Bus Legacy Limited Edition

Shuttle SB75S Limited Edition

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Shuttle is certainly no stranger to the small form factor PC market, having almost single-handedly brought about the surging popularity of the small form factor cube PC with the introduction of the original Shuttle XPC. Since then, the company has released many XPC variants, with plenty of competition coming from other SFF vendors. Shuttle's latest release, the SB75S Limited Edition, is a little bit different. Rather than trying to out-feature every LCD and card-reader laden cube PC on the market, it opts for elegance and performance, with a sleek new case design and Intel 875P based motherboard.

There's not a whole lot here that we haven't seen before, but the inclusion of the Intel 875P could make for a nice little performance boost over most cube PCs, which use either the 865 or VIA chipsets for Pentium 4s. We'll run our suite of benchmarks, comparing the SB75S to our most recently reviewed cube PC, Epox's eX5 Mini Me, based on the 865G chipset. We'll also go over this elegant PC's new fit and finish.

Shuttle SB75S Limited Edition

Fit and Finish

If you've ever built a Shuttle PC before, you'll be right at home with this one. There are no real changes to the formula we've seen in all the recent Shuttle XPC systems. The trademark heat pipe cooling solution is still there, and it still makes for a fairly cool, quiet PC. Looking inside, the most notable things are the active cooler on the north bridge, and the rather large power supply. This system comes with a full 250W "SilentX" power supply, and though the power supply is a bit on the large side, it really doesn't complicate assembly one bit. On top of that, it's really rather quiet.

In addition to Intel's 875P north bridge, the SB75S uses the ICH5-R south bridge, which provides two Serial ATA ports and provides RAID 0 and 1 support. The drive bay cage has room for two 3.5″ drives in addition to the 5.25″ optical drive, so you can really make use of the RAID capability.

Inside the SB75S

The enclosure for this Shuttle system has actually been designed and built for them by the Japanese PC design firm Soldam, and it's a bit more elegant than most. The white pearl finish looks quite good, but it's the design of the front panel that is most eye-catching. A simple line of four circles runs down the center of the front almost like the buttons on a dress shirt. The optical drive bay cover opens from a button in the center (which works flawlessly – more than we can say for many of these drive cover doors), which is followed by power and hard drive access lights beneath it, and a larger brushed metal power button at the bottom. There's not even a reset button – you'll just have to cycle the power if you can't do a soft reset through Ctrl-Alt-Del. A small door at the base of the front hides three audio jacks (mic input, line input, and stereo output), two USB 2.0 ports, and a mini firewire jack.

Front USB/FireWire/Audio

In all, it's quite an attractive system, probably the best-looking small form factor PC we've seen. In fact, it looks like something Apple would produce. This handsome exterior doesn't come exactly free, however. There is no place for an external 3.5″ drive like a floppy or USB card reader, so any such peripherals will have to be separate USB devices. If a built-in card reader or floppy is a really big deal for you, this isn't your system.