Shuttle Zen (ST62K) XPC - P4

Layout

Moving on to the inside and the Shuttle FT62 mainboard, we find two DDR400 DIMM slots.  Next to these you can see the oversized passive Northbridge cooler for ATi's RS300 chipset.  Ample space is around the CPU cooler mounts to keep things nice and organized.  You also see the single PCI slot for an add in card of your choosing.

     

In the pic below you can see the black anodized aluminum coolers on top of the RS300 Northbridge and the IXP 150 Southbridge.  Graphics come to us courtesy of the RS300 by means of an integrated ATi RV280 graphics core about on par with a Radeon 9200 VGA card.  The IXP 150 Southbridge gets the job done but shows that ATi has a way to go before they can compete directly with Intel and NVidia for chipsets.  While we have six USB 2.0 ports what is absent is Serial ATA.  Not a huge deal but you are limited to ATA-100 for your hard drive.  On board Ethernet is 10/100 from Realtek's RTL8100C Fast Ethernet controller.  The lack of Gigabit Ethernet is a negligible point as many folks looking at SFF systems may not be the type to be running Gigabit networks.

The Zen XPC also sports 5.1 sound by means of the Realtek's ALC650 codec.  The 5.1 sound is a must on a system that is designed in part to serve any home entertainment needs.  This is amplified more by the SPDIF capability of the XPC.

Below you can see how things look with everything installed.  The placement of the two ATA-100 channel connectors immediately below the rear of the HDD rack show the utility of the shorter IDE cable Shuttle choose to include.  As you can see, the Zen XPC's interior is very clean and well laid out.  I for one am very impressed.   

  

The Zen XPC derives its cleanliness in part because of the external power supply.  The area and weight that would normally be associated with the PSU is now relegated to the floor.  Measuring 180 x 118 x 53mm the PSU can be tucked easily out of the way.  The Shuttle's external PSU is rated at 180 watts.  That seems like it wouldn't be enough for a modern P4 but considering that you won't be loading the Zen XPC up with neon or an aftermarket AGP VGA card (unfortunately), 180 watts should be fine.

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Pg 1 - Introduction
Pg 2 - What you get
Pg 3 - The unit
Pg 4 - The ICE Cooling System
Pg 5 - Layout
Pg 6 - BIOS / Overclocking
Pg 7 - Productivity and Gaming Benches
Pg 8 - Gaming Benches continued
Pg 9 - Conclusion