The Interior - Layout and Features

As with most other SFF systems, the cables are cut to a specific length and run in a way to prevent the obstruction of airflow. Airflow is crucial to such a small case, so all possible steps to improve it are taken by Shuttle.


As with the nForce 4 chipsets, the nForce 500 series chipsets (nForce 570 for the SN27P2) tend to be a little power-hungry, and therefore can generate quite a bit of heat. Shuttle provides a small aluminum heatsink and fan assembly standing vertically to maximize the size of the heatsink.

If you read our AM2 Motherboard Roundup Part 1 article, you read that the EPOX MF570SLI motherboard based on the nForce 570 chipset had a horizontally-placed chipset fan. The fan’s size wasn’t effective because of the small heatsink.

In the next picture, you can see the four 240-pin DDR2 slots supporting a maximum of 4GB. This is double the amount of slots featured in the Shuttle SN25P. The dual-channel configurations are also clearly marked. The red slots make up one channel, while the black slots make up the other.


On the top of the chassis are two aluminum trays for the hard drives. Another hard drive may be placed in the external 3.5” bay, for a total maximum for 3 hard drives. To the right of the hard drive trays are the dual 60mm fans we mentioned earlier. The unique fan grille spanning both 60mm fans is a nice touch. As we noted earlier however, the effectiveness of these fans is limited due to the design of the outside grille.


As you can see, this power supply is mostly focused on the 12V rails. There are enough amperes on the 3.3V and 5V rails to support the system. Obviously, this power supply is tailored to this system only. The large amount of amps on the 12V rails are needed to support even the most power hungry CPUs and video cards available for this system, which are the AMD FX-62 and ATI Radeon X1900XTX. In the photograph on the right, you can see the expansion slot configuration we discussed earlier. This configuration allows the installation of a video card with dual slot cooling, but also prevents any further expansion.


Under the two hard drive cages are the 5.25” and 3.5” external drive cage. It isn’t anything special, but in need of mentioning. On the top of the cage you can see a totally useless hole for a 40mm fan. When installed in the case, the hole is blocked by one of the hard drive cages. To the right, we see all the chips on the motherboard. The smallest one is the Realtek 882D codec. There are also the Phoenix BIOS and ITE sensor chips. All the way down in the photo is a VIA Firewire controller.


Here is the CPU heatsink and fan assembly for the SN27P2 chassis. In consists of a smaller 70mm fan pushing cool air onto the fins (pictured here) and a larger 92mm fan pulling warm air from the fins out of the case. The heatsink is all aluminum except for a copper base. The heatsink features 4 heat pipes for additional cooling. Attaching this heatsink to the motherboard is very easy. Just place it on the CPU, while lining up the holes in the motherboard and evenly screw down the heatsink. The screws are thick, making installation even easier.


Here is the 92mm exhaust fan part of the ICE cooling we mentioned earlier. It can be pivoted for easier access to the case, but must be returned to its normal position in order to install the heatsink. The fan is clipped to the chassis and hinged to the side. It can be completely removed by sliding the fan off of the hinge.


Here are shots of the fully assembled Shuttle SN27P2.

BIOS & Overclocking

The BIOS contains a maximum 300FSB, with ample voltage increments. Voltages max out at 1.525V for the CPU, 2.0V for memory voltage, and 1.6V for the chipset voltage. This should be enough for high overclocks. Remember though, this is a small case, so additional heat should be avoided at all costs. Nonetheless, we used an AMD AM2 3000+ (9x200) for overclocking due to its low multiplier. We were able to max out the FSB at 300 for a 50% overclock to 2.7GHz (9x300). The options in Shuttle’s BIOS don’t come close to the standard ATX nForce 500 motherboard we tested previously, but the results we achieved outstanding nonetheless, especially for a SFF system.

Let’s get to testing.