Function Following Form

The CF-S868 consists of a VIA P4M266a motherboard installed in a small, cubelike case measuring 12 x 8 x 8 inches. Still, the unit packs some high-end features, with four USB 2.0 ports, 10/100 Ethernet, an S3 ProSavage8 Graphics controller, a VT1621 TV Encoder with TV-out, and six-channel AC/97-based audio support.

Those components,all integrated on the system board,offer enhanced performance in a compact space, the CRN Test Center found. White-box builders will find the ECube easy to assemble and service. Both sides of the unit can be removed with one screw, and drive mounting areas can be accessed easily.

The ECube's small case, however, requires systems builders to take extra care not to damage CPU and RAM components during installation. The included documentation also is lightweight, and the driver CD is less than intuitive.

The ECube's design limits expansion as well. The unit houses only one 5 1/4-inch and two 3 1/2-inch drives. Most assemblers will use those bays to install a CD-ROM drive, a 3 1/2-inch floppy drive and a harddisk drive. An AGP card and a PCI card also can be installed, but most systems builders won't need the slots because all of the primary components are integrated into the system board.

Test Center engineers configured the ECube with an Intel 2.4GHz Pentium 4 processor, two Kingston 256-Mbyte/266DDR SDRAM modules, a CENDyne DVD RW drive, a Maxtor Ultra ATA/100 20-Gbyte hard drive and a Teac 1.44-Mbyte floppy drive. All components worked as expected.

However, during installation of the Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system, several motherboard components required drivers from the ECube's software CD. Once fully configured, the system performed well.

Systems builders will find that the ECube's diminutive size won't impede performance, and those in search of a space-savvy desktop unit that doesn't skimp on performance would be well-served by the ECube.