The ICE cooling system is an intrinsic feature of the Shuttle design. As seen below, this is a heatpipe that moves the heat from the CPU through 90 degrees to radiator on the back panel of the case. It is cooled by an 80mm fan which also acts as a case exaust. If you read our shuttle modification guide, you can see how to make the cooler quieter and more effecient with ease.

This is a very good system which stops the heat from building up in the middle of the case, and avoids any potential problems with cabling obstructing the fan. The heatsink is held in place using a metal clip, which puts pressure on the centre of the block. Considering the Athlon 64s heat spreader, there is no chance of bad installation putting your chip at risk.

The memory slots in easily underneath the power supply, which is fine for access at a later date. There are only 2 slots available, so 2 x 512MB would be the ideal solution. Putting the drive cage in while also plugging in the IDE cable was a complete pain, and I ended up hurting my hand. There are two SATA ports and we can imagine a SATA drive is a lot easier to fit. It really is quite cramped in there, especially when an AGP card is put in as well. It is however quite tidy, as there are cable tidiers at most points to route the cables properly.

Unlike a conventional ATX motherboard, the PCI slot is on the inside and the AGP slot is on the outside. This means the AGP card is next to the air grilles on the side of the case, to draw in fresh air. Included was a molex extension lead, which made supplying power to our 6800GT a lot easier. Nowadays, with almost everything onboard and other expansion available by USB, 1 PCI slot is more than enough.

On the back, we have two USB 2.0 ports, one 6 pin firewire, Gigabit LAN, PS/2 and the usual Parallel/Serial ports. What is notable is the audio. Not only do we have optical SPDIF in and out, but full 5.1 surround output. The line in/mic and headphone jacks are on the front of the case and the back is reserved for the surround channels.

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