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Shuttle's SS50 reviewed
EconolineCrush writes "What's 200x181x280mm, decked out in brushed aluminum, and supports a Pentium 4 processor with DDR SDRAM? Shuttle's SS50 bare bones system The Tech Report has a review up of the latest aluminum cube from Shuttle, and it's an impressive little beast. Small form factor PCs are becoming more popular, and this is the first platform I've seen with Pentium 4 support, DDR, and decent on board video via SiS' 650 chipset."
Shuttle also has plans for a SS40 model, which is very similar to the SS50, except for supporting AMD processors instead of the Pentium 4. It also uses the SiS chipset (745), which is very similar to the 645 Pentium-4 chipset (same GF2MX-level integrated graphics), and is even better than the surprising 735 chipset.
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
I've got an SV24 (with a celeron 1000) that does an excellent job of sitting on a shelf in my closet (dorm room) serving files and running the occasional quake/half-life/etc game. Nice sexy little box, and GREAT for portability.
If it wasn't quite so loud (get a Centaur CPU, no fan! also, some people have modded the power supply fan) it would make a great little computer for acting as a portable DVD/VCD player.
One thing it could REALLY use is a handle on the top...would be perfect for carrying.
Scott
More here.
"200x181x280mm" ... "the latest aluminum cube from Shuttle"
As the object is a cube,
200 = 181 = 280
Therefore,
200 = 181
19 = 0
and
280 = 181
99 = 0
Therefore,
99 = 19
80 = 0
Cool... I like these new cubes. Next lesson: Using the circumference of a Pepsi can to disprove the theory of relativity.
- Jester
http://www.american-media.com/ the gBox P4 comes with an AGP port.. then I can really use it as my lan party box
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You're not a true lanner unless your main form of exercise is hauling your computer around.
One person measured the SS50 at 56dba:
:P
Viahardware Small Form Factor & Quiet PCs Forum
And a number of ppl on that forum have complained about the noise--the SV24 was loud, but the SS50 is even louder
Apparently the excessive noise is die in large part to the crappy PSU fan, but
And incidentally, for the crowd that thinks undervolting the fan or using a low rpm fan is the solution, note that at 26'c ambient, the CPU already measures >50'c (more figures on page three of the above link).
No, the problem most geeks have with Compaq/HP/etc. machines isn't just price-based, it's standards based. If you build a machine yourself or buy this barebones Shuttle system or something similar, you're getting a more standard, interchangeable design, often with more expandability.
See, most 1st-tier mass-market PC companies have their motherboards manufactured according to proprietary designs by companies no one's ever heard of. They seldom live up to ATX or MicroATX or any similar spec, instead using strange form factors that often necessitate weird 2-piece motherboards with segments connected by ribbon cables. This was the case with 2 PCs I opened up recently, a fairly recent Compaq and an IBM. The PCI slots were on a PCB placed at a 90-degree angle to the main PCB.
So, good luck ever moving it to a different case. Not that you'd want to, because while motherboards designed by retail by reputable manufacturers are designed for a large measure of expandability, motherboards designed for big OEMs aren't. I bought my motherboard nearing 2 years ago with a 600MHz Duron and can upgrade to any socketed Athlon or Duron with a 200MHz FSB; if I'd bought a Compaq, odds are it would have used the obsolete slot design, and even if it used the socketed processors it almost certainly wouldn't have the multipliers and support logic for the higher clock speeds.
See, Compaq and the other tier-1 PC OEMs don't have a vested interest in letting consumers upgrade their existing PCs. They want to sell new ones. This is in contrast to the retail motherboard market, where there's competition and smaller OEMs and DIYers are the target market. So, whereas a Compaq is likely to have a limited multiplier range, few BIOS updates, and still be using hardware jumper settings, a retail mobo will be likely to have a complete multiplier range, frequent BIOS updates to support newer features and processors, and have more settings accessible in the BIOS rather than in hardware jumpers.
In addition, a Compaq or similar will likely have integrated peripherals geared toward being as cheap as possible, which usually means fewer features and more CPU and RAM dependence. Which reminds me--memory upgrades on Compaqs can be a nightmare. On most retail mobos you'll get 3 RAM slots--at least 2, but usually 3 and on rare occasion on better-designed full ATX boards, 4. On Compaqs and the like, they can make it really weird; for example, a Compaq I recently upgraded had its manual state that the first RAM slot could accept up to a 128 MB dimm, and the second could accept up to a 64MB dimm. Huh? What? Why? A *real* motherboard manufactured for retail by one of the better Taiwan manufacturers would, at the time, have had at least 2 dimm slots, capable of accepting up to 512 MB dimms each. Not that weird bullshit about one 128 MB dimm and one 64 MB dimm. I still don't understand that one...
Anyway, it's about more than just price. It's about quality, it's about adherence to standards.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
I've got one of these and it isn't very loud at all. My CPU stays a cool 40 C most of the time, so the fan is able to stay at 2400 RPMs, even when the fan has to speed up when the CPU heats up (which is customizable in the BIOS), it isn't too incredibly loud. My laptop overpowers this thing by a quite a bit. Maybe they just put a noisy hard drive in =]
What?
I've got the latest Skipjack beta running on my SS50 just fine. Only problem initially was with the video, but I found a helpful person on the XFree86 mailing lists that makes drivers for the SiS chipsets and now for the most part, everything works great. (If I had more time to test the drivers, it would probably work even better, but I hardly get the chance to install his daily releases of them as it is). If you have one of these and want to know where to get the video drivers for X, send me an e-mail. I don't dare post a link to his website for fear of killing it.
The fans on the SS50 are not very loud at all. Even when they speed up they are fairly quiet, not much worse than my other PC. I suppose if it wasn't sitting next to my monitor and under my desk, I'd probably hear it even less =]
What?
Via EdenManufacturer's page
Good features:
Fanless operation
Eq to Pentium 533 (< 10db?)
integrated decent graphics with iDCT compensation for DVD
ATA-33/66/100 support
10/100 Mbps Ethernet
MC 97 Fax/Modem
TV-Out (S-video)
1394
USB 2.0
AC 97 codec
Compact package
Quiet HDTV home entertainment with following add-ons:
Ultra-quiet DVD drive
160G HD
HDTV Card
Decent 5.1 sound card
Roll your own software
Estimated cost $900
Connected to a 5.1 receiver w/speakers, this gives you a good sytem which plays all music formats, DVD player, acts as a DVR (for both NTSC and HDTV formats, > 40 hrs.), file server, reasonable gaming.
Gerry
my $0.02
Manufacturer's page
Review1
Review2
Review3