Shuttle normally supplies barebone PCs, providing you with a shell and the necessary power/cooling components to base your system upon. The XPC P2 3500G (from £700) is different - it’s a complete system that ships ready to rock. This is great for those of us who can’t be bothered with the time and complexities required to assemble a great gaming PC.

The wholly-black XPC P2 3500G is based on the attractive aluminium-manufactured XPC Barebone SP35P2 Pro enclosure and supports Socket 775 Intel processors (Core 2 Duo/Quad/Extreme). It’s also ready for the upcoming Intel 45nm Core 2 multi-core processors. My review unit shipped with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

An impressive 4GB of DDR2 800MHz memory ships as standard (up to 8GB supported), and a speedy 750GB SATA-2 Samsung hard disk drive (Spinpoint F DT Series HD753LJ) with 32MB cache should be large enough for most gamers’ collections. If not, there’s space for a second internal drive.

Other technical nicities include ATI’s flagship Radeon HD3870 graphics card with 512MB of discrete memory and an integrated fingerprint scanner for paranoid users who value the extra security highly. The XPC P2 3500G can also be ordered with 802.11g/b Wi-Fi, dual-layer 16x DVD burner and a 25-in-1 card reader. That’s not to forget integrated 7.1 channel audio courtesy of the Realtek ALC888 codec and 400-Watt ATX mini PSU. Windows Vista Home Premium is also pre-installed as standard, though you can ‘downgrade’ to Windows XP.

The range of connectivity ports are brilliant, which is really great news considering the compact size of the machine. I’m disappointed there’s no HDMI output or Bluetooth, but at least there are eight USB 2.0 ports (two at front support Speed-Link), 4- and 6-pin FireWire ports, headphone and microphone jacks, TV connector (S-Video), Gigabit LAN (RJ45), two External Serial ATA Hotplugs (eSATA), two DVI-I connectors, and a load of digital audio line-in/out jacks.

High performance always comes at a price, but Shuttle’s XPC P2 3500G is a really compelling single graphics card solution for hardcore gamers short on space. I’d have been totally sold if there was a Blu-Ray, HDMI and 802.11n, but the choice of components and build quality are still striking. An added bonus is that every fully-configured system from Shuttle comes with a 24-month Pick-up and Return service. How’s that for service! Overall this is a mini-gaming powerhouse to be taken seriously. [9]