Product Reviews

The SD11G5 is the first Shuttle XPC to support Intel's excellent Pentium M processor. It's been in the planning stages for some time now, and we snared a pre-production sample; the only difference being it's finished in pearly white rather than the production model's silver.

Otherwise, it looks like any other Shuttle system, although you won't be able to ignore the brick-sized external power supply. However, find a space for it under your desk in a dark corner and instead marvel at the TARDIS-like effect of the chassis interior. With no bulky power supply generating noise and heat, there's far more room for components and, more importantly, for air to flow unimpeded. And flow it will, thanks to a rear-mounted 92mm fan and the Integrated Cooling Engine (ICE) module. This uses convection cooling to passively draw heat away from the CPU and other components, channelling it via copper heatpipes to a radiator behind the case fan.

The Intel 915GM-based motherboard will support a Pentium M running at its full FSB of 533MHz, or a Celeron M for the more budget-conscious, backed up

We built the system with a 2.13GHz Pentium M 770, 1GB of Crucial PC5300 DDR2 RAM and an XFX GeForce 6600 GT. Without a bulky PSU in the way, this didn't take long: once the hard disk rack has been removed, take out the ICE module to access the CPU socket. The hard disk rack then fits back in and you can connect the integrated cables to the components. It's an elegant approach that leads to a tidy end result. The system proved both fast and able in use, and never got above mildly warm during testing. It's quiet too, even by the high standards set by previous Shuttle models, with the slow-spinning fan and hard disk being the only sources of sound.

The SD11G5 has one 5.25in bay and two 3.5in bays, one of which will open out to the front of the chassis to provide access to a floppy drive or media card reader. There's also a hidden panel consisting of microphone and headphone jacks, two USB 2 ports and a mini-FireWire socket.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to justify the noise and heat produced by so many desktop PCs, and this Shuttle just provides one more compelling reason to go for the smaller option.