There's no question that the mini systems are a match for the ATX boards in these two benchmark tests. So what selling points do conventional ATX boards have, anyway?

Archiving Files - Winrar 3.1: The Mini Systems Take All

Archiving is a very practical application. The new Winrar 3.1 archiver was used under Windows XP to compress a 178 MB WAV file while the clock was running. The Shuttle SB51G system completed this task in around 63 seconds - assuming it has an AGP board installed. When we just relied on the onboard graphics, its performance dropped. The scores of the AMD system SN41G2 were equally good.