Digital Home Thoughts: Powerful, Small, Stealthy: Shuttle's SD11G5 XPC

Motherboard Features
Like all Shuttle XPCs, the SD11G5 is packed with features. It supports 400mhz and 533mhz-bus based Pentium M CPUs, including the low-voltage Pentium M. It requires DDR2 RAM (400 or 533 speed) up to 2 GB total in the form of two 1 GB sticks. SATA support is integrated, with dual-channel UDMA 150 MB/s speed. I've grown accustomed to on-board audio in Shuttle XPCs, but the SD11G5 one-ups my previous Shuttle with a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit, 7.1 channel EAX Advanced HD audio chip on board. I have to admit that I haven't noticed that the SD11G5 sounds any better with my Klipsch 2.1 speakers than my previous Shuttle did, but it's impossible to determine that without doing A/B testing. Let's just say that I'm pleased to finally get back to the audio-lovin' arms of Creative after years with generic on-board audio.

Connectivity is handled by the Broadcom 5789 chip, which supports gigabit Ethernet – that's 1000mb/s of pure screaming file transfer goodness. When I'm pushing around 4 GB VOB files, I greatly appreciate having gigabit speeds. Firewire duties are handled by the VIA VT6307 chip and top out at 400 mb/s – no Firewire 800 goodness here, but given how rare Firewire 800 accessories are, I don't view this as a real problem.

Shuttle tends to go with Intel chipsets for their Intel-based systems, and the SD11G5 is no exception. It uses the Intel 915GM + ICH6M chipset, which comes with onboard video (Intel GMA900). The words "onboard video" tend to fill me with dread, but in this instance I wasn't building a gaming PC, so I wasn't overly concerned with 3D performance. What did concern me, however, were the single DVI and single VGA ports on the back of the SD11G5. I have dual Dell 20.1" LCD monitors, and at 1600 x 1200 they need to run in DVI mode for maximum quality. I connected both monitors to the SD11G5, the left to the VGA port, the right to the DVI port. The Intel adaptor worked very nicely with two monitors, and setting them up was a breeze. The problem? Quality. Take a look at this image (292 KB). This was a single instance of Internet Explorer spread over both monitors. The photo I took is telling – the text on the VGA monitor (left) is blurry and the white background doesn't look like true white. The DVI-connected monitor (right) is a world apart: the text is crisp and clear, the white background is vibrant. The onboard video is wholly unusable for someone with two digital LCD monitors.

It's easy enough to put on a DVI to VGA adaptor if someone has a monitor that can only accept VGA, so I'm at a loss as to why Intel and Shuttle would do this "one and one" solution. The reason must be cost, but given the premium-grade solution the SD11G5 is supposed to be, it's a shame they don't have two DVI ports.

The rest of the ports and specifications can be found on the SD11G5 specifications page.