SHUTTLE - Shuttle SN95G5 nForce3 250 Ultra SFF Review

As the only Socket 939 Athlon 64 barebones currently available, Shuttle’s SN95G5 is well ahead of the rest of the market, but it isn’t cheap. 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.

…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.

Shuttle SN95G5 @ PC Pro UK