Shuttle XPC ST61G4: Tiny Computer with Big Integrated Video
by Wesley Fink on January 23, 2004 12:23 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Shuttle created what has become the SFF market with their first shipment of the SV24 in 2001. The current Shuttle SFF line has grown to some 16 models from those beginnings. In the last year, AnandTech has also received a huge number of review requests from many different manufacturers with a "new" SFF computer. Based on these developments, the SFF appears to be a huge and growing success story in the computer industry.
Shuttle continues to dominate SFF sales. While some competitors now produce competent SFF systems, no one appears to focus constant attention on their SFF line as Shuttle does. This constant attention to SFF development and improvement is one of the key reasons why Shuttle has achieved such success in the SFF market.
With the ST61G4, Shuttle brings the ATI IGP to market in a new 250-watt Chassis design. Shuttle worked closely with ATI in developing the ATI IGP system; early ATI prototypes were built around a Shuttle XPC chassis. The current shipping XPC ST61G4 is based on the second revision to ATI's 9100IGP chipsets, which is said to provide improved performance over the earlier prototypes.
As you can see from the packaging, the ST61G4 is a new Shuttle chassis that replaces the aging 3.5" floppy with a bootable flash-card reader. What you can't see on the outside is a new 250-watt Shuttle designed "Silent-X" power supply - one of the largest power supplies to appear in a SFF.
The ST61G4 supports any current Intel 800FSB Series Intel processor, as well as earlier 533 and 400FSB socket 478 CPUs. This includes Prescott, as well as the Pentium 4 Northwood and Celeron processors. The ATI RS300/IXP150 chipset also provides 6 USB 1.1/2.0 ports. Shuttle also includes a VIA-chip 1394a Firewire port, Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio, and Silicon Image 3512 Serial ATA with RAID 0/1 capabilities.
| System Specifications | ||||
| Shuttle XPC ST61G4 |
Soltek Qubic EQ3401M | Biostar iDEQ 200T | Shuttle SB65G2 | |
| Expansion Bays (5.25"/3.5"/Hidden) | 1/0/1 | 2/1/1 | 1/1/1 | 1/1/1 |
| Front USB Ports | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Rear USB Ports | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Internal USB Ports | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| Front Firewire Ports | 1 Mini | 1 Standard | 1 Standard | 1 Mini |
| Rear Firewire Ports | 1 Standard | 2 Standard | 1 Standard | 1 Standard |
| On-Board Parallel Port | Internal Header | Internal Header | Internal Header | Internal Header |
| On-Board LAN | 10/100 Rear | 10/100 Rear | 10/100 Rear | 10/100 Rear |
| On-Board Game Port | None | None | Internal Header | None |
| Front Audio Jacks | 3 - Mini Mic, Headphone, Audio Out | 2 - Mini Mic & Line-In | 2 - Mini Mic & Heaphone | 3 Mini |
| Rear Audio Jacks | 3 - Front, Rear and Center / Subwoofer Speakers | 3 Mini | 3 Mini | 3 Mini |
| SPDIF | Two Rear Optical Out & Optical In | One Front Optical Out | Two Rear Optical Out & Front Optical In | Two Rear Optical SPDIF In & Out |
| On-Board Serial Ports | 1 Rear | 2 Rear | 2 - One Rear & One Internal Header | 2 Rear |
| Number of Fans (including CPU/chipset) | 2 - Northbridge and Rear ICE exhaust | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Power Supply | 250W Shuttle | 250W Enhance | 200W Enhance | 220W Enhance |
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Cygni - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
The IGP performance was stellar... if your going to be using the onboard graphics, this box looks like a good choice... but if your going to be using the AGP slot, the i865G looks better.sipc660 - Saturday, January 24, 2004 - link
i think my laptop is running the same ati igp chipset and apart from the crappy celery i noticed performance could be somewhat better..but i don't think that the memory timings are forced that slow..could it be that the shuttle wanted to keep off any possible temperature issues?
i noticed anything video and or memory intensive turns my rather quite laptop into a godzilla.
i reckon anyone purchasing SFF should still get the shuttle and wait for a bios update....that should close the resulting performance gap
why?
ban the freakin 3andHalf floppy drives...
sipc660 - Saturday, January 24, 2004 - link
gamara - Saturday, January 24, 2004 - link
The onboard nForce2 was tested in a previous review, and had better onboard video performance with a processor that cost $80(Athlon XP 2600+) instead of $260(P4 3.0). Not sure if the settings were the same, as the previous article did not list what settings it was tested with.ATI 98 FPS Q3, 50 UT 2003 Flyby, and 38 UT Bot
NForce2 129 Q3, 66 UT Flyby, and 38 UT Bot. Not bad for giving up 1 Ghz on the processor.
artifex - Friday, January 23, 2004 - link
this may sound stupid, but how do you install Windows to the onboard RAID without a floppy for the RAID driver? Not to mention... where does the other drive in the RAID go? :)Lonyo - Friday, January 23, 2004 - link
ATi - Pentium 4, Intel - Pentium 4. nVidia - AMD.Rako00 - Friday, January 23, 2004 - link
Why compare the ATI to intels intergreated graphics card only. At least include the Nforce 2 graphic card too.