 "Yet again, Shuttle shows its mastery of the SFF, with a well-engineered system that packs most of the features you'd want in a full-sized ATX motherboard and case into a compact, good-looking package," state the editors of the British computer magazine Custom PC having recently tested the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN27P2.
Being the pioneer in the Small Form Factor (SFF) PC business, "the company's product range is now more numerous than the varieties of Heinz," describe the editors the Shuttle family.
With the introduction of the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN27P2 targeting enthusiasts and gamers, it becomes obvious again that "hardly a month goes by without the appearance of a new Shuttle," explain the editors.
As the first model to come with the advanced P2 chassis, the editors noticed the improved cooling system consisting of five "temperature-controlled" fans that is "very effective."
Despite being small, the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN27P2 offers a lot and "has many high-end desktop features," write the editors.
Based on NVIDIA's nForce 570 Ultra chipset, the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN27P2 features PCI and PCI-E slot the editors had "no troubles fitting in a GeForce 7900 GTX," a number of FireWire and USB 2.0 connectors, capacity for 8GB of RAM all powered by a "decent 400W power supply" that "should be able to power a top-of-the-range processor, a couple of hard disks and virtually any graphics card," write the editors.
When it came to 2D benchmarking, the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN27P2 managed to surpass a competitive desktop board based on the same chipset which proves once more that "the days when small form factors meant slow performance are clearly long gone," state the IT experts of Custom PC.
Conclusion:
"Yet again, Shuttle shows its mastery of the SFF, with a well-engineered system that packs most of the features you'd want in a full-sized ATX motherboard and case into a compact, good-looking package." (...) Nevertheless, if a no-compromise Socket AM2 Athlon 64 in a small box is your preference, the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN27P2 should be your top choice."
Custom PC Approved!
| Speed |
86% |
| Features |
85% |
| Value |
64% |
| Overall |
80% |
Source: Custom PC, issue 037/October 2006, pages 39-40 |