An early LGA-775 model based on the SiS 662/966L chipset. Mostly compatible with Prescott Pentium 4s, but can take up to an early Core 2 Duo depending on board revision.

• SiS 662 Chipset
• Compatible with LGA 775 Pentium 4s through to the very early Core 2 Duos
• 2x DDR2 RAM slots
• Shuttle G-series chassis (2nd revision with larger rear exhaust)
• Both normal front panel headers and flex ribbon front panel connector
• Onboard SATA present (and working back to XP)

Processor: The best this system can take depending on board revision is the Core 2 Duo E4500, which can be found relatively cheaply on eBay as of this writing. Shuttle's own documentation says that you require board revision BOM14 or later for this to work. I am not 100% sure how Shuttle does versioning for their boards, but the BOM number on mine was lower than 14, and with a BIOS update the E4500 still worked just fine.

Note: While the E4600 seems to be very similar to the E4500, just clocked higher, the SS30G2 will fail to POST with it. Stick with the E4500.

If you don't want to roll the dice with the E4500, the Pentium Dual-Core E2220 is another attractive option.

Graphics card: Given this machine lacks any sort of GPU power connector (all you get is 4-pin molex), any bus-powered GPU should work here, so long as it is single slot. Quadro cards can work great for this. Given that this card will be pressed up against the side of the chassis, something with low heat output is also desirable here.

While a lot of Quadro cards will demand a 6-pin GPU power connector, their power demands are not significant and you can get away with a 4-pin molex adapter for this.

Audio card: The built-in might be just fine for you, but if it isn't a Sound Blaster Live! PCI is plenty sufficient for this system. Though you'll lose use of the S/PDIF ports on the chassis if you go this route.

Recommended OS: Windows XP. Vista might be a bit heavy for this machine and 7 is probably expecting a lot.

Bad capacitors: The ones near the CPU are known to go, at least. Mine was recapped before I got it.

Board flex damage: Purely anecdotal as I have only seen it happen to my personal machine, but there was some flex damage to the board after a number of months. The Shuttle would no longer POST when the CPU cooler was fully screwed down (and shorts were ruled out).