Shuttle XPC SN95G5 Socket-939 nForce3 Ultra SFF Review

The SN95G5 is a barebone system based off NVIDIA’s nForce3 Ultra chipset for socket 939 Athlon 64 platform. The nForce3 chipset has had over several revisions since its inception. One can say that the nForce3 had a rocky start with the crippled nForce3 150. NVIDIA has subsequently released updated revisions of the chipset with the nForce3 250 that had a full 800MHz HT bus plus the 250Gb variant, with Gigabit LAN. As socket 939 makes its debut, the nForce3 has had another facelift in the form of the nForce3 Ultra. The Ultra variant is similar in all aspects but has its HyperTransport bus boosted to 1GHz. With a well matured chipset under the hood, the SN95G5 is expected to provide quite a punch.

…Shuttle has become something of a designer brand when it comes to SFF PCs. Their XPC chassis are well built and crafted with style. The new G5 chassis has a minimalist ‘Zen’ appearance, ensuring that the SN95G5 will look excellent on your desktop at home or at work. With the performance that it packs, the SN95G5 should be a hit at LAN parties too. The SN95G5 barebone SFF can be found for around S$699 at local retailers. Many manufacturers have tried to take up a slice of the SFF pie, but from our review of the SN95G5, we find that Shuttle is still top dog.

Score: 4.5 / 5

Hardware Zone
Shuttle XPC SN95G5