Shuttle SN25P

Stability and Overclocking

Shuttle have included some limited overclocking features in the BIOS, but the SN25P seemed unwilling to make use of them. We lowered the CPUs multiplier to ensure that the CPU was not a limitation in our overclocking experiences with the SN25P. We found that the system was capable of booting and loading windows at 220MHz FSB, but would crash when put under any kind of stress.

In fact, we had to lower the front side bus to 213MHz before we could get the board to complete some simple benchmarks, such as SuperPI and SiSoft Sandra's Unbuffered memory benchmark. We did not have great overclocking experiences with this board at all and anything over the stock 200MHz front side bus would cause the Prime95 torture test to fail within 10 minutes. However, at stock clock speeds the Shuttle SN25P ran Prime95's torture test flawlessly for hours on end.

Closing Thoughts

Regardless of the fact that the Shuttle SN25P does not use the Ultra variant of the NForce 4 MCP, we see it can perform as well or better than any full ATX board out on the market at the moment. With the extra accessibility of being able to use graphics cards with dual slot cooling solutions and up to three hard disks there's never been a better time to throw away your huge ATX rig and opt for a small form factor PC.

Ok, small form factor isn't everyone's cup of tea - you can only use one optical drive for a start and it runs like a little oven compared to your average ATX setup, but how many of you can throw your case into your backpack and travel across country to friends, family or LANs? It's a happy medium between large fully customisable ATX setups and ultra portable laptops: like a foot in the door of both worlds with fewer drawbacks than previous XPCs.

I've talked to a few people about it, and the general consensus from looking at pictures of it is the styling is probably too much of a change, and people don't like change. Fair enough, I can see that, but I have to admit that it has grown on me. You can't deny it's better than the old G styling, the look is more refined and everything is clean and stealthed behind shiny plastic covers.

Even though I use a YY 'Borg' Cube on a day to day basis, which is about as far away from SFF you can get, using the Shuttle SN25P XPC makes you long for the space in your room back. Everything is neatly packed away in a tiny package and you know everything works and is designed to fit. By this I mean things like front audio and USB ports - forever am I trying to get the front USB ports working but either one does or the other, never both together. The SN25P's cables are the right length and everything is routed efficiently without waste, unlike your average home build. It's a nice change.

Also, think how much money you can make selling your old kit considering you get everything you need in a Shuttle XPC - it pays for itself!

The overclocking was without doubt, disappointing, but others might have more luck with higher rated memory modules and more labile CPUs such as the AMD Athlon 64 3000+. So, not only is it versatile and performs well, but it looks excellent and is extremely well built. I think its time to throw out your ATX case and upgrade.

Editor's Notes - Tim Smalley:

The Shuttle SN25P is a compelling product for anyone that is interested in a powerful Small Form Factor system thanks to its stylish looks and great performance amalgamated together in a chassis that is far from intrusive.

The lack of adjustment for the command rate memory timing may put some people off buying this chassis. However, Richard displayed that it did not have as greater effect on performance as one might think. In memory intensive situations, the SN25P does fall behind the competition, but when gaming at realistic resolutions that you might consider using, the Shuttle SN25P was a match for any motherboard that utilised the 1T command rate.

I feel that there are a few niggles with the styling - mainly with respect to the embossed logo down the side panels, and it would be nice to see the XPCs without this styling down the side. I actually think the chassis would be more desirable without the embossed logo.

Finally, Richard mentioned that the board was a poor overclocker. I have found this to be the case with just about every XPC I've come across. However, Shuttle's full sized motherboards do not suffer from the same problems. It would be nice to see a better overclocker, but for the user who wants a small, sleek and powerful gaming system, they will not go too far wrong with the SN25P.