X-bit labs

First Athlon 64 Barebone System Reviewed: Shuttle SN85G4

Category: Mobile

by Grigoriy Gubankov

[ 10/17/2003 | 10:55 PM ]

Today we would like to offer you our review of the first small form-factor PC for AMD Athlon 64 processors. Of course, the system belongs to Shuttle. Although their new SN85G4 barebone is pretty small, it hides the power of Athlon 64 and nForce3. Besides, you will simply love their new design. Don’t miss it!

Table of contents:

• Meet Shuttle SN85G4!
  
• Specifications
  
• Closer Look: Shuttle SN85G4 Barebone
  
• Shuttle FN85 Mainboard
  
• Power Supply Unit
  
• Cooling Solution
  
• Shuttle SN85G4 Assembly
  
• Thermal Conditions during Work
  
• Performance
  
• Conclusion
  

There is the whole bunch of companies today that design and manufacture SFF PCs. There is an enormous number of new names in this market, that have appeared recently. And in the first row these are the mainboard manufacturers, who decide to join a new business. In fact, this their desire is quite understandable: the mainboard business is not as profitable as it used to be, because the competition in this market has become very intense.

SFF PC market hasn’t yet developed to the full extent. The prices of such systems are still quite high that is why SFF business appears to be a kind of a gold-mine. Besides, each barebone like that needs at least a mainboard, so that the mainboard manufacturers have a great way of selling their major products as “an addition” to the barebone system, thus increasing the sales volumes and winning more revenues.

But this is what the situation looks like today. And if we look back we will recall that the first company which started working seriously in the absolutely new and unknown barebone market was the Taiwanese Shuttle Company (also a mainboard manufacturer from the very beginning, by the way). Since this company was the first one to come up with an idea of the barebone, they managed to set a standard for this type of system, so that all the other manufacturers, which joined Shuttle in this new field tended to make their products up to the Shuttle’s mark.

Moreover, as I know, Shuttle was also the first one to start offering SFF systems, which allowed installing fast CPUs and full-size AGP graphics cards. So there is no wonder that Shuttle appeared among the first ones to announce a barebone system for the new AMD Athlon 64. This SFF is called SN85G4 and today we are going to introduce it to you.

Meet Shuttle SN85G4!

Like all barebone systems from Shuttle, SN85G4 is shipped in a nice-looking box with a strong carry-handle. According to my personal experience, carrying this system around in a box like that is an easy and comfortable process.

Inside the box everything is very laconically packed into plastic bags and protective foam plastic. besides the system you will also get a small carton box with accessories such as a CD-disk with the drivers and other necessary software, fastening screws and clips, cables, a small pack of thermal paste and a user’s manual. That’s all. Well, this is, actually, exactly what you need to have this system work fine, if you install the “missing” components of course, such as the CPU or HDD.