Sounds great, but looking at the exterior - the mix of gloss/brushed and matte looks very odd: Or am I the only one who thinks this?
Ya, the case needs a serious paint job. But other than that it looks solid for a shuttle. Needs to be all gloss or brushed or matte. None of this tri-mix stuffs.
I dont think it's too bad in the flesh, still better than the original P. Tim loves the original P chassis though with the integration of the card reader but I think it looks ugly and the door hinges are flimsy.
I don't necessarily 'love' the P-series chassis, but I prefer it more than the arguably nicer-looking G-series chassis. That's because I'm more of a functionality over form person. I use the card reader several times a day so it's a useful thing to me - I don't really want a USB reader running riot on my desk. Without the card reader though, I'd probably rather have a G chassis.
I'm not a big fan of it, myself. I really, really like the G5 chassis, I think shuttle made something very hard to beat. The cooling on the G5 is unmatched, as well, since the PSU is not stuck to the back of the machine. I get better chip temps with Shuttle's ICE system than I get with many other ATX boards and a decent Zalman, despite the shuttle being so close-quartered.
Dude, your desk is already a tip. It would make no difference All the P chassis allows is having the card reader 30cms above your crap so you can actually find and use it
ive not really liked the style of shuttle cases. But there isnt much choice when it comes to these small bare bones. I want a bare bones and looks like ill go for this for the AMD M2 support.
Not sure why the author dislikes ICE. It is perhaps the best air component built for a cpu. At 50% fan speed temperatures dont even pass 40 on full load... in an SFF that's insane. Shuttles are expensive but you can run a bunch of devices on its 300W psu. When you buy shuttle you buy quality. The P chassis has improved greatly from just the Sn25p to the new Sn27p. Out of all SFF, Shuttle is by far the most stylish.
It's cause the whole middle area right over the CPU die has NOTHING!? Yet, it has a fan blowing air over it. It would be far more efficient to include a heatsink on the CPU itself AND have a heatpipe solution. The original ICE in the G shuttles worked because it sucked the hot air out the case as the CPU was slap bang in the middle of everything and this just isnt the case in the P series. It's just not an ideal solution. The SN25 is P1 and SN27 is P2.
LOL, so basically you just dont like the design of ICE. It is proven to work better than what you're suggesting, yet you argue against it? Yes, I know P1 and P2... all that is is a revision of a P Chassis which is exactly what I was saying. How can you say not an ideal solution? I personally have an Sn25p with a cpu temperature of 24 C, in an 80 F room, with the ICE fans at less than 50%... That's quiet and cold. I'd like to see a different heatsink/heatpipe do the same. Have you even bothered to run tests of different heatsinks in the case instead of ICE? Might consider doing and including that in your report before you discredit a useful component.
video card issues I know in the review a single slot card solution was used, though it was mentioned that you could use a 7950gx2. I was curious if this was actually a good idea in a case this size considering the size of the psu and heat issues. If anyone knows if these are really not a problem then i'm heading to newegg very soon.
I thought it was a Microwave. And my second guess would be a toaster oven. Now all I want to know is what is it?
It can handle the 7950 Gx2... that card only takes 140 watts to power. I know with the older models it has issues due to the capacitors being in the way. I hear temps are decent but have a extra fan blow in the gap between both gpus seems to help out pretty well.
We used a dual slot 7900GTX and it handled that fine, a 7950 *should* be no problem. As for the ICE unit, testing it against other, non specific units would be a waste of time. Sure the ICE is designed for the shuttle specifically and it works WELL, like you point out, but it could work BETTER.
