2005-05-13 - Tom's Hardware Guide: "The P-design of these SFF PCs is elegant"

Shuttle highlights its market leadership of barebones with the XPC Barebones SB95PV2 and SN25P. "The P-design of these SFF PC is elegant," write the editors of Tom's Hardware Guide after testing two SFF PCs in Shuttle's P-series chassis. The Shuttle XPC Barebone SB95PV2 was developed for Intel's socket 775 CPUs, while the Shuttle XPC Barebone SN25P supports AMD's Athlon64 or Sempron processors with socket 939. Overall both of them left a "solid impression."

"Shuttle is about to prove, again, their market leadership of Small Form Factor PCs." This held true for both test candidates, the Shuttle XPC Barebones SB95PV2 and SN25P: "These two machines are packed with the latest technology and will appeal to high end users who want to build a power machine," wrote Tom's Hardware Guide's editors. "You can't see any external difference in the models," but the differences on the inside are clear.

The editors were especially taken with the P-Design since their review of the Shuttle XPC Barebone SB81P which was awarded the "Product of the Year" award by both editors and readers: "The P-design doesn't only look tidy and clean from the outside thanks to its drive doors, it also has plenty of innovations to offer on the inside." The special benefit: very quiet operation. "The CPU fan consists of an 80 mm fan that cools all of the four heatpipes. An intelligent fan control that can easily be adjusted in the BIOS regulates the connected fan." But looks and cooling are aren't the only things that impressed the editors: "Of course, with the great overclocking potential of the i925XE chipset the Shuttle XPC SB95PV2 will find fans very quickly." DDR2-modules at 533 MHz work very well with the 1066 MHz FSB of Pentium 4 processors. The Shuttle XPC Barebone SN25P for AMD fans is based on the nForce4 chipset and is designed for AMD Athlon64- and Sempron processors with socket 939. "On the whole the SN25P is a good choice for AMD users longing for PCI-Express in a barebone," conclude the editors of Tom's Hardware Guide.

Source (German): http://www.de.tomshardware.com/praxis/20050506/index.html