Shuttle SN95G5

The SN95G5 is the third Athlon 64-based SFF (small-form-factor) PC chassis the company has launched. This model sports an FN95 motherboard, which uses nVidia's nForce3 250 Ultra chipset and supports the latest Socket 939 Athlon 64 CPUs. This means you can pack a whole lot of power into a very small space. Dual-channel PC3200 memory is supported, and there are two slots for accommodating up to 2GB of RAM.

The impressive checklist of features continues, with the chassis offering 8x AGP, a PCI slot, four USB 2 ports (with support for four more), two FireWire ports, gigabit Ethernet, integrated six-channel audio, S/PDIF in and out ports and ICE (Integrated Cooling Engine) heatpipe cooling.

Shuttle claims that the SN95G5 has best-in-class cooling, although little has changed visually from previous models. The ICE heatpipe is identical to the original SN85G4 Athlon 64 design and the 240W PSU is also the same. This means much less fan noise than the original Shuttle systems, but still nowhere near silent when the rear fan is spinning.

One difference is the new fan on the nForce chipset. This blows air sideways through the fins of the heatsink, keeping it considerably cooler than previous passive designs. Despite its relatively small 40mm diameter, it makes barely any noise - a welcome feature. The fans are also temperature controlled, so they'll only spin up noticeably when gaming or putting load on the system in other ways.

The SN95G5's provision for two 3.5in hard disks and a 5.25in optical drive means that there's great storage potential, especially considering the FN95 also has onboard dual-channel Serial ATA and an integrated RAID controller to allow for both RAID0 and RAID1 configurations.

Just be aware that there's no front air intake, so temperatures are likely to soar with two 7,200rpm disks spinning away. Installing one of the latest graphics cards won't help either, but there's plenty of room for even the biggest cards. However, you'll need to fill the AGP slot one way or another since there's no onboard video adaptor.

The front panel is much stealthier than usual - both the optical drive and 3.5in bay are covered by hinged doors and the lower ports (two USB 2, mini-FireWire, microphone and headphone) are also behind a black panel. There's no media card reader, although you could fit one in the 3.5in bay if need be. At the rear, the only noteworthy point is that the three mini-jack audio outputs are green, making connections slightly tricky.

Overall though, this is a solidly built SFF PC that won't be short of performance once you add an Athlon 64 and a powerful graphics card. And this is really the only reason to consider the SN95G5 - it's pricey at £235, but it's the only SFF to offer Socket 939 support.

Author: Jim Martin