AOpen XC Cube EU965 - no CPU

Advantages: Extremely quiet
Disadvantages: Small space to work with

...This is an excellent little barebones system. As seen in the picture it looks smart and can accomodate a CD/DVD drive as well as a floppy drive! Its a little cramped to work with inside but a lot of the parts can be removed for easy access. The built in CPU cooling system works excellently and the quality is as good if not better as the similar spec shuttles! The buttons feel solid, The plastics are firm and feel very high quality! Its also a very reliable system which runs well with Windows XP and Linux. The in Built PSU is very quiet also but its power rating is quite low for those who are wishing to try and cram a big thirsty graphics card in there. A very good Little Barebones system!... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Extremely quite, beautiful machine
Disadvantages: CPU Cooling fan & the floppy drive connector are placed

...manual covers both the Intel and AMD XC cubes in brief detail. There's absolutely no mention of the BIOS, features or settings. It presumes a prior level of knowledge on the user's part. A fold-out installation guide simply refers to how one should plug the keyboard and mouse into associated ports! Leaving me to wonder if they are having a bit of a laugh. one of the most important things to consider when building a system is your choice of CPU. AOpen's, as we know, has opted for AMD's Athlon XP range. The performance blot arrives in the shape of a maximum Front-Side Bus support of 166MHz, thereby limiting the EZ18 to an Athlon XP3000+ processor. Which is not bad, but with other systems now being capable of taking AMD's Athlon 64 Model 3400+ and Intel's 3.4GHz Extreme Edition without issue, truly high-end performance is beyond the EZ18's reach... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Very silent, very stylish and very good at performing
Disadvantages: Not too many expansion possibilities, no DVI.

...Great little thing, this machine. I have always been a great fan of Shuttle computers - mainly for the thought that lays behind the systems and the designs. However two things have always been annoying about Shuttle: The price and the noise. AOpen has been pioneers when it comes to Pentium-M and this fact made me confident in buying a small form factor (SFF) system based on the Pentium-M. The system is brilliant and I use it for all my computing-tasks which are surfing on the Net, text- and powerpoint-handling as well as games every now and then and some audio recording and editing. My system is equipped with a 1.6 GHz Pentium-M (bought cheap from eBay), 1GB of Corsair RAM (two different types!), 533 MHz fsb. The system runs with Windows XP Home SP2 - and does so brilliantly. The good things about this machine: - Costs way less than... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful