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Since the first PC
rolled off the assembly line, they have always been big, heavy and bulky
boxes that take up whatever precious desktop space you may have. Other than the notebook computer,
the PC has not gotten any smaller in the last 10 years. In some instances, they have actually gotten bigger. A few
years ago, Shuttle was the first company to actually push for a smaller
PC. Known as the SV24 or "cube", this barebones system was met with
mixed feelings and never really made it to the big time. It was a great idea, but the system had some flaws. The
biggest being the barebones was "what you see is what you get" with
everything integrated, including video. This made the SV24's
upgradeability very limited to say the least. Then there were heat
issues as the small box was unable to keep itself cool enough to be
worked very hard at all. Regardless, the SV24 has stood the test of time
and my kids actively use it on a daily basis for their learning games.
As a workstation, the SV24 barebones was hard to beat. As a high end or
gaming system, the SV24 couldn't even begin to compete.
The years have past
and Shuttle is back again with a vengeance. They have a whole new series
of small form factor systems, and one in particular really caught my
eye. It was when I read that the new SN45G XPC came with a motherboard
that featured the extremely popular nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset! For those
of you are not familiar with nForce2, they are the fastest, and most
powerful chipset ever created for AMD Athlon platforms. The nForce2 also
gets more out of your memory by using dual channel DDR technology. Not
only does the nForce2 get more out of your AMD processor and DDR memory,
the XPC has NO integrated video! Instead of limiting the SN45G to a
workstation only, Shuttle gives us a powerful 8x AGP slot for our high
end video cards! Could this be the ultra powerful, highly upgradeable,
small form factor platform we have all been looking for? We shall soon
find out!
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