The specs
You can learn more than you'd think from the SN41G2's alphanumeric jumble of a name. For starters, the "S" tells you this is one of Shuttle's small-form-factor systems, and the "N" is an obvious cue that we're dealing with a product based on an NVIDIA chipset. The "4" should signify to astute folks that this is an Athlon-oriented product. (Pentium 4 systems get a "5".) The "1" is very important, because it's a tip-off this cube will accept AGP cards. And the "G2" tells you this puppy gets Shuttle's very latest cosmetic treatment on the "G"-class enclosures.

So when you see "SN41G2", think "Athlon nForce2 cube that with AGP and rugged, industrial good looks" instead of "I'm going to need a graduate degree to decipher this."

For a more in-depth run-down of the specs, have a look at the table below. I'll meet you at the end, and we'll talk it over.

As you can see, the SN41G2 has more amenities than a Cadillac Escalade, including USB 2.0, Firewire, ATA/133, and six-channel audio with Dolby Digital encoding. The MCP2 south bridge chip is also (or formerly, hard to say) known as the MCP-T. That's the version of the nForce2 south bridge with Firewire, Dolby Digital audio, and a 3Com Ethernet controller. Shuttle chose not to implement the 3Com Ethernet controller, opting for NVIDIA's instead.

One thing you may notice about the SN41G2's design is its generous use of Realtek "helper" chips to implement the nForce2's features. The NVIDIA APU audio controller works together with Realtek's ALC650 codec to handle audio I/O. Likewise, Realtek transciever chips act as front ends for NVIDIA's Ethernet and Firewire controllers. Realtek also makes single-chip solutions for these sorts of tasks, but in the case of the SN41G2, Shuttle relied on NVIDIA's MCP2 chip to do the heavy lifting. These Realtek chips don't include controllers of their own. The SN41G2 should be cheaper that way, and if NVIDIA has done its homework right, better integrated, too.

nForce2-XPC technology and synergy
The above spec sheet doesn't do the nForce2 or the SN41G2 justice, so let's talk for a second about why this chipset and this little PC go together so well. First and foremost, the spec table doesn't mention the fact that nForce2 has dual banks of DDR memory, for more memory bandwidth than any competing Athlon chipset. This extra memory bandwidth helps make nForce2 faster than its competitors, but more importantly, it enables NVIDIA to graft a GeForce4 MX graphics core into the north bridge chip and get very decent performance. The GeForce4 MX core includes dual RAMDACs and a video encoder, so Shuttle is able to give the SN41G2 dual VGA outputs and an S-Video out without additional support chips. The nForce2's IGP has, hands down, the best performance, features, and video signal quality I've ever seen in an integrated graphics solution. This should come as no shock, since NVIDIA has been a graphics leader for a few years now.

This cube has dual VGA ports and an S-Video output

Even beyond graphics, the nForce2 is known for integrating quality components that could make separate PCI cards unnecessary. Whether this reputation comes primarily from nForce2's unique features or from NVIDIA's astute marketing efforts is an interesting question, but either way, folks seem to regard the nForce2 as an especially capable core-logic chipset. The features are certainly there, from an 800MB/s north-to-south bridge interconnect to an IEEE 1394 controller to an Audio Processing Unit (APU) ripped straight out of an Xbox. The nForce2's promise—to integrate nearly all the high-quality components needed for a killer PC into two chips—mirrors the Shuttle XPC's line's promise to stuff a very capable personal computer into a box less than half the size of a standard ATX mini-tower. An XPC system is a great "image product" for any chipset manufacturer, but for NVIDIA, it's a bonanza.

To keep things into perspective, we'll compare the SN41G2 to its Pentium 4 counterpart, the SB51G based on Intel's 845GE chipset. We'll run the two systems head-to-head in benchmarks, and we'll see how the integrated graphics subsystems on the two boxes perform, as well. Also, we'll look at how the audio solutions on the two systems compare.

But first.. pictures.