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Shuttle SS40G Mini-PC
Thomas writes "Just got an email from a friend telling me Viahardware.com has put up a review of the Shuttle SS40G - the latest barebones system. I read through the review, and it looks like Shuttle has finally made a system that is capable of being totally silent. It has a cool heatpipe and radiator design for cooling the CPU, not to mention that it looks very cool."
It's not quite silent. There are two fans - one (almost silent) for the PSU and a second reasonably quiet one for the CPU radiator, according to the article. It may be quiet but that's not the same thing as silent. Anyway, even without fans you'd still have the noise from the hard disk.
The article says that shuttle's use of a heatpipe is new and innovative. Several other small systems (Cobalt Qube IIRC) have heatpipes, not to mention the plethora of laptops and game consoles with them. I think its rediculous how they always say that heatpipes are 'innovative'.
Here's the stuff about noise from the article for those who can't access it anymore:
Another one of the included accessories is the specially designed heatsink. The heatsink includes a heatpipe which goes to a radiator in the fan assembly. At first I was wary about trusting this with the CPU I used (Athlon XP 1800+), but after testing, I was quite confident that this device could cool the CPU very well. I thought I would take the time to go over the heatsink a little bit as well as to give some tips for installing it. First off I would like to comment on the heatsink clip. The clip is not my favorite, though it does clip on to all three tabs of the CPU socket, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that it requires the use of a screwdriver, and some decent force to install. That said, here is the best way to install this heatsink/radiator in the SS40G. It's not that easy the first time, but after another try or two it gets easier, and I thought I would share my experience.
-Snipped bit describing fitting the heatsink and critisizing its design-
To test how well the heatpipe/radiator system worked, I loaded up Quake 3 and let it loop endlessly for 30-45 minutes. Take a look at the table below for the temperatures.
Ambient Temperature 70 F (21 C) 80 F (26.6C)
Idle 44 C 48 C
Quake 3 47 C 53 C
These are very good temperatures for an Athlon XP 1800+, and the temperatures are within specifications. I was very impressed with the radiator/heatpipe to say the least. It certainly isn't an SK6/Delta, but it also isn't insanely loud either.
Speaking of noise, this is the quietest system from Shuttle yet. The power supply fan is pretty much noiseless, and the Sunon 80mm which the radiator uses is very quiet as well. The BIOS has an option of using what Shuttle is calling the Fan Guardian. What this does is lower the RPM of the radiator fan to a level which when sitting a few feet away you can barely tell it is on. However, running an Athlon XP 1800+ in this situation will not work too well if your ambient temperature is too high. This fast CPU will heat up past the Fan Guardians highest allowed temperature (52 C) pretty easily, and the fan will come back up to speed to keep the CPU cool. Take a look at this table for some measurements of the noise level.
SS40G Above Unit Listening Position
Fan @ Low RPM N/A 44 dB*
Fan @ High RPM 60 dB 50 dB
CF-S868/gBox Above Unit Listening Position
Normal Fan Setting 64 dB 55 dB
Looks like some great noise levels here. Unfortunately, the only sound meter I was able to come up with has a range of 50-126 dB. The 44 dB measurement was from Shuttle during their tests, and it seems that this is pretty close. It may vary +/- 1 dB but I think this is close to what it is. I'm working on locating a meter with a 30-140dB range, and will give you guys an update if I can find one. The SS40G can be absolutely silent with the fan in low RPM mode. Using a Seagate ATA IV hard drive makes for a truly silent, and powerful system. Even with the fan running at full speed, it is still pretty quiet, and if used as a multimedia center where you will be sitting farther away from it than if you are using it as a PC, the noise is hardly noticeable.
Currently I am using the SS40G with an Athlon 850MHz, 512MB Crucial DDR and a 40GB Seagate Barracuda ATA IV Hard Drive. I have not had the fan switch to the higher RPM setting once yet, even with an ambient temperature of around 80 F. If you want a silent box for linux, or any use, Shuttle has definitely delivered. Kudos to Shuttle and their innovative heatpipe/radiator solution to keep their system quiet.
You can approach silence by using a VIA C3 CPU, which does -not- require a CPU fan.
The seagate barracuda IV is so quiet as to be essentially noiseless; the background hum of fluorescent lights should be louder than a machine so spec'ed.
http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Shuttle/SS40G/v e fun.
Ha
Pros:
:)
Small - The SS40G is small. Very small. My PocketPC is smaller, but it can't play Quake 3.
Performance - The SS40G really performs for such a small system. It even gets very close to hitting 100FPS in Quake 3. Impressive. Oh, and you can like, do boring office tasks with it too
Features - The SS40G has a treasure trove of features. Firewire, front optical output, an excellent heatpipe/radiator system, cool looks, etc. Just about the only thing missing is USB 2.0 and ATA/133. ATA/133 isn't that big of a deal, but it would have been nice to have USB 2.0.
Style - I can't say it enough. I just love the look of the SS40G. It's great, and pictures don't really do it justice. A very big shout out to the guys at Shuttle who came up with the design. Excellent job!
Noise - The quietest Small Form Factor system I have worked with. Period.
Attention to detail: Shuttle's engineers have paid very close attention to the design of the SS40G. It has places to route cables, and everything was very well thought out. They even include a very good installation manual which is quite helpful and shows you the little secrets that make assembly much simpler.
Cons:
Heatsink Clip - Not really a huge problem more than an annoyance. It gets easier to put on and take off after a few times, but that first time can be interesting.
Regular Floppy Cable - Again, not a huge problem. I would like to see a rounded/split cable like the IDE cable for the CDROM.
aus.music.scrapbook
NewEgg.com has em (or will get em on 6/3/02) for $350.
I bought my SS50 from them about a month and a half ago....wish I woulda waited....*sigh*
Yep. This one fits your specs exactly, although it takes some weird new Mini-ITX motherboard that VIA's developing. They make a P3 version, though. Cheers, levine
try this, no IR window, but you could always mod it yourself...
http://www.directron.com/blackdesktop.html
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
EZ-Go:
l dam_cubes
a sp
d ex.html
http://www.directron.com/ezgo.html
Soldam cube:
http://www.slippersandpipe.co.uk/article.php?a=so
Other form factors:
http://www.directron.com/slim.html
http://nedcomp.bit-net.com/mini1.html
VIA Mini-ITX motherboard (find a case for it somewhere...):
http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/mini_itx.jsp
Advantech Single Boards Computers, e.g.:
http://www.advantech.com.tw/products/PCM-9572F.
OQO Crusoe-powered handheld:
http://www.oqo.com
tiqit handheld:
http://www.tiqit.com
Older review of Shuttle SV24:
http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/02q1/020111/in
A VIA C3 can't be compared to Athlons. I own a VIA C3 933 (its in a Shuttle SV24, the first of Shuttle's mini cube computers) and I recently did a LAME encoding test on the VIA C3 933 (on the fv24), a Celeron 300A@450 (on an Abit BH6) and a P3 1Ghz (on a Tyan Trinity 400). Encoding speeds were 1.1x, 1.9x, and 4.0x respectively. If the C3 is that much slower than a 4 year old Celeron, can not compare it to a 1800 Athlon XP.
Using a heat pipe and a slow rpm 80mm fan this new board can keep the 1800 Athlon XP cool, and still keep noise low. The Seagate Barracuda IV drives have been measured at 41.3db (Idle Noise at Storage Review), and they are silent. I have 4 of them, I know.