributed Folding running it goes around 41C internal and 51c for the processor.SupermanCK - Thursday, January 29, 2004 - link
why no temperature readings...i can make a very quiet case too if there are no fans inside...i think that whenever you have a review with sound measured, you should always measure the temperature of the case too...artifex - Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - link
Well, from what I've been reading on the manufacturer website, there actually is a floppy connector on the mobo, and a cable, so you could install with an open case and leave the floppy hanging out in order to have the drivers for the SATA RAID when it asks for them.Still, in the future it'd be nice if actual useability issues like this were addressed a bit more. I'm not asking you to imagine all possible configurations, or anything, but if it says it supports something, a quick test to see if it's practically useable might be nice :)
SUOrangeman - Monday, January 26, 2004 - link
Just as an aside, there is apparently a way to embed drivers (for such things like RAID controllers) into you Win2K/XP/2K3 discs. I don't think that method was used in this case.In my free time, I'll have to see if this method actually works.
-SUO
vedin - Monday, January 26, 2004 - link
::doesn't know jack about setting up RAID:: Um, use a bootable CD?artifex - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
still wondering about the RAID/installation issue :)Wesley Fink - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
PrinceGaz -Thanks for catching the typo - corrected.
PrinceGaz - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
Looks like a nice small and quiet box for a caravan, dorm-room or the like, but it could never replace my main box.Its nice to see Intel have a sense of humour with their "Extreme" graphics, or is it meant to stand for "extremely slow"?
One slight typo on page 11- "As we have done on other SFF tests, the ST61G4 was loaded just as a user would likely set up their SFF system. We installed a 3.0 P4, 1 Mb DDR400 memory..." - personally I'd install slightly more memory in my SFF system ;)
Cygni - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
The IGP performance was stellar... if your going to be using the onboard graphics, this box looks like a good choice... but if your going to be using the AGP slot, the i865G looks better.sipc660 - Saturday, January 24, 2004 - link
i think my laptop is running the same ati igp chipset and apart from the crappy celery i noticed performance could be somewhat better..but i don't think that the memory timings are forced that slow..could it be that the shuttle wanted to keep off any possible temperature issues?
i noticed anything video and or memory intensive turns my rather quite laptop into a godzilla.
i reckon anyone purchasing SFF should still get the shuttle and wait for a bios update....that should close the resulting performance gap
why?
ban the freakin 3andHalf floppy drives...
sipc660 - Saturday, January 24, 2004 - link
gamara - Saturday, January 24, 2004 - link
The onboard nForce2 was tested in a previous review, and had better onboard video performance with a processor that cost $80(Athlon XP 2600+) instead of $260(P4 3.0). Not sure if the settings were the same, as the previous article did not list what settings it was tested with.ATI 98 FPS Q3, 50 UT 2003 Flyby, and 38 UT Bot
NForce2 129 Q3, 66 UT Flyby, and 38 UT Bot. Not bad for giving up 1 Ghz on the processor.
artifex - Friday, January 23, 2004 - link
this may sound stupid, but how do you install Windows to the onboard RAID without a floppy for the RAID driver? Not to mention... where does the other drive in the RAID go? :)Lonyo - Friday, January 23, 2004 - link
ATi - Pentium 4, Intel - Pentium 4. nVidia - AMD.Rako00 - Friday, January 23, 2004 - link
Why compare the ATI to intels intergreated graphics card only. At least include the Nforce 2 graphic card too.