Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1081
Small Form Factor Pentium 4 PC Roundup - March 2003
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 11, 2003 12:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
It has been just over a year since we first took a look at Shuttle's SV24, a Small Form Factor PC based on VIA's PL133 chipset with support for Socket-370 CPUs. The SV24 was far from a high performer at the time of its release, back when the Athlon XP and Pentium 4 were all the rage and no one wanted a dated Pentium III or C3 based system. The novelty of the SV24 was its small form factor and the fact that it looked nothing like a conventional beige PC. Little did we know that what was "neat" about the SV24 would soon turn into a feature that would be offered to all high-end users in the form of a line of very powerful Small Form Factor PCs.
Shuttle's XPC line of SFF PCs quickly went from a novelty item into a best seller and the savior of the motherboard manufacturer. Despite Shuttle's success, their competition took seemingly forever to jump on the SFF bandwagon, with major players such as ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI still failing to capitalize on the highly profitable and untapped SFF market.
In recent history, Shuttle has begun to see some forms of competition, but not from the major players, rather from the smaller motherboard manufacturers looking to follow Shuttle's lead in surviving these tough times. We've seen companies like Iwill, Jetway, Soltek and Soyo all demonstrate SFF designs, but the predicament these companies find themselves in is that they are not significantly larger than Shuttle (thus don't have noticeably more resources), and they lack the experience Shuttle has in manufacturing their XPC line. Without significantly more resources and Shuttle's experience, it will be difficult for Shuttle to be dethroned as the current king of the SFF market, but that isn't to say that it's impossible.
Today we managed to put together a roundup of four SFF Pentium 4 PCs from three different manufacturers, with hopes of finding out if the folks at Shuttle have any reason to worry.
What to look for in a Small Form Factor PC
Looks can be deceiving, and as you're about to find out, although anyone can make a SFF PC look like a Shuttle XPC, it is very difficult to actually duplicate the engineering and design that goes into one of Shuttle's XPCs. So if you can't base your buying decision based on looks alone (when is it ever the case that you can?), then what is it that you look for in a SFF PC?
Although we quickly discredit looks, one of the major selling points of these SFF PCs is that they look much more attractive than the conventional "beige boxes" we're used to building our PCs in. The outside of your SFF PC should not only be attractive to you, but the case itself should be small enough that you don't forget that this is a small form factor PC you're putting together. A number of companies have tried to disguise their microATX designs as this new breed of SFF PCs, but they definitely don't fall into the same category as Shuttle's XPC line.
Quite possibly the most important and unfortunately weakest link in today's SFF PCs is the motherboard. Since none of the SFF PCs following Shuttle's lead are actually built on a standard motherboard form factor, the only motherboards you can use with these PCs are the boards bundled with the SFF PC itself. This unfortunately limits us to motherboards from Iwill, Jetway, Shuttle, Soyo and Soltek; while there are more than a couple of options, absent are the major players whose reliability and quality control records significantly outshine everyone we just mentioned. Before purchasing a SFF PC, make sure you do your research on who's actually inside the PC - the manufacturer of the motherboard, the type of chipset being used, and look for any issues involving that particular motherboard. A major downside to these SFF PCs is that the volume is so low relative to regular ATX motherboard shipments that it takes longer for bugs to be discovered in the field, thus resulting in longer lag time between boards ship and when bugs are fixed.
As is the case with most motherboards these days, the performance of SFF PCs based on identical chipsets should be well, identical. Your focus shouldn't be on which SFF PC based on the 845GE chipset gets the highest Winstone score, it should instead be which manages to offer reasonable performance along with quiet operation. The amount of noise these SFF PCs put out is much more important than knowing which system performs 2 or 3% faster than another.
The idea of evaluating these systems based on the amount of noise produced also leads us to the next point of interest for potential buyers - cooling methods. With SFF PCs that are designed for the power user, cooling becomes a major issue. How do you remove an incredible amount of heat from a very small, cramped space, without making a lot of noise? Variable speed temperature controlled fans and heatpipes are the most innovative of the technologies implemented in today's SFF PCs, and we'd expect to see advanced evolutions of these technologies in future generation SFF boxes.
Functionality is a very important feature to consider as well; the number of front and rear USB/Firewire ports, and any other features that would make one SFF PC any better than another.
Going back to the idea that looks can (and will) be deceiving, how cramped the interior of the case happens to be will determine if you're happy with your system or if you want to toss it out of the window before you're done building it. There are many companies that will copy the way a Shuttle XPC looks from the outside, but as we've seen in the past once you crack open the case, things can change considerably.
With these rules of thumb out in the open, let's get down to the competition.
The Contenders
For this roundup we compared four different SFF PCs:
From Jetway we have the MiniQ 450 based on the SiS 651 chipset. Shuttle contributed the old SB51G based on the 845GE as well as their brand new corporate SB52G2 based on the 845GV chipset. Finally we have the Soltek Qbic EQ2000, also based on the 845GE chipset.
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-
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Jetway
MiniQ 450
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Shuttle
SB51G |
Shuttle
SB52G2 |
Soltek
Qbic EQ2000
|
| Chipset |
SiS
651
|
Intel
845GE
|
Intel
845GV
|
Intel
845GE
|
| Expansion Slots (AGP/PCI) |
1/1
|
1/1
|
0/2
|
1/1
|
| Memory Slots |
2
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
| AC'97 Audio Codec |
C-Media
8738
|
ALC650
|
ALC650
|
ALC650
|
| Ethernet Controller |
SiS
962
|
Realtek
8100B
|
Intel
RC82540EM
Intel Pro 10/100 |
Realtek
8100B
|
| Firewire Controller |
SiS
962
|
VIA
6306
|
N/A
|
Agere
FW323-05
|
| USB 2.0 Controller |
SiS
962
|
Intel
ICH4
|
Intel
ICH4
|
Intel
ICH4
|
| Expansion Bays (5.25"/3.5"/Hidden) |
1/1/1
|
1/1/1
|
1/1/1
|
1/1/1
|
| Front USB Ports |
2
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
| Rear USB Ports |
2
|
2
|
2
|
4
|
| Front Firewire Ports |
2
|
1
|
0
|
2
|
| Rear Firewire Ports |
0
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
| On-Board Parallel Port |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
| Number of Fans (including CPU/chipset) |
2
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
Jetway MiniQ 450
Jetway was the first non-Shuttle SFF PC we got in our labs; the machine was configured and sent to us through AMAX, who offer the Jetway as well as other SFF PCs through their website. The appealing exterior left us with one complaint - the lack of a standalone power switch. If you look at the front of the chassis, there's one long black strip that covers up the power and hard drive LEDs, pressing the right side of that plastic strip is how you power on the system - not exactly the most elegant way of doing it.
The front features the usual set of ports, although Jetway outfitted the MiniQ with one more Firewire port than we're used to seeing from Shuttle.
The rear of the MiniQ is fairly plain, the biggest attraction here is the presence of a parallel port in addition to the regular set of ports on the system.
The sides are fairly plain, with a set of ventilation holes to get cool air into the cramped chassis.
Opening up the system reveals a fairly uncluttered area to work in. You'll notice that the chassis has no dedicated CPU cooling system in place, instead you're expected to purchase and use your own heatsink/fan for the Pentium 4. There is a fan at the rear of the chassis that helps cool the rest of the system.
On the other side of the MiniQ we see the system's biggest flaw, the layout of its memory slots. You'll notice from the above picture that you can only see half of our installed Corsair DIMMs, the reason being that the other half is actually beneath the power supply. Although it is possible to install the memory without removing the power supply, it is absolutely a pain because of the lack of clearance between the top of the DIMM and the power supply (see below).
The other complaint we had about the MiniQ was the location of the CPU fan connector:
What you're looking at is the small area between the Pentium 4 heatsink and the side of the PSU that faces the inside of the case. At the lower right you can see one of the DIMM latches, and directly above it you can see the CPU fan power connector. Without needle nose pliers it is virtually impossible to plug this connector in unless you remove the power supply.
Shuttle SB51G
We've already taken a look at the Shuttle SB51G chassis, it is the same chassis used with the SS51G and the SK41G so we'll point you back at those two reviews for more pictures of its interior.
The only difference between this model and the two aforementioned XPCs is that this Pentium 4 model uses Intel's 845GE chipset.
Shuttle SB52G2
Shuttle's newcomer is the SB52G2, the world's first corporate-only XPC from Shuttle. Take the SN41G2 (nForce2) chassis, paint it black, and put a Pentium 4 motherboard with the 845GV chipset in it and you've got the SB52G2. Remember that the 845GV chipset has no AGP support, so you'll only find two PCI slots on the motherboard and will be forced to use Intel's onboard "Extreme Graphics." For the corporate market, this isn't too big of a deal, however a solution with multimonitor support would be desirable for that segment.
The front is very stylish and quite simple at the same time. Note the lack of any Firewire ports because of the corporate target market for this system.
This particular version features two Ethernet controllers, with one Gigabit and one 10/100 port on the rear.
Shuttle will be offering a "client" version with only one Ethernet controller for a slightly lower price.
The rear of the chassis should remind you of all other Shuttle XPCs, there's not much new here. Once again, you won't find any Firewire ports nor will you find a parallel port; the parallel port is an $8 option available on Shuttle's website.
The sleek black painted case features black mesh grilles on both sides of the chassis, they do aid in improving cooling.
Opening up the chassis reveals a fairly uncluttered environment, as well as the same cooler from the SB51G. Be sure to check out our previous Shuttle XPC reviews for more information on the heatpipe cooling system used here. One thing that should be mentioned is that the fan you see in the picture above is a temperature controlled variable speed unit, with two modes that are selectable in the BIOS.
Here we have another angle of the inside of the SB52G2, note how few cables get in the way; keep this in mind as we take a look at the last solution for this roundup:
All of the LEDs and switches for the front of the chassis are connected to the motherboard using this small block (above) at the very front of the case.
Access to memory slots is just about as good as it gets with the SB52G2:
Our only remaining complaint about the SB52G2 is that Shuttle continues to ship their XPCs with an extra 12V power connector that many can confuse with a standard 4-pin ATX power connector, but try plugging this into a hard drive and you'll be met with a whole lot of nothing as there's no 5V line on this connector. It's not a huge deal, but if Shuttle is aiming for perfection, here's one step.
Soltek Qbic EQ2000
Although there are a number of SFF solutions out there that can offer designs that look similar to Shuttle's, only one is really able to offer something that's unique and stylish enough to actually be considered to be better than Shuttle's. Soltek's Qbic follows the same basic cube approach however the front panel is a reflective, meaning the front of your computer is a mirror. The design is quite stylish, but obviously that is dependent upon your individual tastes in the end:
Soltek manages to outclass Shuttle in the number of front panel ports with their Qbic as you can see from the shot below:
We count two optical audio ports (input and output), the usual two 1/8" jacks and two USB 2.0 ports, but Soltek goes above and beyond the competition with a total of three front-mounted Firewire ports.
The rear of the Qbic has a very flexible 4 USB 2.0 ports, and a cutout for a parallel port at the top of the box although no port ships with the system.
What's most unique about the rear of the Qbic is that the expansion slot retention bracket is held in place by thumbscrews, meaning that installing a video card or any other expansion card is done completely toolless.
Remember that speech about not judging a book by its cover? Although the Qbic is quite attractive from the outside, open up the case and the cabling is a nightmare. Let's have a closer look:
Getting an AGP card in there is virtually impossible without first unplugging at least the black Firewire cables towards the left of the picture. One of Soltek's major faults here is that they did not employ a single connector for all of the front panel LEDs and switches, which ends up adding to the clutter.
The other side of the Qbic is relatively clutter free, and is quite reminiscent of Shuttle's own solutions.
Unlike Shuttle, Soltek makes use of a regular parallel port header on the motherboard itself, instead of the low profile header found on the Shuttle motherboards. The benefit of this header is that you can use a standard AT parallel port if you happen to have one laying around.
Other than the cluttered cabling issue, Soltek comes very close to having a Shuttle XPC competitor with their Qbic, but let's find out how it performs before making too bold of a claim.
General Usage & Content Creation Performance
|
33.7The top three performers here all run within 3% of each other, which is at the limits of the normal variation for this test. The Shuttle SB52G2 is the only one that falls behind by a noticeable amount, mainly because of its 845GV chipset. Not only is this platform using Intel's integrated graphics core (which eats into main memory bandwidth), but the platform also only has support for DDR266 while the rest of the systems here are running DDR333. Since this is a corporate targeted platform, the fact that it is 13% slower than the SB51G is somewhat excusable, however why settle for worse performance?
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We see a similar situation in Content Creation Winstone 2003; the three DDR333 setups manage to outperform the SB52G2 by 8 - 10%.
Gaming Performance
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For whatever reason, the MiniQ's SiS 651 chipset seems to offer significantly higher performance than the 845GE in our first two gaming benchmarks. The Shuttle and the Soltek systems perform virtually identically to each another.
|
We see similar performance standings under Quake III Arena.
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Moving to Jedi Knight, the MiniQ no longer holds its incredible performance advantage, and we're left with the Shuttle at the top by a small margin.
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We finish off the gaming tests with Comanche 4, where the Shuttle continues to hang on to its small lead.
Media Encoding Performance
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With our DiVX encoding test we're able to bring the SB52G2 back to the charts as we're not dealing with any 3D performance tests. Although video conversion is a bit out of the SB52G2's job description, it's still worth including to show the benefits that DDR333 and a non-shared memory video architecture will give you.
It's worth noting that the SiS 651 based MiniQ can't keep up with the two 845GE based systems here, which makes us wonder exactly what gave it such a big performance advantage in a couple of our gaming tests.
Professional 3D Performance
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|
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Professional 3D Performance (continued)
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|
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Noise Level Comparison
One of the biggest selling points of these SFF PCs is that they are supposed to be quieter than big, fan-filled desktop PCs; in order to test this theory we grabbed our sound meter and went to a quiet room with each one of the SFF PCs.
All we had in the systems was a CPU, CPU heatsink/fan (if necessary) and memory. We used the same heatsink/fan on non-Shuttle systems, and it was the quietest unit we had at our disposal in order to minimize the penalty to those systems that don't have a special cooling system.
We measured noise levels at ground level, 4" from the chassis, from the middle of each one of the four sides and reported the results below:
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With the fan on its low setting, you can't beat the Shuttle SB51G. The system actually didn't even produce enough noise to register on our sound meter from 4" away from the front of the case, which is why the bar reads less than 50 dBA.
The SB52G2 is noticeably louder, but it is still quieter than the MiniQ from Jetway. The Soltek system was fairly impressive as well.
You'll note that when the fan is spinning at its fastest, the two Shuttle cubes actually become the two loudest systems here; luckily, the fan is almost always spinning at its low speed which keeps the noise down to a minimum.
|
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The left and right of the systems provide very similar sound levels, with the left being somewhat higher because we don't have a power supply helping to muffle the sound that escapes the chassis. The standings don't really change and we continue to see that it is the ability to spin at multiple speeds that keep Shuttle's fans from penalizing them here; once again, since the fans are almost never running at their high speed, the two Shuttle cubes end up emerging as the quietest out of the bunch. The Soltek Qbic EQ2000 is quite close to Shuttle's SB52G2, which is fairly impressive considering it has two fans in the system.
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In the end we see that there's no competition for the SB51G, it's still the quietest SFF PC, even when you compare it to Shuttle's latest offering (SB52G2). Soltek manages to produce just as much noise with two fans as Shuttle's SB52G2 with only one fan, if Soltek could move to a quieter system fan they could begin to threaten the SB51G. The Jetway MiniQ is simply too loud for SFF PC standards, we'd like to see quieter systems going forward, instead of this trend towards louder units.
Final Words
It's definitely nice that we're able to have some competition in the SFF PC market, hopefully Shuttle's success will continue to attract more and more manufacturers to this market, thus growing the size of it and gaining it considerably more respect. As you can see by this roundup Shuttle still holds on to the SFF PC crown, although the threat of serious competition is looming.
Honestly, Soltek comes very close to Shuttle's solution, and if it weren't for the overly cluttered interior, the Qbic EQ2000 would probably be placed on the same pedestal as Shuttle's XPC line. With the Qbic, Soltek makes it clear that you don't need an expensive heatpipe solution in order to offer a relatively quiet but high performing SFF solution. If Soltek would move to a quieter fan and clean up the interior of the otherwise attractive Qbic, then Shuttle could be faced with some viable competition for once.
None of the solutions were as polished as what Shuttle has been able to put together, and the new SB52G2 is a step in the right direction for the future of Shuttle's XPC line. The new chassis is much more elegant than previous designs, and can work very well in both consumer and corporate environments. We are dying to see an enthusiast version of the Pentium 4 XPC in the new chassis, maybe outfitted with Intel's forthcoming 875 chipset (Canterwood)?
We will continue to look at Small Form Factor solutions as they come in, hopefully this will be the first of many roundups to come in the future...
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