Shuttle SA76G2 AMD Phenom II / Phenom / Athlon 64 X2 / Athlon 64 AMD Socket AM2+ / AM3 AMD 760G ATI Radeon 3000 Barebone

Pros: As usually a very well built machine from Shuttle
gets good windows 7 score on built in hd3000
just .2 less for both aero and gaming over a hd4200 system.

Cons: no hdmi but a hd3450 hybrid card would really sweeten things. The one con and its a biggy is,,,no bios options to overclockAT ALL..PERIOD NADA ,EVEN WITH A BLACK EDITION CPU ,YOU CANT CHANGE MULTIS IN BIOS

Other Thoughts: since it at least has a sb710 ,i could d/l amds overdrive which easily auto tunes amds fine 7850 black from 2.8 to 3.2 and stable as sunday. Of course since Shuttles non oc bios had no acc ,,acc wasnt an option in in overdrive,,,but i would have loved to see if there were extra cores on the Kuma

Pros: energy efficient, fast booting, light weight with nice thumbscrews on the back and all the ports on the front. enjoys nice ACPI support.

Cons: there is a ~90 watt physical limitation for the processor on this model, and many other shuttle models. obviously not a box for hardcore gamers and such, but within the limitation the box runs fast. dont expect to sneak a big video card in here, as this design monopolizes as much internal space as it can

Other Thoughts: im looking forward to buying more of these for light gaming, bsd and linux tinkering, and anything else i can think of. im absolutely in love with how green this pc is, and how it still manages to do everything i need.

Pros: Small Case, works very well while it works. Bought about 15 of these ( this one and the versions just before this model).

Cons: At Random the power supply or the motherboard will decide to die. Shuttle has a 1 year warranty of these, and of course the problems will usually occur after the 1 year is up. The replacement parts are rather expensive to order from Shuttle, and rare to find anywhere else.

Other Thoughts: You're better off looking at a more standard small case design and small style motherboard with a longer warranty. I've ended up having to replace nearly every one of these at my own expense.

Pros: Small size, case is very easy to work on and inexpensive, supports up to 8gb DDR2 RAM, 6 USB ports. Windows User Experience ratings: CPU 6.3 with AMD Phenom II X2 550, Memory 5.9 with 4gb DDR2 800 PC6400 Crucial memory, Aero graphics 3.3, Gaming graphics 4.7 and HD 7.2 with 40gb OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. I was skeptical about the ICE CPU cooler, but it works great with my 80w TDP CPU.

Cons: Aero Graphics could be better. Don't care because I plan to use Linux Mint 9 instead of Windows. Power supply only 250w. Power supply fan much louder than I expected. May have to pay $80 to upgrade to quieter PC-60 300w power supply. I reduced my original rating by 1 egg because of the power supply noise. DDR3 memory support would be better. Front panel blue LED is way too bright.

Other Thoughts: Great case, easy to work on, good motherboard, graphics good but could be better, power supply is the weak point. I'm very happy with my new system. Very fast with the Phenom II X2 3.1ghz processor and the SSD.

Pros: Small
Not loud (not really quiet either)
very well made
very well laid out

Cons: I'd like these machines to be quieter. There are two fans in the machine. A case/cpu fan and a PSU fan. Both should be quieter but they're fine for office applications. I wouldn't use these for media centers.

Not so much a con as a consequence of the size is that there is very little room for big add on cards. Do make sure to only fit small form factor video cards into this machine.

WATCH the heat. These things sadly do have a problem with getting too hot. Just be aware of it.

Other Thoughts: I love these shuttle boxes. They're the perfect computer cases in a lot of ways so long as you don't need to put huge video cards in or lots of harddrives.

Pros: I've never seen a case so easy to open and take apart with only a phillips screwdriver. It was very easy to install the CPU and memory. Integrated ICE Cooling Engine works much better than I expected. It was easy to take out, but kind of tricky putting it back in. I ordered some Arctic Silver heat sink compound, but it came with a small package of the cheap white compound already. The case is very well built. Much better than the cheap Apex MI-100 ITX case I used for my other barebones computer. The onboard ATI Raedon 3000 graphics are WAY better than the Intel GMA950 graphics in my other 4 computers. Onboard graphics support DirectX 10.

Cons: Only DDR2 memory, not DDR3. It was a bit tricky getting the ICE cooling engine screws started whey I reinstalled it. Onboard Raedon 3000 GPU seems to get kind of hot. It has a good heat sink, but I might install an extra fan for it. Only 2 SATA power connectors, but there are 3 SATA ports. Guess I'll need some kind of adapter for a third SATA drive. Rated for a 105w max TDP processor. I'm using it with a Phenom II X2 550 rated at 80W, so it shouldn't be a problem. 250w power supply could be a con if you want to add a high power video card.

Other Thoughts: Nice case, nice motherboard, easy to dissassemble/assemble, great price, takes AM3 socket processor, seems to work fine with Linux Mint 9 64 bit.

Pros: Well thought out component placement. Small "footprint" on the desk and looks really cool, unlike those standard towers or desktops. Windows 7 compatibility.

Cons: 1. This is probably true of all Shuttle cases... The PCI Express slot, is very close to the cover, so no graphics card wider than the slot itself will fit. A good solution would have been to switch the two slots around, so you could plug in the video card and have the empty PCI slot (always seems empty for me) provide space for the bulky heatsink/fan assembly.
2. Comes with 250watt power supply. Upgrading to 300watt is more expensive than one would expect ($90+). Many mid-level graphics cards require at least 300watt PSU.

Other Thoughts: Water cooling is a good solution for such tight fit. This is not a "serious" gaming machine, although I was able to play all but the most GPU intensive games without a problem. An SD card reader slot would fit nicely next to USB ports in front, that way the "floppy" drive bay could be free for something else, like a second HDD.

Pros: Small size. Both a PCI and PCIE slot for expansion. Built in LAN/USB/PS2/stereo audio/GPU with VGA & DVI connections.

Cons: Specialized front panel connector. Custom heat pipe cpu cooler.

Other Thoughts: Bought this to replace the wife's 6 year old P4 mid tower setup. She only uses her computer for Office, IM, and browsing. This solution gave her back valuable desk space while providing a very modern CPU solution in a very space efficient case.

Pros: I have been building computers for almost 20 years and when I needed a new box for my media center I went with the Shuttle. Best decision I ever made. I read the reviews and knew what parts I needed and had it up and running in 30 minutes and with Windows 7 in less than 2 hours. If you use a SATA DVD drive and 2 SATA hard drives you will need an additional 2 SATA cables and a converter to convert IDE power to SATA power. It has 2 SATA power cables, with the converter, you will have 3 SATA power cables. This thing is super quiet and the fan for the case is also the fan for the CPU. Great design. I would buy one again in a second for a general use computer. I already had the SATA hard drives I needed so I only needed a CPU, memory, DVD drive and a couple cables to get up and running. Less than 400 for everything.

Cons: Maybe include a converter to give you the 3rd SATA power connection.

Pros: Easy installation process. The built-in cooler is efficient. Light as well as durable. Overall a great barebone for making a home theater PC.

Cons: None really, but only supports single cooler graphic cards. Which is fine. This isn't a gaming barebone.