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Shuttle's minibarebones systems are on a non-stop cannonball run to become the top sellers in the PC industry. The most current versions featuring an external AGP slot for the power-gamer have all it takes to compete with any big box in performance and, more important, wherever a PC is supposed to be inaudible and invisible. The SB51G, built around the Intel i845GE chipset can be viewed as combining a complete home entertainment system with the most powerful PC. That is, the XPC can replace any DVD player, game console and high-end workstation at the same time. With the incorporation of the i845GE chipset, the XPC further brings Simultaneous Hyperthreading to the table. Only question is, does the SB51G really work as advertised and how does the performance compare to the standard beige (or modded) box?

In retrospect, the probably most successful concept PC in the last two years was Shuttle's SV24. Even though sneered upon by the competition and reviewers alike and furthermore not blessed with exorbitant sales figures, the SV24 has to be considered as the archetype of what everybody now knows as the "Cube" or XPC. The XPC concept has since matured, evolved and, furthermore, extended the computer world from the office into the living room and from the work and gaming rig into a fully integrated, barely audible entertainment system.

John Crank (AMD) and Ken Huang (Shuttle) planning some mischief ...

As amazing as the victory run of the XPC may appear, more amazing is actually the fact that, as so often, the entire concept and load of development rested on the shoulders of a single engineer: Ken Huang at Shuttle headquarters in Taiwan has been the initiator and the driving force behind the concept and as such, he will hopefully find his place in the who-is-who or PC-designer Hall of Fame. He certainly deserves it.

On the outside an old acquaintance, the SB51G has inner values that surpass every other SFF system currently available both with respect to noise or the lack thereof and performance. And there is plenty more where that came from.

By now, we have XPCs based on VIA and SIS chipsets, an nForce2 version has been announced and while we are still waiting for an AMD MPX dual processor XPX, the latest model to hit the market is based on Intel's 845GE chipset. In short, the i845 GE chipset is the latest version of Intel's GMCH, featuring Intel's Extreme Graphics, supporting DDR333 and Simultaneous HyperThreading (all steppings later than B1). The chipset itself is completed through the ICH4 (I/O controller hub) and the firmware hub, lately demoted to its formerly humble name of BIOS.

With past iterations of the XPC, the verdict has all too often been that while they are a grand all-around solution, they lack somewhat the performance edge and while they were adequate, they would not deserve anything faster than maybe a 2.0GHz Willamette. All of this has changed with the addition of the AGP slot into the Flex-ATX design and now the underdog suddenly has the chance to become the usurper and overthrow, er, under-run all these big beige boxes. The possibilities are certainly there but how does a small form factor really hold up against the big competition.

We took the SB51G, outfitted it with the best we were allowed to put our hands on, that is, a 2.8GHz Intel P4 Northwood, an ATI RADEON 9700 Pro and the negligible amount of 2 GB unbuffered Mushkin PC2700 system memory and then beat the hell out of it.

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