Verdict: There's life in the old dog yet, but the XPC SB75G2 is expensive

It's always tough being the incumbent. Your competitors can learn from your mistakes, and innovate beyond them. While Shuttle's XPCs are still classic designs, they're starting to look jaded in some areas.

The SB75G2, however, shows that Shuttle still has a few tricks up its sleeves. Even though we first looked at it a few months ago, it remains the most overclockable SFF we've seen. We managed to push the FSB to a whopping 255MHz (effectively 1,020MHz), which eked an extra 700MHz out of our 2.6GHz Pentium 4c. This provided 23 per cent more 2D performance and seven more frames per second in games. It's a tribute to the effectiveness of Shuttle's proprietary heatpipe CPU cooling system that so much can be squeezed out of such a diminutive box.

The SB75G2 remains competitive in terms of features too. The front connections are pretty standard: three audio, two USB 2, and a four-pin FireWire port. But there are also four USB 2 ports round the back, plus two serial ports, and the requisite audio connections and FireWire port. Inside, two S-ATA connectors continue the premium selection. However, the line-up of drive bays is nothing special: one 5.25in external bay, one 3.5in external bay and one 3.5in internal bay.

The SB75G2 shows its age even more in its internal layout. The AGP slot is close to the chassis side, so there's no support for dual-slot graphics cards, which puts the Biostar ahead for gamers.

The RAM is a little tricky to install under the drive cages, and the processor cooling mechanism is more complicated to install than in other SFF systems. You also need to be methodical about installing drives, starting with the hard disk, then the 3.5in external, and finishing off with the optical drive. It's not a difficult build, but other SFFs are significantly easier.

Shuttle still knows how to put together a quality SFF - this is a solid chassis that looks very classy. What does let the side down is another classic symptom of the incumbent - overpricing. The AOpen EZ65 XC Cube is very close in terms of performance and features, and has a better internal design, so it's hard to justify the higher price of the SB75G2.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards
• Scan 3XS X58 Core i7 - Desktop PCs