In January of 2003, Soltek introduced their first SFF systems into the US market. They were unique, being the first small form factor boxes to feature dual 5.25” bays, but were a little large and bulky compared to the more refined Shuttle XPC. With over a year?s head start, Shuttle seemed to have established themselves as the market leader.

Enter Soltek?s latest generation of SFF systems. The playing field is starting to shift, and competition is leading to innovation. Today we?ll be taking an in-depth look at what is arguably the quietest SFF ever tested in our lab, the Soltek 3401M. Achieving this record, you?d expect to have to compromise in terms of performance. Not the case with the 3401M. This system also overclocked to the highest FSB of any Springdale or Canterwood based SFF system we?ve ever tested. Of course, all this glory has to come at some cost, right? We?ll find out more later during benchmarking?

In the meantime, let?s begin with an overview of the system. The Soltek 3401M features the Intel Springdale i865G chipset, with integrated Intel Extreme 2 Graphics. Soltek has managed to fit dual channel Serial-ATA, dual channel DDR, as well as the somewhat standard compliment of on-board 5.1 audio and 10/100 Ethernet into the 3401M. What isn?t standard is the whopping 250W power supply and the dual 5.25” drive bays, plus a slick mirrored front faceplate with integrated drive covers? all within the confines of a case that just feels like it should be bigger, but somehow manages to fit everything into a form factor only slightly larger than the typical Shuttle XPC.

How?d they do that exactly? We?ll take a closer look shortly. First, let?s visit the overall system specifications:

Processor	Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron 478-pin 533/800MHz FSB
Chipset	Intel i865G + ICH5
Memory	2 x 184 pin DDR SDRAM up to 2GB at PC3200
Audio	Realtek ALC650 AC?97 5.1 Channel Audio Controller
LAN	Realtek 8100B 10/100 Fast Ethernet
PSU	Enhance 250W 110/230V AC
Dimensions:	215mm(L) x 330mm(W) x 210mm(H)
Parallel ATA	Two UDMA-100 Dual Channel PATA Ports
Serial ATA	Two UDMA-150 SATA Ports
On-Board Video	Intel Extreme Graphics 2
PCI	1 x 33MHz
AGP	1 x AGP 4X/8X
Other Internal Headers	1 x Floppy Disk 3 x Fan 1 x CD-In 1 x Parallel Port 1 x IrDA

Soltek’s own specifications page can be found here

Front Panel Connections

2 x USB 2.0 1 x Firewire 1394a (6-Pin) 1 x Mic In 1 x Headphone Out 1 x SPDIF In/Out 1 x Power Button/LED 1 x Reset Button 1 x IDE Activity LED

Rear Panel Connections

4 x USB 2.0 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x Audio Front Out 1 x Audio Rear Out 1 x Audio Center/Bass Out 1 x RJ45 LAN 2 x Serial (9-Pin) 2 x Firewire 1394a (6-Pin) 1 x VGA (15-Pin) 1 x PCI Slot 1 x AGP Slot

Soltek has included the standard line up of accessories, including dual Serial-ATA cables and a snazzy carrying case. You?ll also find a full compliment of software utilities included with the system, which we?ll touch more on later in the review.

Confused by all the various flavors of the EQ-3401M out there? The Soltek EQ-3401A, EQ-3401W, and EQ-3401M? Here?s a quick lesson on how Soltek denotes model numbers:

E/I : Q : 3/2 : 8/7/4 : XX : W/M/A (ex. EQ-3401M)

E/I ? Excellent Qbic (Advanced Features) or Ideal Qbic (Basic Features)
Q ? Qbic Series
3/2 ? 2 x 5.25” Bay + 1 3.5” Bay versus 1 x 5.25” Bay + 1 3.5” Bay
8/7/4 ? K8, K7, or P4 CPU Sockets
XX ? Generation Code (01 for now)
W/M/A ? White, Mirror, or Aluminum Front Panel Design

With all that under our belts, let?s start from the outside and work our way into this quiet beast?

Benchmarks and Overclocking

Benchmarks & Overclocking

With the goal of benchmarking overclocking performance first, we opted to increase the system FSB, starting with the stock 200Mhz setting and working our way up towards the maximum of 350Mhz.

After a full run through with our suite of benchmarks at stock performance, we slowly increased the FSB first to 215Mhz, then to 225Mhz. Benchmarks ran flawlessly at both speeds. Obviously we needed to be a bit more aggressive. The 3401M was certainly asking for more.

The next jump was up to 250Mhz. At this point, our Pentium 4 2.4GHz C processor was running at 3GHz, and our Corsair ProSeries XMS DDR500 memory was performing at spec, 250Mhz. Benchmarks flew by, the machine was asking for even more yet.

Being perhaps a bit overly aggressive, we shot for 275MHz next. Exiting the Bios and resetting the system, it appeared hung. However, a short while later it reset itself again and a quick check in the Bios showed that it automatically switched the FSB back to stock settings. The machine seems to have auto-corrected for an unbootable FSB. Pretty nice!

Backing off to 265MHz didn?t help the boot process. Our highest bootable FSB which yielded benchmark results ended up to be 260 MHz. That?s faster than any other SFF system we?ve tested here in the lab with these same components. At this speed, our Pentium 4 2.4GHz C was running at a cool 3.12 GHz, the fastest we?ve seen this particular CPU perform yet. Increasing the CPU voltage didn?t help us overclock any higher. Adjusting the DDR multiplier and voltage also did not allow us to increase the FSB. We appeared to have hit the maximum allowable as bounded by our specific CPU.

Very impressive results for a small form factor system, but what about temperature and noise? Experience shows that overclocking a system to such extremes produces significantly more heat and noise than at stock speeds.

Let?s have a look at the raw benchmark data. First up, our PC Mark 2002 CPU tests at 4 FSB settings from stock to our highest achievable performance with these components.

That?s a 30% performance boost increasing the processor from 2.4GHz to 3.12GHz. Next up, PCMark 2002 memory benchmarks.

Also an impressive gain, although not quite the 30% we saw on the CPU side.

Since our Serial-ATA and PCI clocks were held constant by the Bios, we weren?t expecting much of an increase in PC Mark?s HDD tests. There was however a very small improvement.

Next we fired up Sandra.

Sandra?s CPU Arithmetic test showed a similar story to PC Mark 2002, overclocking is definitely worth it if you have the hardware to support it. Sandra?s Memory Bandwidth tests also showed a memory performance improvement.

The bottom line here is that overclocking pays off very well performance wise, and the Soltek 3401M is certainly capable of allowing you to achieve some impressive speeds. But a common concern with overclocking in small form factor systems is temperature. We measured CPU temperature within the 3401M for each FSB increment, running Folding@Home to load the CPU. Results were as follows, as reported by HMonitor.

A 4 degree jump for a 30% performance benefit isn?t bad at all. Overall temperatures are higher than most other SFF systems but still reasonable, especially considering our 10,000 RPM Serial-ATA hard-drive and ATI Radeon 9800PRO which both contribute significantly to overall system heat. The Qbic Icy-Q is doing its job pretty well. I should also add that the hard disk was reporting a temperature of 44 degrees during testing. The PSU remained warm to the touch at all times.

These benchmarks show some great potential for overclocking the Soltek 3401M, but how does the system compare to other SFF?s? And what about noise??

< previous - (6 of 8) - next >

---

• External Design (1 of 8)
• Internal Design (2 of 8)
• PSU And Cooling (3 of 8)
• Bios (4 of 8)
• Testbench Setup (5 of 8)
• Benchmarks and Overclocking (6 of 8)
• Benchmark Comparisons (7 of 8)
• Conclusion (8 of 8)