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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17 Comments
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marvinpa - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
From all of the reviews I got the impression this box would be very quiet, butthis was not the case. With expectations given by these reviews I must say the machine
keeps quite a loud humming sound. It has 4 fans in it, but the loudest is the one
connected to the cpu heatpipe in the back. The metal casing is also sensitive to resonance
sounds which are quite annoying.
Installing the sata drive was also quite an annoyance.
Apart from that the machine does perform quite well, and is optically pleasing.
Johnmcl7 - Sunday, April 4, 2004 - link
I see recommendations to go with an 865G system, but no actual SFF recommendations - would anyone care to provide some? I'm looking to rehome my 533Mhz P4, not bothered about overclocking and I like the look of the G4 case, as it's quieter and temps are lower. However, I do wish to use a 9800 pro graphics card, so I've been also looking at the Soltek EQ3401, however, this has no card reader and the temperatures are higher although it is slightly cheaper.John
sprockkets - Friday, January 30, 2004 - link
The ICE exhaust fan has always been 80mm on Shuttle systems. I use a Panaflo fan to make my system quiet. The picture of the rear of this unit seems dated because the new power supply has a new grill with less restrictions. Unless they changed that. The power supply in my Shuttle ss40G sounds ok to me, with a 2400+ Thorton installed and a Hitachi 120GB drive with Linux and Distributed Folding running it goes around 41C internal and 51c for the processor.SupermanCK - Thursday, January 29, 2004 - link
why no temperature readings...i can make a very quiet case too if there are no fans inside...i think that whenever you have a review with sound measured, you should always measure the temperature of the case too...artifex - Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - link
Well, from what I've been reading on the manufacturer website, there actually is a floppy connector on the mobo, and a cable, so you could install with an open case and leave the floppy hanging out in order to have the drivers for the SATA RAID when it asks for them.Still, in the future it'd be nice if actual useability issues like this were addressed a bit more. I'm not asking you to imagine all possible configurations, or anything, but if it says it supports something, a quick test to see if it's practically useable might be nice :)
SUOrangeman - Monday, January 26, 2004 - link
Just as an aside, there is apparently a way to embed drivers (for such things like RAID controllers) into you Win2K/XP/2K3 discs. I don't think that method was used in this case.In my free time, I'll have to see if this method actually works.
-SUO
vedin - Monday, January 26, 2004 - link
::doesn't know jack about setting up RAID:: Um, use a bootable CD?artifex - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
still wondering about the RAID/installation issue :)Wesley Fink - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
PrinceGaz -Thanks for catching the typo - corrected.
PrinceGaz - Sunday, January 25, 2004 - link
Looks like a nice small and quiet box for a caravan, dorm-room or the like, but it could never replace my main box.Its nice to see Intel have a sense of humour with their "Extreme" graphics, or is it meant to stand for "extremely slow"?
One slight typo on page 11- "As we have done on other SFF tests, the ST61G4 was loaded just as a user would likely set up their SFF system. We installed a 3.0 P4, 1 Mb DDR400 memory..." - personally I'd install slightly more memory in my SFF system ;)