Shuttle SB81P XPC

As you can see the innards are pretty much like most of the SFF PCs, with space at a premium. The wiring is all concealed and ensures that no airflow is impeded; unfortunately the wires were all a tiny bit short for my liking with me having to loosen the cable ties along the cable runs to get enough slack for comfort. The SB81P is fitted with an FB81 motherboard based on the Intel Grantsdale Platform (915G in this case because of the integrated graphics).

Click here to see the full FB81 specs on the Shuttle website

Because of limited space all of the specs on the FB81 will be hard to use; for example there are 4 SATA connectors on the board but space for only 3 drives. Having said this, with optical drives based on the SATA interface just around the corner and external drives with SATA hookthrough plate covers you may well find a use for that fourth connector. If you are interested in a more in depth explanation of some of the Grantsdale platform features, take a look at Iceman's article. Rather than list the specifications again here I will explain the most important ones on the assembly and configuration pages.


This is the holder for the optical drive and a HDD or FDD, its removal a major bonus for fitting the drives, no need to go in through the front, although the stealthing prevents that possibility anyway.



As you can see, plenty of room to work inside once the cage is out. The cooling system in this model is completely different from any Shuttle I have seen so far; first indication of the changes to the ICE system is the sideward facing fan.

Let's talk some more about it...