Appearance and thoughts
The black aesthetic is the embodiment of coolness. The P2 chassis is designed for ultimate performance and, as such, is larger than most other XPCs, measuring in at 32.5cm x 22cm x 21cm (LWH). The two flipdown doors at the top hide the 16x multi-format, dual-layer DVD ReWriter and multi-card reader (not present on sample). The SD37P2 chassis also keeps the audio and high-speed ports behind another flipdown door at the very bottom, which is nice.
Moving around to the back and we see the dual-slot-taking NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 card on the left. The PSU's fan is situated below a couple of smaller exhaust fans at the very top and above the gaggle of ports at the bottom. We like the fact that eSATA support is present, and there's a useful clear CMOS button the left. Further good is to be found with both optical and coaxial digital output ports. The SD37P2 also includes 8 usable USB2.0 and 2 FireWire400 ports (one is a 4-pin unpowered, though). There's also space for Shuttle's own USB-connected WLAN adapter, but it remains an optional extra on this particular SKU. It should have been standard.
Removing the aluminium cover via the four thumbscrews highlights one of the benefits associated with the P2 chassis line. Shuttle has eschewed the gimmicky plastic drive rails and gone for security in the form of metal screw-in holders. Two drives can be situated at the top and a third could be added in to the 3.5in section (behind the second front-mounted door) instead of the specified but unsupplied multi-card reader.
In this instance, the P2 3700G is outfitted with a single 400GB Samsung SATA hard drive, with the Shuttle-branded multi-format DVD ReWriter situated directly underneath.
A side-on view of the left-hand side highlights the 4 1GByte sticks of DDR2 RAM. The question is, we suppose, whether it can be used efficiently by the OS?
Shuttle has paid due attention to cooling on this high-end gaming system. The Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU sits under a large copper-bottomed heatsink that has a small-ish intake fan on the far side. Exhausting absorbed heat out of the chassis is a 92mm fan that you see above.
Shuttle has included a total of 5 fans in the SD37P2 chassis (excluding the 7950GX2's) but noise isn't an issue. The decent BIOS allows you to control the speed of the fans such that the system is, subjectively speaking, very quiet even when placed under load.
A look from the other side shows the NVIDIA graphics card taking centre stage. The double-width design means that the adjacent x16 PCIe slot is rendered useless, however.
