The following images show the two new heat pipe systems installed in the SN41G2 and SB51G. The heat pipe in the Intel machine has a copper plate not found in the AMD system in order to improve heat transfer between the CPU and the heat sink.

Heat pipe and heat sink of the Shuttle SN41G2.

Heat pipe of the Shuttle SB51G for the P4 platform.

What Mini PCs Are Good For

Here are a few examples of what the mini PCs can do. This brief list shows that the 'small' computers can handle just as much as conventional 'big' systems.

• All office and Internet applications;
• Burning CDs and DVDs;
• Video editing (with Fire Wire and software);
• Operating several monitors at once (Shuttle SN41G2);
• Connecting modern peripherals (USB 2.0);
• Optional hard-drive RAID array (RAID controller);
• TV board and digital video recorder (DVB board);
• Extremely complex 3D games (Doom III, Aquanox 2);
• Encoding DVD films to Divx (MPEG-4);
• 3D rendering (Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max);