Shuttle XPC - WCG ‘05 Edition
Shuttle Inc. established themselves back in the 1980s and have since grown a reputation for delivering reliable, powerful and pint-sized PCs to the market. Their half-sized, curvy and stylised shape has been a big selling asset and makes for a refreshing change to the typical beast of a machine that many PCs owners have simply grown to accept. However it is not just the aesthetics that impressed us with the Shuttle xPC.
Our review unit was a limited edition Shuttle xPC that carried the mark of the Official World Cyber Games 2005 (www.wcg.net.nz) and was specially built for a gaming audience. Packed with an Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 160 GB hard-disk and a powerful Sparkle GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB video card - it's a lot of bang for your buck. The machine is also surprisingly whisper quiet thanks to "Silent X" technology which kept the PC cold without any obtrusive whirring or humming. Playing the demanding first-person shooter, F.E.A.R constantly produced a high frame-rate with no slow-down at all.
Other bench-mark tests passed with flying colours and only once did we manage to stall the machine (however we believe that Windows XP was to blame for this). The added DVD re-writer installed was a nice feature and only sweetened the already reasonable price for a high-end gaming machine.
The price of $1999.00 only covers the PC itself (with no peripherals or extras) and can be purchased via Playtech's website as listed above.
