Soltek QBIC 3901A-300P (cont'd)
Construction
From the outside, the build quality of the Soltek case is pretty good. The top and sides of the case are secured by three thumb screws, and once they are removed, you can pull off the aluminum cover. The front of the case is plastic with metal plates covering the doors in order to make everything blend together. The plastic hinges do feel rather cheap, and they definitely wouldn't stand up to a lot of abuse, but SFFs are only slightly more portable than ATX cases, so they should suffice. As with the Shuttle cases, removing the cover required some force, and it doesn't slide smoothly into place. The three-panel design of the Biostar is definitely an advantage in this area. |
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Moving to the internals, we find the standard steel and plastic frame. Cables are pre-routed to help with assembly and air flow, and there were no sharp edges that we noticed. The included power supply is a 300W model and comes with ample connections, certainly meeting the requirements of the added space. Unfortunately, it isn't positioned very well, which we'll cover in the setup section.
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The heat sink and fan are somewhat less impressive than most of the other offerings. The HSF has a copper core, but the fins are made of aluminum. A 60mm fan provides cooling, but it isn't particularly quiet. The location of the CPU socket is also obscured by the power supply, and installing the HSF on the CPU is far more difficult than in any other SFF that we've yet encountered. Finally, the latching mechanism to secure the HSF is difficult to install, and it doesn't inspire confidence. It took many tries to get all the hooks lined up properly, and even then, closing the latch didn't seem very secure.
Setup
Assembling the 3901-300P starts off the same as all of the other cases: you remove the thumb screws followed by the cover. With the cover off, you can then take out the two screws securing the drive cage and pull that out, which gives you access to the HSF. Removing the HSF is a little tricky, as we mentioned before that the PSU blocks access, but that was the easy part. |
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With the drive cage and HSF out of the way, installing the RAM and CPU is pretty simple. If you need to install an additional IDE cable for the hard drive or a SATA cable, now is the time to do so. You can also install the hard drive(s) into the drive cage at this point. The tricky part is getting the HSF back in place on the CPU. It takes some effort to even get it into place, and once you have it over the CPU, getting it properly secured can require several minutes or more. We probably spent at least ten minutes fooling around with the HSF trying to make sure that it was installed properly - this was by far the most frustrating time that we had with any HSF installation, surpassing that of the "bent" heat pipes on the e-bot.
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Eventually, you can get everything properly installed, and then it's time to add the optical drive. Like other cases, it is usually easier to install the drive cage and then position the optical drive so that the front buttons line up. The screws can be installed from the sides of the case without any difficulty once the drive is positioned. We used our "oversized" CD-RW initially, and it was a tight fit - almost too tight, as getting the power cable installed was very difficult. We definitely recommend getting a new optical drive rather than using a hand-me-down, and you can see how much more room using our shorter LiteOn DVD gives.
Due to the time spent on the CPU/HSF issues, it required a bit more than 30 minutes to assemble the QBIC. The Installation Guide wasn't particularly helpful in this matter, and the internal layout was definitely problematic. In later testing, we removed the PSU and found that assembly time was cut down to a more reasonable 20 minutes or so. Soltek could definitely spend some more time reworking the design of the 3901. The good news is that once everything is assembled, you don't have to worry about it: 10 or 15 minutes on assembly followed by months of use without opening the case makes the assembly process a minor point. However, frequent upgraders will dislike the design. If there's a critical flaw with the 3901, it's the board and case layout - the socket location under the PSU is just really inconvenient for setting up the system, and novice system builders would be better off with any of the other units in the roundup.
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With the hardware installed, we move on to the BIOS screens. Most of the usual features are present, and the integrated SATA support of the chipset allowed us to use XP without any driver disk - note how the HDD shows up as IDE channel 2 master. The DRAM screen in the BIOS has most of the settings required for overclocking, but the tRP (RAS/Row Precharge) is not present in our screen shot. The latest BIOS changes the DRAM timings screen drastically, though Command Rate is still missing. We're not sure whether it was running with a 1T or 2T command rate, but we'd assume 2T. With the timings set to Auto (or default), our OCZ RAM with TCCD chips defaulted to 2.5-3-2-8, so we had to adjust those to 2-2-2-7 for optimal performance.
Installation of Windows XP SP2 - our standard for SFF systems - proceeded without any difficulty. After the initial setup was complete, we installed the VIA chipset drivers, audio drivers, LAN drivers, and the ATI graphics drivers. We rebooted once after installing the chipset drivers, as experience has taught us that this is usually a good idea. Then we installed the other drivers and rebooted one last time before commencing the benchmarking.
Noise, Heat and Performance
With the integrated memory controller, it's not too surprising that most of the benchmark results are similar. Comparing the Soltek with the closest competitor, the SN95G5, it often comes out on top, but rarely by more than a few percent. Temperatures for the case were pretty much in line with other units, and stability was very good overall. Overclocking changes the performance story quite a bit, however, so let's talk about that.For overclocking, the added RAM timing adjustments seem useful, but we still couldn't get a 1:1 overclock out of the system. We had to set the RAM to DDR333 when we used the maximum bus speed of 250 MHz or we would get crashes (or a straight out failure to POST). The CMOS clear jumper is on the rear left of the motherboard, next to the AGP slot, incidentally. We were glad to find that nothing obstructed access to the jumper, as we had to use it several times. In the end, we could get up to a 233 MHz bus with a 1:1 overclock, but we had to drop to DDR333 to get any further.
We ended up with 10X CPU and a 250 MHz CPU bus, giving a clock speed of 2.5 GHz with RAM running at DDR416 (CPU/12 ratio). While being forced to use a lower memory ratio isn't ideal, Athlon 64 chips aren't affected as much as other platforms and the maximum 250 MHz CPU bus was definitely a limiting factor. We managed to reach a slightly higher CPU overclock with the 12X multiplier, where we reached up to 2544 - the highest overclock that we've achieved with this particular 3800+ Newcastle on air cooling. Despite the difficulty of installing the HSF, it at least appears to cool well.
The one real problem with the Soltek, unfortunately, is the amount of noise that it makes. Most of the noise seems to come from the "IcyQ" cooling contraption, which is the vertical fan on the side of the case enclosed in a plastic shroud. We're not sure if the cooler is absolutely necessary, and it definitely adds to the noise levels. The shroud seems to act as something of a resonance chamber, only making matters worse. The interesting thing is that the Soltek was louder at idle than any of the other systems, but in stress testing, it didn't get much louder. The SN25P and 330P both had noise spikes that were louder than the 3901. We'd say that lower noise at idle with periodic spikes while the system is under load is preferable, but others might favor a constant level of white noise.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
Hopefully, anyone interested in the "promised" part 2 will find this post. I'm thinking of forgetting part 2 - I just have too much stuff to do! I've run some X2 benches/tests and can tell you this.The 330P, EQ3901-300P, SN25P, and ST20G5 all worked flawlessly with dual core - once the BIOS was updated. That last part is important, so let me elaborate.
For the 330P and ST20G5, the system WOULD NOT work with the BIOS I had (i.e. POST failed or complete system instability in the case of the 330P), so I had to switch back to a single core, update the BIOS, and then it worked. The 330P at first seemed to work, but I got frequent crashes and I couldn't even flash the BIOS with the X2 installed. If you have an extra 939 CPU, you should be fine; if you don't... well, I don't know if current 330Ps or ST20G5s are shipping with the latest BIOS or not, but I doubt it. (Ask Biostar/Shuttle for more information, I would suggest.)
Notably absent from the above list of X2 supported SFFs is the SN95G5v1/v2. I have v2, and it won't get past POST with an X2 processor. V3 will apparently work, but why buy an older AGP SFF these days? The Soltek worked fine, the SN25P was probably the best fit for the X2 plus a faster GPU, but the 330P was a lot more stable with the latest BIOS update. (The BIOS seemed to address several of the stability issues I had initially.) As far as I can tell, the USB + X2 issues of the SN25P have been resolved - I couldn't get any problems to occur, but then I may not be using the "right" USB device to cause a crash.
My pick overall remains with the SN25P. I successfully overclocked an X2 3800+ to 2.70 GHz in that system, where I could only reach 2.50 GHz in the 330P and 3901. Temperatures were a little lower than the 330P, cooling is better, but the system is larger. I'd say the 330P is now second overall in the recommendation list, and it does look pretty nice. The AGP units are not worth purchasing unless you can get them really cheap.
As nice as I think the ST20G5 looks, I feel the chipset used is complete garbage. Later ATI Xpress 200 chipsets (like the Crossfire stuff) are apparently much better, but the early Xpress 200 is at best equal to the like of ALi/ULi and SiS. Even VIA would be better (outside of integrated graphics performance) than the original Xpress 200. Overclocking remains essentially non-existent, and the smaller PSU (240W) will struggle with an X2 plus faster GPU. There's no way I would recommend spending $350 on the ST20G5.
Jarred Walton
SFF and Guide Editor
AnandTech.com
P.S. I'm skipping the 775 roundup as well, and will be moving on to later 775 systems for review. Basically, all of the 915/925 SFFs are outdated by the Pentium D, so there's no reason to purchase one (in my opinion). If you really want some brief thoughts on a specific 775 SFF, email me and I'll let you know. I have looked at several of the units, but putting together a 25000 word article on outdated hardware doesn't seem like a good use of time.
highlandsun - Tuesday, November 1, 2005 - link
Thanks for following up here, I just found this roundup while googling for ST20G5 reviews. My brother has an SN95G5v2 and we spent several hours one night trying to make it behave after updating to the latest BIOS. After the update Windows no longer saw his Logitech wireless trackball (but Linux still saw it just fine) plugged into the PS/2 port. We had to go back to the original BIOS that the thing shipped with. Unfortunately the original version doesn't support Cool'n'Quiet on the Winchester or Venice 3000+ that we plugged in (we had one of each), which was why we went looking for the BIOS upgrade in the first place.Anyway, he's using the SN95 for an HTPC, and I got interested in going the same route. But I was looking at the ST20 instead. The SN25P isn't a viable option because we're using Fusion HDTV tuner cards, and they're PCI only, no PCI-E version yet. I couldn't care less about AGP vs PCI-E for video in this case, as it's all overkill for simple media streaming. (The only key feature is making sure the video card supports DxVA for DVICO's MPEG decoder to work well.) But now it seems that none of Shuttle's current offerings are really suitable, since the ST20 really is too flawed in other areas.
Has anyone ever gotten an answer from Shuttle about why they would go to the trouble of using the Nforce3 Ultra but not using its integrated Gbit LAN??
dlevens - Sunday, September 4, 2005 - link
It would be nice to see a section on customer support. I have been extremely disapointed in Shuttle support for these SFF systems. I started with the SV25 and about 10 cubes later I am running the sn25p. I have to say I hate this thing. Also surprised to see there was no mention of some major issues with stability due to cheap or faulty sata cables. There are a ton of posts on sudhian about issues related to the sata cables. Curious if Anandtech saw any of these issues? http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=4...">http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.a...amp;thre...Although, I would expect shuttle would send a well tested machine for a review site.
I also had a miserable time finding the most stable way to build the sn25p as far as drivers. Still not sure I have it right. This would be a great section to add in a review. I made a post here reguarding driver issues.
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=4...">http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.a...amp;thre...
One of my biggest complaints about the sn25p is sound. Was shocked to see the Via envy praised so much in the review. Maybe this is part of the driver issues I am having or could be the game I am currently playing, but sound is breaking up constantly on this thing. I have tried both drivers from VIA and both from shuttle. Anyone else playing Warlords IV on an sn25p and able to get your sound to work? I play warlords IV and run skype in the background for voice. Sound is garbled and breaks up.
Still looking for shuttle to be unseated in the sff market, would be nice to find some quality and stability to match the high price we pay for these sff systems. And a company who stands behind their product with great support would be icing on that cake.
Dennis
JarredWalton - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
Hey Dennis - I don't know if you'll see this, but I'll add it for others that might look. I obviously can't play all the games out there with each unit, so all I know is that the SN25P and the Via Envy did great on the tests I ran. The sound was also completely free of static, which is not the case for several of the others. The lack of static was far more important to me than other aspects of the sound system.Anyway, I didn't run into driver issues or SATA issues. I don't know if I just got lucky or what. I did a clean install of XP SP2, then I used the included CD to get sound and networking. I then downloaded the latest nF4 chipset drivers, along with graphics drivers for the ATI card I used, and I grabbed all the updates from Windows Update. Everything seemed to run fine.
artifex - Monday, August 22, 2005 - link
I think it'd be fun to compare these to Iwill's ZMAXdp, which is a dual-Opteron SFF. Not dual core, but dual processor. SFFTech says it's using nForce3 Pro as the chipset. It's also amazingly expensive, and has a silly little fin antenna :)JarredWalton - Thursday, August 25, 2005 - link
Iwill declined to send the current ZMAXdp when I emailed them, but they're working on an updated version for the future, so we'll see.Zak - Monday, August 15, 2005 - link
Frankly, each one of them has one single fault, just one, that makes, otherwise perfect box, useless for me... Some have the card readers up front that spoil the looks and I don't need them, some have no SPDIF out, some have 4 pin FireWire connectors, some are butt-ugly, some have on-board video. They'd be perfect otherwise if not for those single small problems. I haven't found a small factor case yet that would be perfect for me. So I'm sticking to towers for now.Zak
jopa25 - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
Hi, congratulations and thanks for that great review, in the first placeI'd have a little question about the the measurement of the noise levels of these SFF, is there any differences in the way noise was measured in relation with the former roundup (478/754 SFF roundup) ?
I expected the newer models to be quieter without GPU fan than the 478/754 SFF. However, according to the measurements, at 12 inches far, 4 out of the 5 478/754 SFF reviewed remained below 30dB, while the new models keep in a range from 37 to 46 dB in the same test. Quite a significant difference, isn't it?
As a part of an explanation, I guess the processor used in the last roundup (AMD Athlon 64 3800+ with Newcastle core) is not exactly wonderful at power saving, but should not be far from the Intel Pentium 4 3.0 used in the other roundup anyway.
So, the question is: Is there any reasonable explanation for these high levels of noise with fanless GPU, in comparison with those from the 478/754 roundup?
JarredWalton - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I'm not entirely sure why the noise levels were higher. Part of it may be due to the time of year (winter vs. summer). The room that the systems were in was probably closer to 65 F for the last roundup, whereas I'd say close to 75 F for the current roundup. A 10 degree difference in room temperature would have a substantial impact, unfortunately. (If you compare the SN25P results to the March testing, it was substantially louder during stress testing.)I may not have measured in the exact same location relative to the last SFF roundup. I think I measured the socket 478 units from the front, which may have impacted things, and I moved some desks around which could have impacted scores as well. The rear of the SFFs are now closer to a wall than the old location, so noise reflecting off the wall might be changing the readings a bit.
I tried to be consistent with all the units in the roundup, but the use of differing CPUs makes it hard to say how they compare with the older models. I would say, however, that in typical use only the G5 units were at the same level as the last roundup. The 330P idled very low, but stress tests made it quite a bit louder. The SN25P and EQ3901 are both clearly louder than everything but the e-bot, which is roughly on the same level in terms of noise.
WooDaddy - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
Jarod,GREAT Article. For quite some time I wanted to see a review with the SN25 and ST20 together. In the meantime, I bought a Mac Mini (quit screaming "traitor"). Out of curiousity, do you or anyone know the rated noise levels of the mini? It's dead quiet even at full CPU.
For you LGA775 SFF round-up, please don't forget to consider the Trigem Kloss PC (www.klosspc.com available at ZZF). Personally, it's the best looking SFF I've seen (better than the ASUS Spressos). I've been desperately looking for a review on that badboy.
Thanks