A Lot of Power In A Small Package
Written: Apr 26 '04 (Updated Apr 26 '04)
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Pros: Strong onboard graphics and sound, excellent design, good cooling technology.
Cons: Locked chip multiplier, no parallel port
The Bottom Line: Excellent barebones system for the do it yourselfer who wants their computer to look as great as it performs.
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| digitaldoc's Full Review: Shuttle SN 41G2 (SN41G2) PC Desktop |
I originally wanted a notebook as I did not have the room on my desk for a large beige box. A "desktop replacement notebook" seemed like the perfect answer. However, after careful study, the old adage of "notebooks are half the computer at twice the price" was still true despite their recent surge in popularity. Also, even at the $2000 price point they were using slower 4200 rpm hard drives, slower optical drives which were picky about the media they would burn, and older graphics solutions. Finally, I realized I didn't truly need portability, but I did need upgradeability, so I moved on.
The Shuttle SN41G2 is a "small form factor" (sff) pc. The class developed to provide a pc that was movable to network gaming parties. SFF's have gained popularity among enthusiasts looking to build their pc in a more compact, and stylish enclosure. They are particularly popular among LAN gamers, home theater users and where size and appearance are important. While smaller in size, they still use regular standard components.
I was looking to build my first computer and having this kit with the motherboard already mounted in the chassis simplified the process. All I needed was a processor, RAM, a hard drive, an optical drive (CD), and a floppy drive.
What's In The Box
The box from Shuttle includes the all aluminum case with the motherboard already mounted inside. The 200 W power supply also comes mounted. A standard cable for the power supply is included. Included is the ICE heatsink and fan solution. In the box are also 2 shorter IDE cables and a short floppy cable. Finally, there is thermal paste, a processor shim, a driver CD, and an instruction manual.
Component Choice
Much of the additional hardware I have already reviewed on this site:
AMD Athlon XP 2800 processor
"http://www.epinions.com/content_128486379140"
Western Digital 160 gb hard drive
"http://www.epinions.com/content_131774320260"
LiteOn 52x32x52 cdrw
"http://www.epinions.com/content_123092242052"
Sony Floppy
Windows XP professional
Centon 512 mb ram 3200
Microsoft Mouse
IBM standard keyboard
The motherboard uses the nVidia nForce 2 chipset so it includes an onboard graphics (GeForce 4 MX) and sound (Realtek ALC650 6 channel) solution. It uses a shared ram situation which you can set in the bios at 32, 64 or 128. While benchmark wise it falls very short of a dedicated graphics card, in practical use it is more than adequate for older games. Also it is better than the integrated grahics solutions found on many of the Intel motherboards.
Appearance
The case is brushed aluminum- very modern, but shows fingerprints. The dimensions are 30 x 20 x 18.5 cm. There are both 5.25 and 3.5 inch drive bays with covers on the front of the case. There is a blue power light and an orange hard drive activity light. There is also a power switch and a reset button, both in a stainless steel.
Ports
For a small box, it puts the full size desktops to shame. There is a full assortment of ports as follows:
Front:
USB 2.0 x 2
firewire full 6 pin (IEEE 1394)
microphone in
headphone out
optical line out
Rear:
ps2 keyboard
ps2 mouse
USB 2.0 x 2
serial port
10/100 ethernet
firewire full 6 pin x2 (IEEE 1394)
vga ports x 2
s-video out (rca adaptor included)
front speaker out/line in (software switchable)
rear speaker out
center/bass speaker out
Note that there is no parallel port. There is one free AGP 8x slot and one free PCI slot available.
If 4 usb 2.0 ports and 3 firewire ports aren't enough expansion, then something mainstream probably won't satisfy you! While 1 free PCI may not seem enough, with more than enough ports, a fine onboard sound solution, and an ethernet solution already, there's not much left to put in the slot (tv tuners are popular). The front speaker out can be switched via software to a line in port. And yes, you can drive 2 monitors with the on board graphics!
Motherboard
To stuff all this into a box this size, Shuttle custom makes a propietary motherboard to make this possible which is unique to the case. This translates to that you will NOT be able to upgrade the motherboard. It will accept a Duron 1.2 ghz up to an Athlon 3000 processor. The frontside bus can go up to 333 mhz. It has 2 slots for DDR SDRAM up to 2 GB total of the 3200 variety. There are 2 IDE interfaces on the board so the hard drive and cdrw can each have there own IDE channel. Some folks substitute a flash card reader for the floppy. There is also a separate floppy interface on the motherboard. The northbridge has its own fan.
Running an Athlon processor in a small box creates a heat concern- addressed by the ICE heatsink. ICE stands for integrated cooling engine. As the airflow is cramped in the smaller space, the heatsink on the processor is attached to 4 pipes that are bent at a right angle. They connect to a radiator and a fan. Inside the pipes runs a liquid that gets vaporized and then cooled by the fan and returned. The fan matches up to the back of the case. Solid state physics aside, this very effectively cools the processor.
Assembly
For a tight case, the build was easy. The processor fits in the slot, the thermal grease squirted, an included shim is overlayed, and the ICE heatsink is screwed gently into position. I purchased a retail processor which includes a fan and heatsink. However, a so called "bare" processor would have saved a few dollars as I did not need the fan or heatsink.
I next connected the cables to the motherboard. The drives are mounted in a lift out assembly and screwed into position on the rails of the assembly. The assembly is then replaced into the main box and the wires connected. The outer case is then placed and has 3 thumbscrews to hold it into position.
My total assembly time took about 1.5 hrs proceeding slowly and cautiously. The manual was well illustrated describing the above. The text of the manual could have been a little clearer, I got the impression it was translated into English by a computer.
The box booted on the 1st try and Windows XP was loaded. The bios had to be entered to set the amount of shared video ram to 64 from the default 32. The cdrom nVidia nForceware includes the video and sound drivers. They are on par to the software of dedicated solutions with many possible adjustments. I flashed the motherboard bios to ver. 025 and also downloaded the unified driver from nVidia which was more up to date than was included. The disc also had a separate driver for the USB 2.0 ports which only functioned at 1.1 speeds before the driver.
Stability & Speed
Overall, the speed and stability have been excellent. Both the processor and hard drive benchmarks have been stated in their respective reviews. An additional stick of ram would allow the "dual channel memory architecture" to be used with a reported 5 - 10% gain. I have not had any heat related issues or lock ups.
The chip was already benchmarked in my Athlon XP 2800+ review, as was the hard drive; I provided links to both above. The only new benchmark is with the video memory set to 64, I was able to run Unreal Tournament at 38 to 40 frames per second with the resolution set to 1024 x 768 and it played very smoothly with no hesitation.
Overclocking options are very limited as the motherboard locks the multiplier and only the FSB can be changed. My processor didn't like it, supposedly the 2500 Athlon XP tolerates it much better.
Conclusion
I am very satisfied with my purchase. The whole system cost about $675 plus the cost of the operating system. I am confident that I have built myself a better system than I could have purchased prebuilt. By choosing the individual components, I created exactly what I wanted at a price point that was suitable. The Shuttle case and motherboard package was the framework. While this computer is a niche product not for everyone, for the right user, it's truly a work of art I'm proud to have in view.
There is an excellent forum devoted to small form factor pc's at http://www.sfftech.com which is very popular among Shuttle enthusiasts
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
digitaldoc
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Location: New York
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 13 members
About Me:
Men don't outgrow their toys, they just get more expensive.
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