Shuttle SB65G2: The Test

Since the SB65G2 even does away with on-board video, we were able to run our full suite of benchmarks with our standard ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card. Yes, this is the card that supposedly requires a large power supply for best performance; and yes, this is a card that requires auxiliary power. However, even with a loaded system, there was still a spare Molex connector for the video card, and the system ran cool and stable even with our standard 3.0GHz Pentium 4 as our CPU.


 Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s): Intel 3.0 800FSB Pentium 4
RAM: 2 x 512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II DS
2 x 256MB Corsair 3200LL SS
Hard Drive(s): Maxtor 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Western Digital 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Bus Master Drivers: Intel INF Update v5.00.1012
Intel IAA for 875P RAID not installed for consistency of Test Results
Video Card(s): ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X)
Video Drivers: ATI Catalyst 3.6
Operating System(s): Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards: Shuttle XPC SB65G2 (865PE) @ 200.5 MHz
Asus P4C800-E (875P) @ 200.5 MHz
ABIT IS7-G (865PE)
ABIT IC7-G (875P)
Gigabyte 8KNXP (875P)

Recent performance tests on Intel 875/865 boards used 2x512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II Double-bank memory. Previous tests of Intel motherboards used 2x256MB Corsair 3200LL Ver. 1.1.

All performance tests were run with the ATI 9800 PRO 128MB video card with AGP Aperture set to 128MB with Fast Write enabled. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32.

Additions to Performance Tests

We have standardized on ZD Labs Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003 and ZD Labs Business Winstone 2002 for system benchmarking. We are no longer reporting SysMark2002 results as part of our standard benchmark suite.

Game Benchmarks

We have added Gun Metal DirectX Benchmark 2 from Yeti Labs as a standard game benchmark. We are also evaluating the new X2 Benchmark, which includes Transform and Lighting effects as part of the standard benchmarks. Results are reported here for reference. Jedi Knight II has been dropped form our standard Benchmark Suite. We were forced to use different patches for operation on Athlon and Intel Pentium 4, which made cross-platform comparison difficult, if not impossible. In addition, Opteron/Athlon64 requires a 3rd patching variation for benchmarking. JK2 uses a Quake engine, and we are continuing to use Quake3 as a standard benchmark for the time being.

BIOS and Overclocking Gaming and Media Encoding Performance
Comments Locked

43 Comments

View All Comments

  • Chriz - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    I am curious about the LAN port. On the SB61G2 it was only 10/100. Does the SB65G2 use the Intel CSA bus and do the gigabit lan?
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    #10 -
    Please see my "searching for the Memory Holy Grail - Part 2" here. All our testing in that review was with a 2.4C, and we make recommendations for buying in the conclusion. This is continued in the Mushkin/Adata memory review.

    #7, #11 - The SB61G2 and black SB62G2 are released and available with on-board graphics and an AGP 8X slot. I understand the SB65G2 is to be reased within the next week.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    You should get 3200 speed memory I think.


    Does anyone know of a good distributor for these at competitive pricing? The distributors I find on google are really sketchy and I don't trust the packaging or descriptions.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    If I want to throw in a P4 2.4C and overclock it, what memory speed should I get? How do you know if you should get PC3200, 3500, 3700, etc.?

    (regarding the audio noise, that's a bit disappointing...)
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    I have an SN41G2 and I've already replaced the two fans in the system (PSU and ICE).

    The PSU fan develops a very high pitch noise that will drive you crazy. Replacing it is very easy, just kind of hard to find a 40x40x10mm fan (look for evercool). And of course it voids the warrenty on the PSU only, but not the Shuttle as a whole.
    I replaced the ICE fan with a Vantec Stealth as they are much more quiet than the supplied fan.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    I mean on Shuttle´s homepage of course :o)
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    Hi...im trying to get some info about the SB65G2,but cant find anything,just SB62G2...? plz help :)
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    Good question, Rekonn and you're correct. I have the same system as the one in the review and it does indeed suffer from noise issues through the onboard sound. I stuck an audigy in it (as most anandtech readers would) and it works fine. Unless you feel like soldering though you can't hook up the front panel to the sound card.

    I still love the system though.
  • Rekonn - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    Did you get a chance to test out the front headphone jack? I'd love to get just a subjective impression when listening to some mp3's using a pair of headphones. (On the sb61g2 the noise from the front headphone jack is bad.)
  • jarsoffart - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    On the Noise Level page, you state 1 MB of DDR400, I think you mean 1 GB.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now