Test methodology
In order to gauge performance, we'll be pitting the Shuttle SX58J3 against a high-end pre-overclocked SCAN 3XS Cyclone PC.
Can Shuttle's XPC provide the performance we'd expect from a desktop tower? To find out, we equipped the £440 barebones unit with an Intel Core i7 980X processor, 6GB of Corsair DDR3 memory, an AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU, a 120GB OCZ SSD and Microsoft's Windows 7 Ultimate operating system.
Our extreme configuration takes the Shuttle SX58J3 to its limits and raises the complete build cost to a cool £2,100. Here are the complete specifications of both systems:
| Comparison systems | ||
|---|---|---|
| System | Shuttle SX58J3 | Scan 3XS Cyclone PC |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 980X (3.33GHz, 12MB L3 cache, hexa-core) | Intel Core i7 920 (4.0GHz OC, 8MB L3 cache, quad-core) |
| Motherboard | Shuttle X58 | ASUS P6X58D-E |
| Memory | Corsair 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 | Corsair 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 |
| Memory timings | 9-9-9-24-2T @ 1,333MHz | 9-9-9-24-2T @ 1,600MHz |
| Graphics | AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 OC and watercooled |
| Graphics driver | Catalyst 10.5 | ForceWare 257.15 |
| Disk drive | 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD | 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD |
| Optical drive | Generic 24x DVD-RW | Sony 24x DVD-RW |
| Chassis | Shuttle SX58J3 | Cooler Master CM 690 II |
| Power supply | Shuttle 500W | Corsair HX650W |
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| Build cost | £2,100 | £1,646 |
| Benchmarks | ||
| HEXUS.PiFast |
Our number-crunching benchmark stresses a single core by calculating Pi to 10m places. | |
| Geekbench 2.1.6 | A cross-platform benchmark used to measure memory and processor performance. Run using high-performance mode. | |
| Cinebench 11.5 | Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses as many cores as possible. Run using high-performance mode. | |
| x264 3.0 HD encoding | Our media-encoding benchmark converts a 720p movie into the H.264 format. Pass one scans the movie, pass two carries out the conversion. | |
| 3DMark06 | A PC benchmark used to test the DirectX 9 performance of a system's graphics card. Run using high-performance mode. | |
| DiRT 2 v1.1 | 2,560x1,600, 4xAA, ultra quality, London map. | |
| Battlefield: Bad Company 2 v523648 | 2,560x1,600, 4xAA, ultra quality, FRAPS-recorded benchmark. | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | 2,560x1,600, 4xAA, ultra quality, FRAPS-recorded benchmark. | |
| Power consumption | Using balanced power settings, we record mains power draw when idle and whilst playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. | |
| GPU Temperature | We record the system's GPU temperature when idle and while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. | |
