Shuttle XPC Prima SX38P2 Pro

1:30 PM - May 1, 2008 by Bill Lake, Don Woligroski
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: shuttle, xpc, desktop

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Shuttle Launches a High Performance XPC: the SX38P2 Pro

Shuttle has been making small PCs for some time, and can virtually be credited with starting the small form factor (SFF) market. The company creates products as complete units or in a barebones format; the latter means only the case, motherboard and some accessories are included. Critical components like the CPU and memory are not supplied in the barebones price, but can be added as options, of course.

While the small form factor size has obvious space and transportation advantages, SFF PCs face several obstacles that are not seen in larger systems: some notable issues are ensuring effective cooling, finding a good power supply, and dealing with a lack of internal space for components. These obstacles commonly get in the way of high performance computing, and are particularly unfortunate for gamers, since SFF PCs are an ideal size for transporting to LAN parties.

Shuttle has created the SX38P2 in an effort to unite the SFF PC with high performance, and show how powerful an XPC system can truly be.

shuttle xpc pro


Talkback


dragonsprayer 01/05/2008 10:31
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dragonsprayer
Shuttles are great computers if you want something very small they can not be beat. I use both micro atx systems and sff (shuttles). I have a few now, my rock solid old P4 (nw 3.0c running 3.6ghz) lasted 4 years while running 24/7 and logging close to 12 hours a day of usage. The major disadvantage is lack of non oem parts, i.e. a mobo replacement is expensive. The advantage is the initial cost is low. The psu's are much stronger then their rating compared to similar rated standard psu's. Since you get a cool, cpu cooler with the deal they are very reasonably priced and easy to build! Put some foam on the inside vents and you got a filtered system you can have up and running in a few hours. This new crossfire unit should rock with the new 700 series ati cards. Bios upgrades can be a pain, or lacking, so make sure the initial bios works for your set up. I love shuttles! If you fill your system will lots of drives and dual video cards you can tweak the cooling by adding second fan in the back of the shuttle dual, fan out.
jpyott 02/05/2008 04:03
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jpyott
One thing about this and the 35 model... DO NOT PLAN on RAID if you BUY a SATA DVD/CD UNIT. For what ever reason.. You can't get the RAID setup screen with all three items on SATA. You'll need to buy IDE DVD/CD Unit then you can utilized the built in RAID CONTROLLER. Live and learn.. I did on both the 35 and 38 unit.
BillLake 02/05/2008 05:07
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BillLake
Great tip about the raid controller, another tip is if you pick ACHI for the SATA controller for the newest features of SATA 2 then a SATA optical drive is not seen in windows. there is no alternative SATA controller so you have to use IDE to have an optical drive.
rgsaunders 02/05/2008 06:38
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rgsaunders
Note: your comment about max crossfix config is incorrect, there are a few single slot HD3870 cards, I am currently running the Sapphire HD 3870 Toxic, an excellent single slot solution which runs very cool and quiet.
alphastryk 02/05/2008 09:26
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alphastryk
yay shuttle... got my SX38P@ running a Q6600, 8gb ram, 9800gx2... not that loud really... and the power supplies are far above standard quality and power...

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