Small Form Factor Pentium 4 PC Roundup - March 2003

Final Words

It's definitely nice that we're able to have some competition in the SFF PC market, hopefully Shuttle's success will continue to attract more and more manufacturers to this market, thus growing the size of it and gaining it considerably more respect. As you can see by this roundup Shuttle still holds on to the SFF PC crown, although the threat of serious competition is looming.

Honestly, Soltek comes very close to Shuttle's solution, and if it weren't for the overly cluttered interior, the Qbic EQ2000 would probably be placed on the same pedestal as Shuttle's XPC line. With the Qbic, Soltek makes it clear that you don't need an expensive heatpipe solution in order to offer a relatively quiet but high performing SFF solution. If Soltek would move to a quieter fan and clean up the interior of the otherwise attractive Qbic, then Shuttle could be faced with some viable competition for once.

None of the solutions were as polished as what Shuttle has been able to put together, and the new SB52G2 is a step in the right direction for the future of Shuttle's XPC line. The new chassis is much more elegant than previous designs, and can work very well in both consumer and corporate environments. We are dying to see an enthusiast version of the Pentium 4 XPC in the new chassis, maybe outfitted with Intel's forthcoming 875 chipset (Canterwood)?

We will continue to look at Small Form Factor solutions as they come in, hopefully this will be the first of many roundups to come in the future...