Final Thoughts
I’ve always been a fan of Shuttle systems and the SP45H7 barebones kit only reasserted that. I have not really had hands on experience with a Shuttle system in about 3 years. Not much has changed really, except that Shuttle keeps on making things easier. One thing I really liked about this system was that all of the drive cables were already connected and placed. This saves you a lot of time a frustration because it is tight where the cables are connected and who wants to waste the time organizing your cables. Also I like that the one power supply lead has both a SATA and molex connector on it. Shuttle knows that most people will be adding just 1 hard drive and an optical drive. This way they don’t have to mess with any of the other cables.
Don’t think that you are not covered with the 300W power supply either. It has all the connections for every possible configuration that you would have in the system. I also like that you can fit a full size video card inside of the case. This is a compact system, but who says you can’t put a powerful graphics card inside. We fit our ASUS EAX1950 Pro in easily and it is just as big as a 4870. Installation was extremely easy, it took me about 20 minutes to have the system fully assembled and ready to go. The instructions are very easy to follow and Shuttle actually uses real pictures in the install guide so it is easy to see what you are doing.
Have a small system is great, I recently moved to a SFF case a few months ago and I love it. I really couldn’t think of going back to a huge space hogging case. These small systems are perfect for dorm rooms because as we all know dorm rooms are extremely small so if you can save space it is a plus. Also if you are a gamer having a small system makes it so much easier for you to take your computer to LAN parties. It sure beats lugging a full tower case around with you from place to place!
This system has a MSRP of $429, which isn’t bad at all considering all you have to get yourself is a video card, memory, and drives. Also if you are just getting into computers this would be a perfect system to learn how to build a computer with! Overall ThinkComputers gives the Shuttle Prima SP45H7 Intel Barebones System a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Easy installation
– Can fit a full-sized video card
– Small form factor
– Can really build a top of the line system
– Great cooling
Cons:
– Single piece top casing
