Monarch's Hornet Pro Does the Mini-Monster Gaming Mash

The System

The initial reaction upon opening up the box was a mixed one. We were excited in that we knew what was under the hood, but were taken a bit by the appearance. The unit was a little larger than we had anticipated. The case was 9" tall, 11" wide and 13" deep. Comparatively, Shuttle has been the icon for SFF systems for... well... as long as "small" has been a form factor. The Shuttle P series cases are only 8.3" (210 mm), 8.7" wide (220 mm) and 12.8" long (325 mm).

However, the beauty of a case like that of the Monarch Hornet is its upgradeability. It may be a bit bulkier than the SFF we have all become accustomed to, but the ability to upgrade, rebuild and manipulate the system makes it a dream come true. There are very few chassis' on the market that allow you to upgrade the motherboard as well as the swappable components. The Shuttle XPC SN26P, for example, is an SLI setup and comes with the fastest CPUs available, but you won't be able to upgrade much further.

Micro ATX has not been the premier motherboard choice for hardcore enthusiasts. In general, the consensus is that they are inferior to ATX performance-wise. Many manufacturers look at µATX as an entry level motherboard form factor, where costs needed to be minimized and therefore performance and features were kept at bay.

This started to change as motherboards companies such as DFI launched its LANParty series. Further efforts from ATI with its Xpress 200 chipset aided the enthusiast cause for good boards in a small form factor. Although these were good steps in the right direction with µATX, system builders and enthusiasts wanted more. EVGA announced it had built an Nforce4 motherboard that allowed system builders to enable SLI. Falcon Northwest and Monarch Computer Systems then jumped at the opportunity to offer a dual-graphics solution with a solid foundation.

Micro ATX is larger than the SFF boards used by Shuttle and others, but this is not a bad thing. A larger board forces the availability of more space inside the case. This in turn helps with cable management, airflow and cooling. The Monarch Hornet Pro is loaded with fans to keep the unit cool. An 80 mm intake fan sits at the front bottom left corner of the system to draw air in over the video cards. A second 60 mm fan draws air in over the CPU cooler on the left side. In the rear, there are three 40 mm exhaust fans. The final part of the airflow comes via the power supply. An 80 mm fan draws exhaust air up from the CPU cooler into the PSU and out of the case.