Shuttle SN25P

'Gaming enthusiast' and 'small form factor' have rarely gone together. Shuttle has been working to dismiss this notion with its new series of gamer barebones.

Up until recently, the terms 'gaming enthusiast' and 'small form factor' have rarely gone together. This has a lot to do with the heat issues inherent with a small case and a serious lack of kick these little boxes have in terms of power. Shuttle has been working to dismiss this notion with its new series of gamer barebones, the newest of which is the nForce4-powered SN25P.

Shuttle has opted for stealth drive bays in the SN25P, making your choice of optical drive much less important if you wish to maintain a schmick appearance. Aside from that, this system uses the same P-chassis as Shuttle's other enthusiast barebones system, the SB95P, with the primary difference being an nForce4 backbone rather than an i925.

Internally, there have been some changes to the layout, particularly in the implementation of the ICE cooling system. Gone are the heatpipes and external exhaust in favour of a BTX-styled forward layout and heatsink. Unfortunately installing the cooling unit was significantly more fiddly than the norm. Each retention screw had an overly powerful spring underneath it and alas a good measure of force was required to fit all four.

The drive cage remains, however it has been upgraded to take three 3.5in drives, and a tool-less drive mounting system that isn't quite as sturdy as others we've come across, with small metal hooks instead of metal or plastic lugs holding the drives in place. Cable management is another feature of the P-series, which is really quite nifty -- snap-able clips hold the pre-installed SATA and IDE cables in place and they are a breeze to use. Scrawny PSUs are a thing of the past, as the P-chassis features a 350W power supply and it also has SATA power connectors.

Unfortunately there was no PCI-E six-pin power connector. If you're using card requiring the extra juice, you will have to make do with the adaptors included with the video card.

As with any SFF, the upgrade options are limited by their small size. There are only two RAM slots and these are mounted left to right, not back to front, as is part of the BTX specification -- not surprising however, as it's not a BTX board. There is a single PCI-E x16 slot for the necessary video (given there's no onboard video-out) and a PCI-E x1 slot for when such add-on cards become a little more common place. Add-on cards such as superior sound cards, as the onboard sound is lacking in the wow-department. One of the disappointments of the nForce4 chipset has been NVIDIA’s 'back-down' on any form of HD sound, all thanks to the irrational removal of SoundStorm.

Considering it is an enthusiast machine, the lack of a VGA-out is not unusual, but with limited slots and substandard audio there are better options out there. Nonetheless, on the rear of the case there are digital-ins and outs included for those with quality external decoders. Rounding out the I/O section is a 'Clear CMOS', which is recessed to prevent mischievous LANers from frigging with your machine.

Other companies are beginning to catch up on the Shuttle XPC -- particularly FIC, which not only offers better accessibility but three expansion slots. The SFF is becoming increasingly crowded by such competitors who, rather than simply aping Shuttle’s designs, are striking out on their own and creating some compelling devices. So watch this space to see what Shuttle plans to do about that.