Shuttle XPC SB65G2: Big Performance in This Small Package

Shuttle SB65G2: BIOS and Overclocking

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Shuttle uses the familiar Phoenix-Award Bios in the SB65G2 system. Most will be very comfortable with the menu/submenu arrangement that has been used for many years.

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Most of the submenus and options are familiar, including a full PC Health submenu with Smart Fan adjustments and a complete readout of fan speeds, temperatures, and power levels. As you can see in the screen capture above, Shuttle also provides much better help for setting these options than you usually find.

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You might not expect full control of memory timings on a SFF system, but Shuttle has provided excellent options for tweaking your memory for best performance.

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Overclocking controls were a surprise in the SB65G2 BIOS. The very complete ranges would do justice to any Intel 865PE motherboard, and include FSB to 355, vCore, vDimm, and vAGP.

FSB Overclocking Results

The last system you would ever think about overclocking would be a Small Form Factor system like the Shuttle. You buy this type of system for the small size and quiet unobtrusive operation. Since Shuttle appears determined to prove you don’t have to give up anything in a SFF system, we decided to take them at their word. The following setup was used on the Shuttle SB65G2 SFF for FSB overclocking:

Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed
Processor:	Intel 3.0 800FSB Pentium 4
CPU Voltage:	1.525V (default)
Cooling:	Shuttle I.C.E. heatpipe/fan
Memory:	2x512MB Mushkin PC3500 Level II DS
Power Supply:	Enhance SFF 200W

While we could boot into Windows XP at overclocked speeds as high as 240 FSB at default voltage, the highest stable FSB overclocking we could achieve at default voltage was 228 (912FSB). This translates into an astounding 3.4+ GHz speed in this little system with a 200-watt power supply. This 3.0 CPU is known to perform as high as 245 on other Intel motherboards, but keep in mind that our Intel testbed has a 470W power supply. The limitation is clearly the power supply, as we would expect, but the fact we could overclock to 228 on this loaded SFF box is a testament to the solid Shuttle design.

At 3.42GHZ, we ran the machine overnight, stress-tested, ran benchmarks, and still could not get the system to fail or the automatic setup of the fan to kick into high speed. With a loaded SB65G2, 1 GB of memory, 120GB hard drive, CD burner, and an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO all drawing power, consider these excellent results to be the worst overclocking that you are likely to see on this machine. A card drawing less current or a slower CPU will make fewer demands on the system and allow an even higher overclock.