For the test, our SS50 and the comparison systems were configured as follows:

Like the SS50, the SS40G's integrated graphics use a portion of main system memory for a frame buffer, which will likely have a detrimental effect on the memory bandwidth of the system. As a point of comparison, we tested the SS40G both with the on-board integrated graphics and with a PCI GeForce 4 MX420 card, the fastest available PCI video card. For the configuration that used the integrated graphics, we gave the SS40G 64MB of graphics memory, leaving 448MB for system memory.

For those who might be considering the option of using the SS40G as their main computer, we decided to test it against a more "mainstream" system assembled out of parts with a similar price point. Thus we chose the Soyo DRAGON Ultra board; the SS40G and the Soyo trade back and forth on some features (the SS40G has Firewire, while the DRAGON Ultra has USB 2.0, for example) but are conceptually fairly close, incorporating a relatively large number of features on-board.

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• SiSoft Sandra Standard 2002
• ZD Media Business Winstone 2001 1.0.2
• ZD Media Content Creation Winstone 2002 1.0
• NewTek Lightwave 7.5
• Cinebench 2000 1.0
• LAME 3.91
• MadOnion 3DMark 2001 SE
• Quake III Arena 1.30
• Serious Sam SE v1.05
• Sphinx 3.3
• ScienceMark 1.0

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.