Shuttle arrived 3 weeks ago.

Installed Core 2 duo e6750 cpu, nps.Incidently this model cpu not on supported list.

2 x sticks Geil ddr2 800 ram.

1 x samsung 500 gb sata hard drive. nice and easy to install.Sata & power Cables for 2 hard drives allready located for easy access.

1 x Asus DVD writer.IDE conection.also allready located.

1 x Inno 8800 gts [320mb] graphics card.Slotted in easy enough and pci power connection allready provided.

Powered up and Bios recognised all hardware 1st time.
Only thing i changed was clock time.

Inserted xp pro cd [2002 version without service pack 2]and formatted hard drive and then installed operating system. nps.

Startup screen.Inserted xpc driver disc.Couldnt install intel drivers.

[note]. You need to install service pack 2 in order to install Intel chipset drivers and at least service pack1 to install audio drivers.After installing service pack 2 No Probs at all.

Installed all updates and programs.

System running sweetly.No excessive heat or noise.Extremely pleased.One of the simplist shuttle builds ive done.Sound quality is fine through a set of 5&1 creative speakers.

This is my portable pc which i use for gaming, video and photography.

All i can say is if you understand what hardware there is on offer with this particular system and how to best utillise it then you cant go far wrong.

Sure theres room for improvement but this will do me just fine for now.

Yeah, guys, please, can anyone answer this? Will an 8800GTX work in this? Can the PSU take it? Even with a couple of HDs and an overclocked E6700?

Thanks

So will a 8800GTX fit or not? A molex to 6 pin PCI-E adapter can be used to support the second 6 pin connector requirement, but will the 400 watt PSU have enough current? What's the 12V rail rating? I couldn't find that spec even at the shuttle web site. I guess it goes without saying that that useful PCI slot will be blocked by 8800GTX cooler. This is a shame. I love the sound quality from my Chaintech AV-710 PCI sound card. I would hate to give that up.

SFF never really made it popular because Joe Consumer does not care. They either get a desktop and or a notebook and use it.

This is a totally niche market. I have considered one for my Wife or when I wanted to build my own media PC. Both times it just did not make any sense in the end.

For my Wife's PC I wanted something small and QUIET....once I went down that route....and notebook fit the bill better....and its portable.

For the home media stuff....well I need a HD/DVR solution...and in the end my cable companies HD/DVR solution and my Xbox 360 just plain work great.....not to mention trying to teach my family how to use some home grown solution.

"So the SD39P2's BIOS isn't well-equipped for overclocking."

And hence why this SFF will also fail to gain very much market share. C2D systems need to be overclockable, although they did include a PCI slot for X-Fi which previous chassis neglected.

SFF's suck - I had to replace all the fans in mine, and add a fanspeed controller, for it to be tolerably quiet; my new main computer, housed in a MicroFly case, might be twice as large, but was silent and cheaper to begin with - and it allows piecemeal upgrades.

If the shoebox formfactor pioneered by Shuttle is going to have any longevity, they need to establish some SFF-sized motherboard standard, else every SFF you purchase is just a dead-end, constantly depreciating shoe-boxed sized piece of crap.

Yeah, I'm a little bitter about my experience with a S754 SFF,

What killed the popularity of SFF PCs? Behemoth-size and power hungry performance video cards.

I don't understand how you ran out of memory dividers. Can't you set the memory speed to "533" in the BIOS? In the similar SD37, for FSB speeds at 266 and above, this setting actually means 1:1, and at 360FSB you'll only be running an effective DDR2-720.

I purchased one shuttle machine, had nothing but problems with it and sent it back. Done with SFF.

I like shuttles, but theres a price premium and a bit too many compromises on the number of slots etc.

Theres a very nice uATX "cube" case out there for about $75 including a 430w psu.

Its not quite as solid but it has a full 4 brackets for expansion slots and the forward clearance is much better and not just for the outside slot. Some dual gfx cards will fit in there, and theres a decent selection of uATX boards that don't suck for enthusiasts. (g965 mostly, but you can find the raid southbridge and its a bonus if you eventually retire that board, doesn't need a gfx card, otherwise disable it)

The cooling fan is an unobstructed 120mm fan and room for any standard coolers and some lower profile 'overclocker' ones that aren't too extreme. (no tuniq tower for example) Shuttle coolers/fans are nice but restricted airflow which really seems to ramp up the noise esp when they throttle up.

Also you can fit some regular ATX psus in there, not the 1kw monsters but the OCZ gamestreams fit for example. The mobo tray is removable and it has a handle too.

I've owned 3 different shuttle series, but it doesn't quite seem they can nail the perfect size/shape/orientation just yet. I'd love to see a very solid uATX "cube" case laid out mostly like the cheap one, just with better metal and a few more bells for <$200 including PSU.

I love SFFs and couldn't care one bit for overclocking. The issue is that the box is so small that you eventually have to pump up the fan speeds to O/C without turning it into a real toaster.

I have a SN95GV3 socket 939 with an Opteron 175 (2.2GHz) overclocked to 250Mhz HT which equals 2.75GHz.

I would say overclocking is possible with SFF, but the thing that will prevent me from getting another one is lack of space for upgrades.

I have installed a X1950 Pro and a Xi-Fi, and that has filled every available slot.

SFF are a compromise, space/looks for expandability.

It's pretty disappointing that the author tosses out a couple of vague statements about noise and heat, but then fails to do any benchmarking. This is an SFF system -- noise and heat actually matter, y'know.

Why not try an E4300 for overclocking? (since you ran out of mem dividers.) None on hand?

Great review, as always.

It's a shame they didn't use the nVidia 680i chipset though. The 975x chipset is good, but not really in the same league as the 680i.

chirp... chirp... chirp...

Good to see an eSATA port; it's likely to get more use than on systems that have more room for internal storage.

It's too bad there's just the one PCI slot, though: this could be a great HTPC, but if you want to use non-integrated audio then you're going to have to go outboard for video capture (etc)