Closer inspection
Looking at the front first.
The chassis feels solid to the touch and the buttons are sturdily mounted. The feeling of quality continues from the initial impressions. There's a blue LED that glows when the unit is in operation - a nice touch. The business end is down at the bottom. Shuttle have kept the same configuration on each XPC that I've looked at. A 5.25" and 3.5" bay take up most of the space at the top.
Going from left to right we have the S/PDIF-Out socket ( I would prefer this to be on the back), a microphone socket followed by a headphone socket (handy). High-speed connectivity takes up the rest of the ports. 2 USB 2.0 ports are followed by a Firewire port. Shuttle seem to be happy with this arrangement, and it appears that most users are content with this particular line-up.
The back is pretty traditional for an XPC-based Shuttle. 2 COM ports are included for those that still have serial devices on their PCs. There's no parallel port, probably due to the size requirements of fitting it in. The 10/100 LAN port sits in its usual XPC position. The standard PS/2 and sound ports are present as you would expect.
The on-board video, the ProSavage8, has the usual HD15 output. What's different on this Shuttle, though, is that instead of the usual S/PDIF-In found on other XPCs, we now have a S-Video-Out. I feel as if this is a more worthwhile inclusion as a number of potential buyers would like to output to a TV. The XPC would make the perfect DivX box. Another 2 Firewire ports and 2 USB2.0 ports finish off this elegant package's backplane.
The four thumbscrews that you see above hold the I.C.E cooling system in place - more on that later. As you can see the cover comes off with the removal of only three thumbscrews. Shuttle have thought this one through. Lastly, we see two port covers on the right-hand side. These cover an additional PCI and the all-important AGP slots respectively.
In terms of extras, we have the essential power lead, 2 manuals; one of which outlines the installation process of the various components, the other gives us a comprehensive understanding of the micro-sized FX41 KM266A motherboard. Quite importantly, they're both well written and even novice users should be able to build and re-build the SK41G with the minimum of fuss. The various screws required for full assembly are included, naturally.
A 21cm ATA100 IDE cable, a longer, twisted IDE cable, and a floppy drive cable are included to ensure that you can setup your devices easily. A small S-Video-to-RCA cable is included for the TV-Out duties. This is one instance where the thin Serial ATA cables would have come in handy. A driver CD containing the necessary utilities and drivers for the plethora of on-board features completes the package.
