Shuttle XPC SN25P nForce4 SFF Review

Enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting a P-series XPC for the Athlon 64, but in the seven months since the chassis’ introduction, the P series has been a Pentium 4-only affair. That all changes today with the arrival of Shuttle’s XPC SN25P. Sporting a 939-pin socket for the Athlon 64, an nForce4 chipset, PCI Express, and an integrated Envy24PT audio controller, the XPC SN25P could be the best small form factor barebones system to date. Does it deliver on its considerable potential?

..In the end, the SN25P is a BIOS update* away from being the ultimate enthusiast-oriented small form factor system. The XPC’s $420 suggested retail price isn’t cheap, but it’s the first Athlon 64-based small form factor system with PCI Express support, and it could be worth every penny.

* Update: Shuttle has a new SN25P BIOS revision with a 1T DRAM command rate. The system is completely stable with the new BIOS and performance is much improved in Sandra, Cachemem, Sphinx, and our gaming tests. The new BIOS doesn’t improve performance enough to give the SN25P a win in any of those tests, though. According to A64 Tweaker, some of the SN25P’s other memory timings aren’t quite as aggressive as our nForce4 Ultra platforms. Given the fact that all Athlon 64 platforms share a common on-die memory controller, the SN25P should be able to handle the same memory timings as other platforms, so there’s still some room for Shuttle to improve.

Although the latest SN25P BIOS doesn’t satisfy our entire wish list, it brings the system’s performance close enough to our nForce4 Ultra platforms to earn the XPC our Editor’s Choice Award.

Shuttle’s XPC SN25P mini-barebones system
The Tech Report