Exclusive: SLI Head-to-Head: Monarch Micro-ATX vs. Shuttle SFF

System Application Performance

We'll start with the typical WinStones and PCMark results, which serve as a general overview of system performance. Unfortunately, the Content Creation test refused to run on the Monarch computer. The Lightwave portion of the test came up with an error every time, but we do have to note that the error appears to be driver/software related. Truth be told, Winstones 2004 is getting old, and it has always been a bit finicky, so we wouldn't worry too much about any "incompatibilities".

There isn't much to point out on these charts; all of the results are very close together, and even the faster hard drive in the Monarch system doesn't help out much, at least not in the Winstones tests. In fact, the Shuttle system comes out on top in Winstones Business, so the motherboard and BIOS may be slightly better optimized at this point in time.

Unlike Winstones, hard drive performance definitely plays a role in the latest PCMark benchmark. Where PCMark04 is a tie in performance for all intents and purposes, the Monarch Revenge comes out with a decent margin of victory in PCMark05. The composite score includes results from multitasking, memory, hard drive, 2D and 3D graphics; while we could go and break down the individual scores, the final score is what people really look at. Just remember that there is a level of abstraction hiding some of the specifics and we'll leave it at that.