| Shuttle SS40 is quite a
breakthrough from the conventional desktop or slim casing. Although
the performance needs some tuning up as it has almost everything you
could have thought of integrated on board. That box is really feature
rich with all the necessary connectors already there for immediate
usage.
In fact, the SS40 is better than the
SS50 as it uses a pipe heatsink. The PSU is less nosier as compared to
the SS50. It looks like Shuttle has learnt a lot from their earlier
mistakes of a noisy PSU FAN.
Features-wise, SS40 already has all
of them onboard, the only pity is that it uses 961 South Bridge and
not 961B which supports ATA-133. USB 2.0 is also not available. Only
ATA-100 and USB 1.1 are available on board. Cmedia 6 ch audio needs no
more introduction, it is now used as a defacto sound chip on most
mainboards. LAN on board makes it the perfect box for surfing or
playing some network games.
Installation was not so
straightforward. Well this could be due to the fact that we are so
used to installing desktop and not very good at squeezing our hands
into the small metal structure. With the help of the manual, which
could be improved perhaps with better quality photo shots of the
installation procedure, it will definitely help the user to install
the system within half an hour.
I was quite disappointed to see that
there are not much overclocking features on the BIOS. The selections
are basically 100, 133 and some tuned up performance settings for the
RAM. There are no voltage tweak etc. It's basically just like most of
them OEM boards.
I personally feel that I am going to
replace my SS50 with SS40 as the background noise from the SS50 is
sometimes unbearable. Next, the SiS 301 TV-out is not bad at all. With
my ASUS DVD-ROM, it makes it the perfect match for my room by hooking
it up with my 4 point speakers. For that, you got my Editor's Choice!
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