Though the sides of the cube seem to have a bluish tint, they're just reflecting the background. In reality, the case is black with a slight brushed aluminum finish. The dimensions are the same as just about every other Shuttle cube: 300mm long, 200mm wide and 185mm high.

Looking head-on at the front of the case, you can see the texture of the brushed black aluminum. When the cube is on, the power light glows bright (and I do mean bright) blue, while the hard drive access light is orange. The large silver button is power; the smaller one is a reset button. Other features up front include line-in, mic-in and line-out/headphone jacks, as well as two USB 2.0 ports and a mini-Firewire port. I'd prefer a full-sized, six-pin Firewire jack up front, the better to charge my iPod with, but I guess a mini port is better than nothing.

Spinning the cube around 180 degrees, we get a look at the back. Here's the full-sized Firewire port I was looking for up front, along with four more USB 2.0 jacks and an RJ45 jack for Ethernet. For the traditionalists, there's a single serial port, as well as PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports.

On the audio front, we have front left/right out, rear left/right out, and center/bass out. If analog just isn't your bag, baby, you can find a couple of Toslink audio ports in the upper right corner, one input and one output. Directly below these are the backplates for the AGP and PCI slots.

Of course, the most prominent feature on the back of the SB65G2 is the exhaust port for the I.C.E. processor cooler; we'll get a closer look at that momentarily. You'll notice that the I.C.E. cooler and the case cover use thumbscrews, making it easy to get inside if necessary.

One final feature you probably haven't seen on an XPC before is the small gold connector in the upper left corner. This is where the antenna attaches for the 802.11b wireless networking. Here's a shot of the antenna itself:

Now, let's pop the top and take a look inside.