Shuttle XPC SD39P2 review

Shuttle's SD39P2 shows that mini PCs don't have to be underpowered compared with their full-size desktop equivalents.

With an Intel 975X-based motherboard, this barebones PC can house any of Intel's fast Core 2 Duo processors. The four memory slots (dual-channel) can take up to 8GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory, so there's plenty if you want to install Windows Vista.

Another benefit of the 975X chipset is that the BIOS is well featured, so you can adjust memory timings and bus speeds if you fancy overclocking your system. We don't recommend pushing it too far, though, as the proximity of the components in this small case makes it hard to dissipate heat.

Inside the case there's an optical drive tray and an external 3in drive bay, which you can use for a hard disk or memory card reader. It's a shame that Shuttle no longer provides its kits with a built-in memory card reader, though. There are also two hard disk bays that sit at the top of the case. Shuttle has thoughtfully run the SATA power and data cables to these bays. A little more thought would have been appreciated, though, as one of the SATA data cables isn't long enough to reach the hard disk when it's neatly clipped out of the way. Once it was unclipped, we had trouble plugging it in, as its Lshaped connector was fiddly to use. A standard straight connector would have made things a lot simpler. The rest of the PC is much easier to put together and Shuttle even provides the thermal paste you'll need to use with the supplied processor cooler.

There's no onboard graphics, but you can install a dedicated graphics card in the PCI-E x16 slot . You can fit double-slot cards, but only if you're sure you don't want to use the PCI slot for an expansion card.

At first we were a little worried about the five fans, especially considering our previous experience of noisy Shuttle computers. Thankfully, the SD39P2 is mercifully quiet; Shuttle has clearly changed its fan supplier and now uses quieter models. We could barely hear the PC when it was on and, even better, it didn't get much louder when running processor-intensive tasks such as games.

There's a full range of expansion ports including two front-mounted USB2 ports. The rear panel has six further USB2 ports, as well as Gigabit Ethernet, eSata and 7.1 audio. Strangely, there are no PS/2 ports, so you'll have to invest in a USB keyboard if you don't already have one.

Performance was very good under Windows Vista using our Core 2 Duo E6300 processor. Games performance was also as good as we expected with our Radeon X1950 Pro card.

If you want to build a small but powerful PC, Shuttle's XPC SD39P2 is an excellent choice. It will support all Intel's processors, it can accommodate three hard disks, and it provides a graphics card slot and all the performance you'd hope for. It is fairly expensive, though, and those who want to build a less-powerful computer would be better off with Shuttle's XPC SD32G2.