Shuttle XPC ST61G4: Tiny Computer with Big Integrated Video
by Wesley Fink on January 23, 2004 12:23 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Shuttle XPC ST61G4: ATI 9100IGP Memory Performance
With the memory timings limited to 2-3-3-6 and performance as a chipset about 3% to 10% slower than Intel, Science Mark 2 memory benchmarks were run to try to determine the impact of the ATI chipset memory controller on system performance. While ATI has been able to deliver a Dual-Channel memory controller on the 9100IGP chipset, we suspected that the memory bandwidth and memory latency might be poorer than the performance we are seeing currently with Intel chipsets.
As suspected, Science Mark Memory Test reports the raw memory bandwidth of ATI's memory controller at about 80% the bandwidth of Intel's 865/875 chipset. With the deep pipes of the Pentium 4 design, memory bandwidth has been shown to be an important part of performance. Memory latency also can affect performance, and Science Mark shows ATI chipset latency about 50% higher than Intel 865/875.
It would be a mistake to consider these Science Mark 2 memory test results in isolation, since they are merely a couple of pieces of the total picture. However, these results suggest that ATI has more work to do on their memory controller to be fully competitive with the current solution from Intel and others. It should also be pointed out that ATI has made huge strides in the design of their memory controller in recent months, and this makes us excited to see the upcoming ATI chipsets.
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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 ;)