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We'll finish up the
benchmarks with the latest and greatest in First
Person Shooters, at least until Doom 3 arrives.
Unreal Tournament 2003 showcases high polygon count
Direct X 8 performance and it's also an excellent CPU
benchmark.
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| Benchmarks
With The Shuttle XPC SB51G |
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UT2003 Fly By |
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Turning up Anisotropic
Filtering and Anti-Aliasing, definitely takes a toll
on performance but this is mostly a limitation of the
graphics subsystem, with the GeForce 4 Ti4400 we used
in testing. However, with over 48 fps, the game
is completely playable and looks terrific, with sharp
textures and clean edges throughout the scenery.
Again, our Aniso settings were in 64 Tap or 8X mode.
This setting however, may be a little too much for a
Bot Match test, which is also more realistic with
respect to normal game play. On the other hand,
again your limiting factor with the Bot Match test, at
high res with AA and Aniso, is fill rate and the
graphics card. We're more interested in CPU
performance, so we opted or the lighter duty Fly By
demo.
The Shuttle SB51G is as
near perfect as any mini PC in this class, that we've
seen to date. There are a couple of features we
would have liked to see, that would have allowed a
perfect 10 score, namely AGP8X compliance and CPU
Voltage modification in the BIOS. The lack of
support for AGP8X is a limitation of the Intel i845
chipset that was used in this implementation.
We're hopeful that Shuttle has a Granite Bay based
version coming soon. Although AGP8X is far from
mature, in terms of real-world performance advantages,
it's a checklist item that is going to become more of
a real performance feature, as more graphics cards are
released, along with games that can take advantage of
the extra bus bandwidth.
What has to be the most
impressive aspect of the SB51G from Shuttle, is the
fact that in every situation, this tiny cube computer
performs on par with its full sized counterparts,
based on the similar configurations. Add to the
mix, its 3 Firewire, 4 USB 2.0 ports, on board 10/100
Ethernet and 5.1 AC '97 Sound, and you've got a great
little system that packs the punch and features of
something more than three times its size.
We're giving the Shuttle
SB51G XPC a HotHardware Heat Meter Rating of
And once again, Shuttle
pulls down the EC Award for Innovation and Excellence.
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any other Hot Hardware Review in the PC Hardware
Forum!
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