Verdict: The 975X chipset drags this core 2 Shuttle down
Typical - you wait all year for a new Shuttle and then two arrive at once. Hot on the heels of last month's nifty Socket AM2 SN27P2 comes the SD37P2, essentially the former's Intel-oriented twin. Instead of using Nvidia's nForce 570 Ultra chipset, the motherboard sports Intel's high-end 975X chipset, and is ready and waiting for Core 2 Duo. And, instead of a single PCI-E 16x slot and a PCI slot, the board has a pair of 16x PCI-E slots, so you can theoretically run two ATi graphics cards in CrossFire.
Performance-wise, it seems as though the SD37P2 will be a pocket rocket. Intel's 975X chipset means that you can install any LGA775 CPU, including the Core 2 Extreme X6800. However, the two PCI-E 16x slots and promise of CrossFire turns out to be a little underwhelming. Although the board has two PCI-E 16x slots, you can only fit one card with a double-slot cooler. If you want to run two cards then you're limited to cards with single-slot coolers. This means you're looking at more mid-range GPUs that, even paired up, will often fail to outperform a single high-end card, despite costing a similar amount of money. Then there's the fact the SD37P2 has a 400W PSU, so even if you could fit in two high-end graphics cards, the prodigious power appetite of the high-end Radeon X1900s means that the system would stutter. Our Core 2-equipped graphics test rig, for instance, drew 300W from the mains when we reviewed the Radeon X1950XTX.
The 975X Northbridge is paired with the older ICH7R Southbridge rather than the recently released ICH8R, but that may be a blessing, as the latter no longer supports EIDE. Like the SN27P2, there are four DDR2 DIMM slots, each of which is able to support 2GB modules for a maximum of 8GB.
The SD37P2 uses the same P2 case as that of the SN27P2. It's larger than the classic G-series Shuttle design, but accommodates a number of innovations as a result. There's space for three hard disks (or two hard disks and an externally accessible 3.5in drive), and the CPU cooling has been beefed up. However, one benefit of the P-series chassis hasn't been carried forward to the P2, as the memory card reader is no longer included.
Unlike the original P-series, the P2 design isn't tool-free but, in many ways, this is a plus. Two hard disk bays are situated at the top of the case, and each disk needs to be screwed to a metal tray. This feels far more secure than the plastic brackets used by the P-series, although it means building the system take a few minutes longer. The CPU HSF is the same as that of the P-series. It requires a long-necked screwdriver for installation, and has two fans to provide excellent cooling without making a huge racket. We use a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo E6700 CPU for testing LGA775 systems and, with this fitted, the SD37P2 was slightly quieter than its Socket AM2 sibling was with a 2.2GHz Athlon 64 X2 4200+ fitted. The CPU fans didn't spin up as much, even when overclocked, and the chipset is passively cooled, so one of the whiniest fans has been taken out of the equation.
There are no PS/2 ports, so there's room for some extras on the back of the chassis. There's an external clear CMOS button, which we found handy during overclocking. A single eSATA external connection is available, plus the usual myriad audio connections, including an optical S/PDIF input and output, although the coaxial S/PDIF is output only. All eight of the ICH7R's USB 2 ports are hooked up, with two at the front and six at the back. FireWire is available at the front and rear too.
Performance
For performance testing, we installed our standard LGA775 test CPU, a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6700. We partnered this with 2GB of Corsair XMS PC2-8500 DDR2 memory and Samsung's 250GB SpinPoint P120S. An Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX graphics card rounded off the spec.
The 2D results were pretty much on a par with a desktop Intel 975X-based motherboard, which, as has previously been the case, is slower than an Intel P965-based board. The SD37P2 scored 1.81 overall, which is similar to the 975X-based Asus P5W DH's score, and slower than the 1.84 of the P965-based boards from Asus and Gigabyte. The 975X-based boards tend to be slower in all three tests, but the difference isn't huge, just a few per cent overall in our Media Benchmarks. In our game tests, the SD37P2 was also slower than you'd expect, with its average of 70fps some 6fps down on the Asus 975X board's score.
The SD37P2's BIOS allows you to set the FSB between 133 and 355MHz. The CPU voltage can only be increased relative to its baseline, by up to 0.8V, so you can't set a specific voltage without working it out from the default core for your given processor. The DDR2 memory can be raised to 2.1V and, perhaps because it's passively cooled, no option for increasing the chipset voltage supply was supplied.
Although increasing the CPU voltage seemed to have no effect on the maximum stable FSB, we still managed to push this to 315MHz. The system refused to start with a 320MHz FSB, making the clear CMOS button on the rear a godsend. A 315MHz FSB is higher than the FSB that the Gigabyte P965 board managed, however, so it's no mean feat, although it's well below the 350MHz managed by the Asus 975X and P965 boards. The overclock raised the SD37P2's overall benchmark score to 2.15 - a good score, but below the 2.37 that our test CPU scored with the Asus P965 board.
The gaming boost from overclocking wasn't quite as significant, but there was still a 6 per cent increase in the minimum frame rate in Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which is worth having. So, although the Shuttle SD37P2 doesn't appear to be ready for extreme overclocking, there are clearly gains to be had from more modest increases. We found it ran all of our benchmarks with the CPU at 3.15GHz without a hitch, and happily sat all afternoon without needing to spin up its fans to banshee levels.
Conclusion
The 975X chipset is the bane of the SD37P2; it's slower than the P965, it isn't as good an overclocker and, in an SFF case, its CrossFire abilities are of dubious value. To add to these woes, the 975X is costlier than the P965, which contributes to the SD37P2's high price of £350. The SD37P2 is by no means a bad product, as it looks great and has a neat layout. However, its specification isn't as well balanced as its Athlon 64 equivalent, the SN27P2, which is a shame, since Intel CPUs are the models that people want to buy.
