System Setup and Notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| Shuttle ST20G5 System | HEXUS Comparison System | |
| Processor(s) | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ | |
| Mainboard | Shuttle FT20 | ASUS A8N-SLI |
| Memory | 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS3200 Pro DDR-400 2.0-2-2-5 @ 400MHz |
|
| BIOS Version | 1st March 2005 | 23rd March 2005 |
| Disk Drive | 36GB Western Digital Raptor | |
| Graphics Card | ATI Radeon X800 256MB CATALYST 5.4 |
|
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | |
| Mainboard Software | ATI Radeon Xpress Mainboard Driver | NVIDIA nForce4 Platform Driver Version 6.39 |
Benchmark Software
ScienceMark 2.0
HEXUS Pifast
HEXUS Crypto
MainConcept MPEG Encoder
LAME 3.96
Cinebench 2003
3D Studio Max v6
Kribibench
Realstorm 2004
picCOLOR v4.0
Notes
I assembled a comparison platform, based around NVIDIA's nForce4, for the ST20G5 to do battle with. The same memory modules, graphics board, hard disk, driver revisions (barring the core logic driver software) and OS setup were used for both. The on-board graphics that the ST20G5 possesses wasn't used (and can't be entirely disabled) for comparative testing.Testing the ST20G5 wasn't without its small issues. Firstly, the DVI refused to work until after a display driver was used, which then seemingly initialises the digital display output from the IGP. Not too handy while trying to diagnose boot issues during setup.
Secondly, the ST20G5 had a real dislike for any and all NVIDIA PCI Express graphics boards I could lay my hands on, that would fit the single-slot space the ST20G5 gives you. That includes 6600 GT, Quadro FX 1400 and a range of TurboCache 6200 products. The system would function correctly with all of those boards until a display driver was loaded, at which point it would take about 30 seconds for display corruption to appear and the system would hang. Various 7x.xx driver revisions were tried, along with NVIDIA's 66.93 WHQL set, without any real success.
After testing was complete, a BIOS update for the ST20G5 also failed to remedy things. An ATI graphics adaptor is therefore the best partner for the XPC. Indeed, I had no issues with X600 XT, X300 HyperMemory and the X800 used for most of the testing. SurroundView worked fine with the X800, which was the only discrete board I enabled and tested the feature with.
The ST20G5's results have their text coloured red on the graphs.
