Clash of Shuttle's Tiny Titans

Dom · Aug 11, 2003, 05:07 PM

You can think of the Shuttle XPC line as the Mini Cooper of the PC universe. Yes, there are other small form factor PCs out there, some even appearing to be near-clones of the XPC line, but none have achieved quite the cachet of Shuttle's cute aluminum cubes. While there have been other compact PC's in the past, Shuttle pioneered the idea of small form factor PCs with large PC performance.

It all began with the SS51G, which we reviewed last year. The SS51G was the first tiny PC that would accept full-size AGP cards, supported a boatload of I/O options and even had a free PCI slot. Later, Shuttle expanded the line to support Athlon XP's, and later expanded the Pentium 4 versions to the 845G chipset.

Now Shuttle is shipping two new XPC systems, the SB61G2 and the SN45G. The SB61G supports the Pentium 4 processor, and uses Intel's 865G dual-channel DDR chipset. The SN45G incorporates Nvidia's Nforce2 Ultra 400 chipset, and offers AMD fans a high performance PC in a tiny package. Do these new models continue the high quality reputation we've seen with past versions? Which is a better choice? How do they stack up against bigger, more full-function PCs? We set out, in this story, to answer those questions.

Check the full review out at ExtremeTech.com

Aug 11, 2003, 05:07 PM	#1
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Clash of Shuttle's Tiny Titans You can think of the Shuttle XPC line as the Mini Cooper of the PC universe. Yes, there are other small form factor PCs out there, some even appearing to be near-clones of the XPC line, but none have achieved quite the cachet of Shuttle's cute aluminum cubes. While there have been other compact PC's in the past, Shuttle pioneered the idea of small form factor PCs with large PC performance. It all began with the SS51G, which we reviewed last year. The SS51G was the first tiny PC that would accept full-size AGP cards, supported a boatload of I/O options and even had a free PCI slot. Later, Shuttle expanded the line to support Athlon XP's, and later expanded the Pentium 4 versions to the 845G chipset. Now Shuttle is shipping two new XPC systems, the SB61G2 and the SN45G. The SB61G supports the Pentium 4 processor, and uses Intel's 865G dual-channel DDR chipset. The SN45G incorporates Nvidia's Nforce2 Ultra 400 chipset, and offers AMD fans a high performance PC in a tiny package. Do these new models continue the high quality reputation we've seen with past versions? Which is a better choice? How do they stack up against bigger, more full-function PCs? We set out, in this story, to answer those questions. Check the full review out at ExtremeTech.com