Soltek Qbic EQ3401M: More Expansion & A New Standard in Quietness
by Wesley Fink on October 6, 2003 12:12 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Soltek Qbic EQ3401M: The Test
The full suite of benchmarks were run with our standard ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card, to provide better data for comparison to the performance of other 865/875 systems. Mounting the 9800 PRO was a challenge, but once it was installed, the Soltek Qbic was trouble-free in our benchmarks. The system ran cool and stable even with our standard 3.0GHz Pentium 4 as our CPU.There was one unusual setting required by the Soltek. In our other SFF benchmarks, the Mushkin memory had run fine at 2-2-2-6 memory timings. On the Qbic EQ3401M, we found we had to relax timings a small amount to 2-2-3-6 for complete stability. This represents a RAS-to-CAS setting of 3 instead of the 2 that normally works fine with the Mushkin PC3500 L2 at DDR400.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | Intel 3.0 800FSB Pentium 4 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II DS 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL SS |
| Hard Drive(s): | Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer) |
| Bus Master Drivers: | Intel INF Update v5.00.1012 Intel IAA for 875P RAID not installed for consistency of Test Results |
| Video Card(s): | On-board Intel Extreme Graphics ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) |
| Video Drivers: | Intel 82865G Graphics Controller 6.13.10.3510 ATI Catalyst 3.6 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | Soltek Qbic EQ3401M Biostar iDEQ 200T @ 200.8 MHz Shuttle XPC SB65G2 (865PE) @2 00.5 MHz Asus P4C800-E (875P) @ 200.5 MHz ABIT IS7-G (865PE) ABIT IC7-G (875P) Gigabyte 8KNXP (875P) |
Recent performance tests on Intel 875/865 boards used 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. Previous tests of Intel motherboards used 2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL Version 1.1.
All performance tests with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card were run with the AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.
Additions to Performance Tests
We have standardized on ZD Labs Internet Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking. We are no longer reporting SysMark2002 results as part of our standard benchmark suite.Game Benchmarks
We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs as a standard game benchmark. We are also evaluating the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects as part of the standard benchmarks. Results are reported here for reference. Jedi Knight II has been dropped form our standard Benchmark Suite. We were forced to use different patches for operation on Athlon and Intel Pentium 4, which made cross-platform comparison difficult, if not impossible. In addition, Opteron/Athlon64 requires a 3rd patching variation for benchmarking. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
20 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
hey wesley, great review...one thing tho...would u be able to post some temperature readings...especially the case temp...and compare that to a regular tower..doesn't really matter which...i just want to see if the inside of the case is hot. especially with the 9800pro in there...i know the case is very quiet...but my concern is that if the case is the quietest, would that compromises the temp of the system?Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
#6, show us proof that Apple released an SFF before Shuttle. I don't believe it.Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
Found the EQ3401A here in the UK (www.pcnextday.co.uk) - no idea if they ship to the US though.Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
Hey where are you located and where did you get the EQ3401A? I'm in the USA, but I haven't found any site in the USA that carries the EQ3401A or any site outside the USA that carries the EQ3401 and ships to the USA. Thanks for any help.Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
I don't want to spark a horrible war here... but Shuttle didn't pioneer the SFF machines. Apple did. While I'll admit that Apple's machine had problems (mostly cosmetic), they did debut before the Shuttle boxes did.<flame away>
Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
At last 2x DVD! But lacking ICH5R, shocking!!!Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
I notice you didn't use a serial ATA drive. On my EQ3401A (aluminium finish), the supplied ATA cable sticks out from the side of the case, preventing the lid from being replaced. A right-angled S-ATA cable would have solved this, but wasn't included. Can you confirm this is the same as yours?To answer Shalmanese - the shiny finish is extremely intolerant of fingerprints unfortunately.
Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
I was wondering how the noise levels of the SFF systems compare to regular systems.Anybody?
Shalmanese - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
Is the shiny finish tolerant of strany finger marks and the like?It seems that many shiny computer things look very good out of the box but quickly become grungy after everyday use.
Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link
Thank you for the nice article. A nitpick: I guess you installed 1 GB of DDR400 memory, not 1 Mb DDR400 (page 8)...