The SB51G offers decent performance in a small physical form factor. Though it uses an older generation chipset and processor, the SB51G is still no slouch when it comes to most real world applications. If you want to squeeze out even more performance from the SB51G, install an AGP graphics card and a dedicated sound card.

For benchmarks, we compared the SB51G against a number of differnet types of systems. A few of our benchmarks were recently introduced at WhiningDog and thus we still have few data points to use. Because of this, we used a wide variety of systems depending on the benchmark. Always take benchmarks with a grain of salt. Use them for what they are - a relative comparison between different systems.

Here are the various Pentium 4 systems compared against:

We also compared the SB51G against dual processor XEON systems. The specs for the XEON systems are as follows:

PC Mark 2002

For PC Mark 2002, we compared against the Abit BG7E which uses the same 845 chipset and the MiniQ 450 which uses a SiS chipset. As expected, the 845 systems were very similar in performance though the SiS memory scores were slightly better. Higher numbers are better.

Business Winstone 2002 and Multimedia Content Creation 2003

The Business Winstone 2002 and Multimedia Content Creation 2003 benchmarks were introduced when we started our dual processor benchmarks. This is the real reason why you see the Shuttle SB51G compared against these dual processor boards. Of course, dual processor systems will crush the single processor SB51G in these benchmarks. We will look into how a single Hyper-Threading enabled Pentium 3.06GHz processor will perform against a dual processor system later on. These benchmarks reflect how well a system can handle multiple tasks concurrently. Higher numbers are better.

3D Mark 2001 SE

For this benchmark, we switched back to the Abit BG7E and the SiS based MiniQ. The Shuttle board experienced higher scores mostly due to better Intel graphics drivers for the 845GE based system. Higher numbers are better.

Cinebench 2003

We compared up against dual processor systems again for this benchmark. It is interesting to note that the benchmarks that do not utilize the graphics card are actually very similar in scores. This is mostly due to the fact that the benchmark does not truly utilize a multi processor system (except for the last test which is not shown here). It goes to show that for many graphics intensive applications such as rendering and gaming apps, you will not always benefit from having a dual processor systems. However if you are peforming multiple tasks at the same time, multiprocessor systems are ideal due to the robust response of the OS. Lower numbers are better.

POVRay 3.5

POVRay is a CPU intensive benchmark and not surprisingly, the two 845 based systems performed nearly identically. Lower scores are better.

SPECviewperf 7.1

This benchmark essentially compares a system that utilized an ATI Radeon 9500 vs the performance of the on board Intel Extreme Graphics core of the SB51G system.Moral of the story? If you want gaming performance from your SB51G? Add an AGP card to the mix. Higher numbers are better.

Microsoft HCT

We ran the Microsoft Hardware Compatibility Tests on the SB51G and the stress tests completed successfully. The HCT is a good tool to see how well a system performs when thousands of different system calls are made to the OS and device drivers. Though not a completely all encompassing test, it is still a good way to burn in a system.