Shuttle XPC SN45G

We are standing on the brink of a flooding of the small form factor market by most of the big Taiwanese mobo makers, and it is somewhat appropriate that Shuttle has released the XPC SN45G. This is another significant product in the life of the XPC, as it is the first such unit to come without integrated graphics.

We are standing on the brink of a flooding of the small form factor market by most of the big Taiwanese mobo makers, and it is somewhat appropriate that Shuttle has released the XPC SN45G. This is another significant product in the life of the XPC, as it is the first such unit to come without integrated graphics.

The SN45G uses the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, which provides greater support and performance than the nForce2 IGP that appeared in previous models. Until now the XPC has been seen as an all-in-one unit perfect for home theatre and gaming when an AGP card was added. But the SN45G is targeted firmly at gamers and overclockers.

It supports a full suite of overclocking functions for the Athlon XP and supports the latest 400MHz FSB model Athlon XP chips. Internally it is identical to previous models, with one AGP and one PCI slot. The AGP slot is still set right next to the side panel, which means the PCI slot obscuring GeForce FX 5900 series cards will have problems being mounted, but the RADEON 9800 series will work just fine.

We tested the unit with an Athlon XP 3200+ and 512MB of Corsair memory, and we came across a major issue with the unit. Like some other nForce2 products it has huge problems operating with Corsair DDR memory, refusing to boot and causing no end of problems. A switch to different RAM meant the system ran fine, but Corsair should be avoided until a fix is discovered.

Apart from that the unit performed like a dream, keeping up with ATX nForce2 Ultra 400 systems. The XPC is also great for overclocking but we have serious reservations about heat issues when overclocking a small form factor system in an Australian summer. Shuttle’s ICE cooling technology is great for keeping the Athlon XP cool, but heatpipes are only as good as the ambient temperature allows.

Forget home theatre, the XPC SN45G is a viable desktop PC replacement. Going this route means restricting your expandability to one PCI and one AGP slot, but it packs ridiculous power into a tiny little package, and that’s very tempting indeed.