Small Form Factor Pentium 4 PC Roundup - March 2003

Shuttle SB52G2

Shuttle's newcomer is the SB52G2, the world's first corporate-only XPC from Shuttle. Take the SN41G2 (nForce2) chassis, paint it black, and put a Pentium 4 motherboard with the 845GV chipset in it and you've got the SB52G2. Remember that the 845GV chipset has no AGP support, so you'll only find two PCI slots on the motherboard and will be forced to use Intel's onboard "Extreme Graphics." For the corporate market, this isn't too big of a deal, however a solution with multimonitor support would be desirable for that segment.

The front is very stylish and quite simple at the same time. Note the lack of any Firewire ports because of the corporate target market for this system.

This particular version features two Ethernet controllers, with one Gigabit and one 10/100 port on the rear.

Shuttle will be offering a "client" version with only one Ethernet controller for a slightly lower price.

The rear of the chassis should remind you of all other Shuttle XPCs, there's not much new here. Once again, you won't find any Firewire ports nor will you find a parallel port; the parallel port is an $8 option available on Shuttle's website.

The sleek black painted case features black mesh grilles on both sides of the chassis, they do aid in improving cooling.