|
Small form factor systems are getting smaller again. The latest addition to Shuttle's repertoire does not even feature a power supply unit anymore, instead an external power brick is supplied with the ST62K a.k.a. Zen. Elimination of the PSU fans lowers the overall noise level below that of any system we have come across, the Smart Fan utility does the rest to keep both CPU temperatures and exhaust noise in check. Aside from these mundane issues, a great deal of redesign has taken place on the mainboard level with a more economic layout to encompass even the omission of the most fundamental distinction between a PC and a Mac: the floppy drive interface.
Other omissions are the lack of an AGP slot meaning that whoever uses a Zen will have to rely solely on the integrated RS300 IGP, likewise, there is no SATA support either. Whoever thinks that the Zen's performance is diminished will be proven wrong. Apparently, there has been some work on the BIOS to eliminate a few of the childhood diseases of the ATI chipset. IDE burst are working now correctly, memory compatibility issues have been weeded out and even the CPU cache can be fully disabled. The latter will have some dramatic impact on performance, though.
|
RSS Newsletter