ST62K Zen Externals
Shuttle's Zen ST62K places a greater emphasis on size than power. Whilst we have been vociferous advocates of AGP slot-supporting cubes, we can also see situations where 3D graphics power is a wasted feature. The Zen, as we shall now call it, does more than do away with discrete graphics.
The box highlights the use of ATI's Radeon 9100 IGP chipset, one that's graced the ST61G4 XPC before. That infers integrated video that's a couple of notches above what Intel currently call its Extreme Graphics 2, found on the i865G chipset. That makes the Zen an interesting proposition right from the outset. Without wishing to rehash what we've detailed before, head here for our brief Radeon 9100 IGP look.
The front's home to the usual glut of Shuttle ports and sockets, though this XPC uses a different layout. What's still the same, however, is the use of 5.25" and 3.5" bay covers which, in true Shuttle style, aren't able to camouflage the drives that'll inevitably take their place. We can't understand Shuttle's insistence in leaving drives' fronts exposed. Imagine what kind of style crimes a beige DVD-ROM drive could commit.
The rest of the action takes place at the bottom, with sound jacks and a couple of high-speed USB 2.0 ports. Shuttle still doesn't consider the option of blanking out the ports with a a drop-down cover.
The back's pretty irregular for an XPC. There's no space allotted for a PSU fan, and there's only a single blanking plate to the right. Further, the collection of ports is also a slight deviation from what's come before.
The left-hand port gives the game away. Shuttle has decided to locate the PSU externally, much in the fashion of laptops. There's obvious spacial advantages in such a move, and Shuttle has been able to engineer it knowing that there's no power-thirsty AGP card to cater for. The handiest feature on the back panel has to be the clear CMOS function. It's the simple things that work the best and we wonder why no-one has implemented it before, especially for a SFF system. Video out is handled by either the HD15 or S-Video connection, but we feel as if Shuttle dropped the ball by not incorporating a DVI socket here. ATI's 2D is pretty good, the cube is sexily small, and it's a perfect desktop partner for a DVI-capable panel.
