Small Form Factor Pentium 4 PC Roundup - March 2003

Noise Level Comparison

One of the biggest selling points of these SFF PCs is that they are supposed to be quieter than big, fan-filled desktop PCs; in order to test this theory we grabbed our sound meter and went to a quiet room with each one of the SFF PCs.

All we had in the systems was a CPU, CPU heatsink/fan (if necessary) and memory. We used the same heatsink/fan on non-Shuttle systems, and it was the quietest unit we had at our disposal in order to minimize the penalty to those systems that don't have a special cooling system.

We measured noise levels at ground level, 4" from the chassis, from the middle of each one of the four sides and reported the results below:

Noise Comparison - Front Noise Levels 4" from Chassis in dBA (Lower is Better) Shuttle SB51G (Low Fan Speed) Shuttle SB52G2 (Low Fan Speed) Soltek Qbic EQ2000 Shuttle SB52G2 (High Fan Speed) Jetway MiniQ 450 Shuttle SB51G (High Fan Speed) < 50 51 51 56 56 57 | 0 | 11 | 23 | 34 | 46 | 57 | 68

With the fan on its low setting, you can't beat the Shuttle SB51G. The system actually didn't even produce enough noise to register on our sound meter from 4" away from the front of the case, which is why the bar reads less than 50 dBA.

The SB52G2 is noticeably louder, but it is still quieter than the MiniQ from Jetway. The Soltek system was fairly impressive as well.

You'll note that when the fan is spinning at its fastest, the two Shuttle cubes actually become the two loudest systems here; luckily, the fan is almost always spinning at its low speed which keeps the noise down to a minimum.

Noise Comparison - Left Side Noise Levels 4" from Chassis in dBA (Lower is Better) Shuttle SB51G (Low Fan Speed) Soltek Qbic EQ2000 Shuttle SB52G2 (Low Fan Speed) Jetway MiniQ 450 Shuttle SB51G (High Fan Speed) Shuttle SB52G2 (High Fan Speed) 51 53 54 56 61 64 | 0 | 13 | 26 | 38 | 51 | 64 | 77

Noise Comparison - Right Side Noise Levels 4" from Chassis in dBA (Lower is Better) Shuttle SB51G (Low Fan Speed) Shuttle SB52G2 (Low Fan Speed) Soltek Qbic EQ2000 Jetway MiniQ 450 Shuttle SB51G (High Fan Speed) Shuttle SB52G2 (High Fan Speed) < 50 52 53 56 58 61 | 0 | 12 | 24 | 37 | 49 | 61 | 73

The left and right of the systems provide very similar sound levels, with the left being somewhat higher because we don't have a power supply helping to muffle the sound that escapes the chassis. The standings don't really change and we continue to see that it is the ability to spin at multiple speeds that keep Shuttle's fans from penalizing them here; once again, since the fans are almost never running at their high speed, the two Shuttle cubes end up emerging as the quietest out of the bunch. The Soltek Qbic EQ2000 is quite close to Shuttle's SB52G2, which is fairly impressive considering it has two fans in the system.

Noise Comparison - Rear Noise Levels 4" from Chassis in dBA (Lower is Better) Shuttle SB51G (Low Fan Speed) Shuttle SB52G2 (Low Fan Speed) Soltek Qbic EQ2000 Shuttle SB52G2 (High Fan Speed) Jetway MiniQ 450 Shuttle SB51G (High Fan Speed) 54 57 57 64 67 67 | 0 | 13 | 27 | 40 | 54 | 67 | 80

In the end we see that there's no competition for the SB51G, it's still the quietest SFF PC, even when you compare it to Shuttle's latest offering (SB52G2). Soltek manages to produce just as much noise with two fans as Shuttle's SB52G2 with only one fan, if Soltek could move to a quieter system fan they could begin to threaten the SB51G. The Jetway MiniQ is simply too loud for SFF PC standards, we'd like to see quieter systems going forward, instead of this trend towards louder units.