When it comes to packing power into tiny attractive shoeboxes, Shuttle is a master.
When it comes to packing power into tiny attractive shoeboxes, Shuttle is a master, though recently other manufacturers have done well playing catch-up. Just to show it's still tuned in, this is the latest incarnation of the P series of XPCs. With the new 945P chipset as the mobo's backbone, this beast in disguise is capable of being an unstoppable powerhouse. Nothing entirely new here.
In terms of layout and features, the only thing missing that we liked in the past was the CMOS reset button on the back of the case. It's a superbly useful tool, making bung setups much less of pain by not having to dig around inside. Sorely missed.
Popping the lid, making full use of the available space, there is room for three HDDs and an optical drive, with two of the HDDs neatly hung across the top of the case (for SATA drives only, though) with their own cooling in the form of two exhaust fans at the rear. To keep up with the demanding cooling of the Pentium D, heat removal has been given a boost with the CPU socket now located at the front of the case with a cooling passage-way piping air from one side of the case to the other through grilled sections.
With PCI-E x1 and x16 slots with a power connector for the new power-hungry cards, three SATA ports with another external SATA port and two DDR2 533 DIMM slots, this minature beast is equipped to last.
If you plan on going 64-bit and grabbing a Pentium D instead of the Extreme Edition with its Hyper-Threading, you might not have considered the small barebones trip, but this is a tantalising option.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012