External Appearance
The clean, aluminium, understated style of the original SB61G2 doesn't disappear on the v3.0, Shuttle wisely carrying it over. A single 5.25 inch external bay compliments the sole external 3.5 inch bay. Both are perfectly able to house internal devices, to add to the separate internal 3.5 inch bay, should you wish to pack the SB61G2 full of hard disks.
The ATA/SATA activity LED is orange, the power LED the usual chic/overused blue. Metal effect plastic reset and power buttons finish off that line of front items. The buttons are ever so slightly raised from the otherwise flush front, enabling you to find them just by feel alone.
Line out, microphone and headphone audio output ports are very familiar, 2 USB2.0 and a single 4-pin FireWire400 port are even more so. Click here to see them close-up, or here to see the LEDs lit up.
It's the same clean design we've seen before, but no bad thing. The aluminium G2 XPCs, be they in black or silver, are the best looking in this reviewer's opinion.
Both sides feature integral cooling vents, drilled through the soft aluminium, to aid chassis cooling.
Round the back nothing has changed compared to previous SB61G2 models. Optical input and output, the hole for the WiFi USB add-on, the vents for the ICE cooler, the PSU fan and power cable port, and the retention mechanism and backplate space for the AGP and PCI card slots are all standard. Let's take a closer look at the rear I/O.
Serial I/O sits above the VGA output for the on-board core, while the FireWire400 and on-board Ethernet sit above a quartet of USB2.0 ports. Finally, PS/2 and the 6-speaker sound output ports sit on the right.
Lifting the lid time now.
