Shuttle XPC SB75G2 875P SFF Platform w/250w SilentX PSU

Inside of the SB75G2:

As mentioned before, Shuttle has upgraded the SB75G2 with a 250w SilentX power supply (from the previous 230w). The new power supply, along with upgraded mosfets, compensates for the increased power requirements of Intel's Prescott CPUs. Along with the regular assortment of 4-pin & floppy power connectors, the power supply also has one SATA power connector, a nice inclusion for people who don't want to fiddle around with adapter cables.

The main case panel comes off once three thumb screws are removed, however once inside a regular Phillips screwdriver is the only tool needed to install all the components. Once the main drive bay is removed, there is plenty of room to work and install all the components and cables. One thing that caught my eye was the base of the heat pipe actually has heatsink fins to give that extra edge in cooling the CPU. Also the north bridge is actively cooled, giving extra stability at non-stock speeds, a big plus for us overclockers.

Once the heat pipe cooler is removed, installation of the CPU is a snap. Shuttle was thoughtful enough to include a blister pack of thermal paste. As mentioned before, the SB75G2 has two SATA 150 headers (via the ICH5R south bridge), and the ports are RAID 0,1 capable. Along with the two SATA ports, there are also two Parrallel ATA ports. Next to the SATA headers is the CMOS reset jumper, a very convenient location when overclocking. Just to the left of the south bridge chip is the extra USB header, which can be utilized with some of Shuttle's accessories (like a 6-in-1 flash memory reader).

The SB75G2 uses the Broadcom 5788 Gigabit Ethernet controller, which does not utilize the CSA bus. To me, it's not a make-or-break issue, sure there is a minor performance loss, assuming the rest of your network *could* max out the bandwidth, but the reality is most networks will be limited in some way that full speeds would never be achieved anyhow.

Once the components were installed in the XPC, I realized why the AGP slot was put next to the edge and the PCI slot on the inside (instead of the other way around). Once the main cover is put back on, the large mesh grills allow for the video card fan to draw cool air direct from outside the case. Unfortunately the placement of the AGP slot rules out the use of some double-wide graphics cards.