System setup, notes, issues
Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.- Intel Pentium 4 3.00GHz HT S478 Northwood CPU (800FSB)
- AMD Barton XP3000+ S462 CPU
- Shuttle XPC SB61GB2 Springdale PC
- Asus P4C800 Deluxe Canterwood
- ABIT BH7 i845PE at 200FSB
- ABIT NF7-S v1.1
Common components
- ATi Radeon 9800 Pro (380/340)
- Intel Extreme 2 i82865G on-board graphics
- 2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500C2 run at 2-6-2-2 at DDR-400 for SB61GB2, P4C800, BH7, DDR-333 for NF7-S
- 41GB IBM 120GXP Hard Drive
- Liteon 16x DVD
- Samcheer 420w PSU
- Samsung 181T TFT monitor
- Cooler Master Fujiyama heatpipe cooler on other boards
Software
- Windows XP Professional Build 2600.xpclient.010817-1148
- DirectX9
- Intel 5.00.1012 chipset drivers
- NVIDIA nForce 2.03 drivers
- ATI CATALYST 3.2 drivers and control panel (6307s)
- Intel 6.13.3485 on-board drivers
- Pifast v41 to 10m places
- Lame v3.91 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album
- Hexus SETI benchmark
- 3DMark 2001SE
- UT2003 Demo (Build 2206)
- Comanche 4 benchmark
- Serious Sam 2 Demo
- Quake 3 v1.30 HQ
Notes
A high performance comparison between 3 200FSB runners and an AMD platform on a 166FSB. The Shuttle XPC SB61GB2 aims to give full-size PCs a run for their money. In that context, it will be compared to the current performance leader for Intel, namely Canterwood. The i845PE has had a renaissance since the introduction of 200FSB CPUs. It's added in the form of the ABIT BH7.
Benchmarks, as usual, were run three times and the results were averaged to give a final score.
Issues
The BIOS gives you an option of using Shuttle's FanGuardian to lessen the overall noise. The acoustic problems aren't really connected with the 80mm CPU fan. Rather, the 40mm PSU fan becomes excited when the PSU placed under any kind of sustained load. High RPM 40mm fans aren't the most appealing, especially when one is looking for a quiet system. To compound matters, the only method of quietening the system is to transplant a quieter fan. Grin and bear it is the only thing one can do if you're not prepared to change fans.
The on-board graphics' 2D can be described as mediocre at best. The visual 2D quality difference between that and a Radeon 9800 Pro is plain to see, literally. Intel reckon that the on-board graphics are more powerful than ever before. That may well be the case, it's just that more care should have been taken when considering the graphics from 2D perspective. The Extreme 2 uses up to 64MB of dynamic video memory, depending upon how much system memory is installed in the first place. We'll be taking a closer look at the integrated graphics in an upcoming review.
The Shuttle plays the FSB pretty much by the book. Running a 3.0C at 3007.45MHz is around 23MHz slower than the comparison Asus Canterwood P4C800 Deluxe and around the same speed as the ABIT BH7 i845PE. An XP3000 / nForce2 combination (2166/166/166 DC) should show us some comparative performance. We don't expect the XPC Springdale to match the Canterwood's performance, although we do expect it to eclipse the single-channel i845PE's performance at 200FSB.
We'll also be looking at the new i865G's performance. Sharing its bandwidth from the well-endowed dual channel DDR-400 memory interface, we hope that the expected performance hit in non-3D applications is minimal. This wasn't the case with single-channel chipsets, who had to give up some of their stretched bandwidth for integrated video duties. We'd also have liked to have seen some form of video-out capability integrated to the backplane. That's one omission that Shuttle shouldn't have overlooked. We hope some form of riser card becomes available to provide the necessary connections.
Anyway, on to the benchmarks.
