System Setup and notes
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.- Intel Pentium4 2800MHz S478 Northwood CPU
- Shuttle SB51G SFF bare-bones unit
- Gigabyte 8IHXP i850E (PC1066 16-bit RDRAM)
- MSI 648 MAX SiS648 motherboard run in DDR333 mode
Common components
- ATi Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB (324/620)
- 256MB Corsair XMS3200 C2 run at 2-5-2-2 at DDR333 mode for the SB51G and for the 648 MAX
- 256MB PC1066 (16-bit) RAMBUS for the i850E
- WD 120GB 120JB hard drive.
- Samsung 181T TFT
- Alpha 8942 with 80mm Delta fan @ 7v for the MAX and Gigabyte 8IHXP
Software
- Windows XP Professional Build 2600.xpclient.010817-1148
- Intel 4.00.109 chipset drivers
- Intel application accelerator drivers
- SiS v1.11 AGP and IDE drivers
- Plutonium XP 8.1 Radeon Drivers (based on ATI CATALYST build 6166)
- 6.13.01.3245 on-board i830 drivers
- Sisoft Sandra 2002 Professional SP2
- Pifast v41
- Lame v3.91 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album
- Virtual Dub 1.4.10 DVD encoding, DivX 4.12 CODEC
- OcUK SETI benchmark
- 3DMark 2001SE
- UT2003 Demo
- Comanche 4 benchmark
- Serious Sam 2 Demo
- Quake 3 v1.30
Notes
I'll be comparing the SB51G's performance to two of the leading P4 chipsets. Often maligned, the i850E still continues be the chipset of choice if you want ultimate performance irrespective of cost. Due to the SS51G being used for other duties, I substituted a competitive SiS648-based motherboard in its place.
I'll be benchmarking the Shuttle SB51G with both the on-board VGA enabled and a dedicated ATi Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card.
Using the on-board graphics results in 2D that is decidedly below par. I'd only recommend using it in situations where you cannot use an AGP card. The difference in 2D between the 16MB i830 on-board graphics and an ATi Radeon 9700 was apparent from the outset.
Stability
Considering the number of power-hungry components that I included in the final build, I was surprised by just how stout the 200w PSU was. Leaving it on overnight on SETI duty didn't seem to phase it in the least. Playing a number of games with the Radeon 9700 activated didn't seem to deter the PSU either. If you're a little reticent about the whole SFF environment on the basis that it can't power-up a decent system, then don't be. Perhaps it was a wise move not to include extra power-consuming voltage options.
Overclocking
Given the lack of voltage adjustment and confined space, overclocking was always going to be a hit-and-miss affair. I managed to get our test 2.8GHz CPU to 141FSB before the system became unstable. For the obvious reasons, I cannot recommend any SFF unit if you're looking to push your components to their absolute limits.
