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Shuttle has been at the forefront of SFF (Small Form Factor) PC design since the concept first saw the light of day, and its latest offering, the XPC SB81P, shows that it is still one step ahead.
The XPC SB81P is based on Intel's latest 915 chipset and 775-pin CPU socket and features some clever design updates.
It's a little taller and longer, and now has the 6-in-1 memory card reader positioned above the optical drive bay, hence the increase in height. The internals have been redesigned to allow the fitting of three hard drives - overcoming the lack of drive bay space that has been a problem with the format.
The removable drive cage unit has been redesigned to accommodate two extra hard drives across the top of the cage, using the special drive rails supplied; these are in addition to the standard 3.5in drive bay.
The Shuttle FB81 motherboard uses the RAID version of the ICH6 Southbridge, which supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays. The core chipset is the 915-G, which incorporates the latest version of Intel's integrated graphics, the GMA 900. This is fine for everyday use, but if you want to play serious games with the SB81P you will need to install a PCI Express graphics card in the 16X PCX graphics slot.
The heatpipe technology that Shuttle uses to cool the CPU has always been one of the most impressive things about the Shuttle range. This system has been redesigned to take into account the increased heat generation of the latest Intel Prescott CPUs. There's now a dual-fan processor cooling system that has been moved to the front of the case.
Despite these two fans and a further two case fans, the SB81P isn't as noisy as we'd feared, mainly because the fans have new four-pin connectors that allow for more advanced cooling settings to be set in the BIOS.
Once again Shuttle has pushed the boundaries of what's possible with the SFF format and maintained an edge over its rivals. The SB81P could easily form the basis of a powerful desktop or even entry-level workstation system.
Contact: Microdirect (0870) 444 4456
www.microdirect.co.uk
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