Shuttle’s SN41G2 & SK41G: Two Athlon Small Form Factor PCs

Two XPCs, One CPU

The two new XPCs from Shuttle are hardly competitors of each other as they target two drastically different Athlon XP market segments. Understanding the differences will help you pick which one is right for you.

Before we open up the tiny boxes and have a look at their motherboards, let’s take a quick look at the specs and what comes in the boxes:

Shuttle SK41G

• Supports 200/266MHz FSB Athlon XP & Duron processors
• Supports DDR200/266 SDRAM – 2 slots
• VIA KM266 chipset
• On-board S3 ProSavage8 video w/ TV-out
• 1 PCI / 1 AGP slot
• Realtek 8100B LAN
• Chrontel 7005SC TV encoder
• VIA VT6306 Firewire controller
• Realtek ALC650 AC’97 codec

Shuttle SN41G2

• Supports 200/266/333MHz FSB Athlon XP & Duron processors
• Supports DDR200/266/333 – 2 slots (DualDDR supported)
• NVIDIA nForce2 IGP chipset
• On-board Integrated GeForce4 MX GPU
• 1 PCI / 1 AGP slot
• Realtek 8201BL LAN (w/ NVIDIA MCP-T MAC)
• Integrated TV encoder
• Realtek 8801 Firewire PHY (w/ NVIDIA MCP-T integrated Firewire MAC)
• Realtek ALC650 AC’97 codec (w/ NVIDIA nForce2 APU)

Both systems come with the same materials in the box:

• IDE cables custom made and sized for the unique space requirements of the XPCs
• Thermal Compound
• Copper Shim for Socket-A CPUs
• Motherboard Manual, Installation Guide & Driver CD
• Installation screws & feet for the case

Unfortunately none of Shuttle’s systems come bundled with a parallel port, although you can buy one from Shuttle’s online store for $8. You cannot use an old AT parallel port as the header on the motherboard uses low profile pins and not the standard AT length header pins. If you have any parallel port devices you’ll be forced to purchase the parallel port in addition to the XPC.