IT wholesaler Altech has signed up as the second Australian distributor for Taiwanese computer maker Shuttle. Under the arrangement, Altech would be distributing the company's line of "XPC" small form factor bare-bones PCs.

The Shuttle XPC is an icon of SFF design, and there are as many iterations as there are chipsets.

ATI gives the integrated graphics world a kick in the arse, John Gillooly feels the vibrations.

One of the really annoying things about PCs is the sheer amount of desk space they occupy. This concern led to motherboard manufacturer, Shuttle, creating the product line called XPC.

The core of SATOs SS51G is an incredibly tiny Shuttle XPC. These bare-bones boxes have been on the market for close to six months now, and have proven effective (if not over-whelming) performers and a very popular choice for building a lounge-room PC for playing music and DVD movies.

Shuttle's SB95P is a small form factor (SFF) aimed at the enthusiast/gamer market, and it takes advantage of the i925 iteration of PCI-E. Though Shuttle are known for their XPC’s striking looks, in this case the colour scheme is nothing to write home about: is gun-metal anyone's favourite colour?

Nominating Sato as our winner for the desktop machines this month was fairly straightforward, especially when compared to deciding the outcome of the closely-fought notebook war. Because, even though the Sato was outdone by one or two systems in terms of performance, nothing beat it on pure value for money.

Taiwanese computer maker Shuttle has ended a distribution relationship with Sato Technology, instead opting to run with only two distributors in Australia, Altech and Multimedia Technology (MMT).

The concept of fitting normal PC hardware into a tiny package has been proven to work and small form factor (SFF) systems are now commonplace.

The XPC SS51G is the cheapest of the Shuttle offerings this month. Again, the ease of hardware installation makes this product fantastically user friendly, given the ability to just pop out the optical storage bay, insert your drive and floppy and whack it back in. No mess, no fuss.

Swiping the hardware from the PC Authority test bench, we went about putting together our Shuttle XPC. Immediately we were confronted by one of the idiosyncrasies of small form factor PCs: squeezing all the hardware in the tiny space inside.

Not very competitive on price, but there’s plenty of scope for performance

Shuttle is a bit of a pioneer in the world of barebones PCs, and is one of few manufacturers to have a range of systems on offer and not just a couple of basic units. Its also the only one in this roundup to offer a barebones based around the new Athlon 64.

Synonymous with the barebones market, Shuttle has carved a niche by providing enthusiasts exactly what they crave, but in mini form factored systems.

Shuttle's push on the small form factor market has seen the PC finally migrate from the bedroom to become an integral part of the lounge room and entertainment set up. Capable of a number of varied roles, these include file servers, HDTV receiving boxes and media streaming machines.

Shuttle has made a name for themselves with stylish and innovative barebones PCs, and now comes along this excellent addition to any XPC you own. Scratch that - this TFT would look good with any PC you own.

We were hoping we'd have at least one small form factor system submitted for review, and SATO and Friction came together to supply the Draco-M3.

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