Slashdot Mirror
Shuttle SS51 Reviewed
hilldaddy writes "AnandTech has a review up of the new Shuttle SS51 XPC. Looks like they finally added an AGP slot. Read the review." We've done several previous stories on the Shuttle mini-PC systems.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I bought a shuttle bare bones system a while back for LAN gaming. I really like the system, it's quiet and about as large as my toaster, but I ended up replacing the C3 with something faster.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
considering a very resembling STS-51 less successful one.
Anyone else find it not the greatest looking thing around? I guess it doesn't matter if you shove it under a desk, but I"m not sure it's something I'd want on top of my desk or sitting out in the open. The SS50 at least looked decent, but they added too much flashy stuff to it, and it looks silly.
What?
Rack mounts, but costs aside...Wouldn't you rather have a 4 space ATA rack case with a 1u computer, a 1u UPS, 1u keyboard/LCD and a 1u 24port switch all within a nice carryable package that it doesn't hurt throw in the back of the car?
These are really cool though for their small footprint, but personally I have been carrying around a Supermicro S-760 case for a few years now fully loaded, and its pretty heavy, but I really don't mind- it's strong enough to hold up one end of the table, or to be able to sit my UPS on top. These could be cool for LAN parties, but the exact reason I bought such a large case was for massive expandablity- multiple scsi drives, cdr, dvd, multiprocessor, etc...
It really could be cool for Lans though, but that LianLi alumnium case also fixes weight problem too.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I was interested to see that Shuttle has a new case out with an AGP slot, but it's still one-off from what I'd like, because it doesn't take AMD chips, which I prefer.
Does anyone know of a similar case for Durons / Athlons? I hope this is Shuttle's next move, because these cases are quite nice looking.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
In times past (oh, you know, 2 years ago.), it seemed eveyone I knew wanted a full sized tower. At the least, a mid tower was preferred.
Now, however, it seems things are hopefully turning around. It is quite encouraging to think that in the near future I can finally get rid of all of the crap that clutters my desk due to the computer. Pair this with a flat-panel monitor and you now have noticeably more room above and below your desk.
Now, I just need to find a way to consolidate all of my power and accessory cables. Those are probably the largest hassle when cleaning for me.
in case you manage to /. Anand's servers.
Hexus - http://www.hexus.co.uk/review.php?review=395
- HeXa
Anyone in touch with people building system component by component realizes a great majority of these are AMD based, since they get to see the processor price difference and know the price/performance problems with P4 vs. Athlon. I personally have been eagerly awaiting a version with AGP for AMD, and then I might buy in... I want to have an All-in-Wonder in one of these babies to integrate into my entertainment system...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Looks great with the aluminum casing. Was pretty cheap too at $300 for the case, proc, mb, power supply and RAM. Yes, no hdd, fd, or cdrom. This is going to be a diskless system, and I'd have to say that the SV24 fits the bill quite nicely. I'll put up a page when the project is finished.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
.... fogot the other two reviews...
g p1.htm
http://www.viahardware.com/ss51xpc_1.shtm
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/shuttle/ss51/ss51
- HeXa
Psst. Windows and Linux are operating systems, not computers.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This thing is clearly targetted at areas like Home Theater, where there aren't really relevant dongle-requiring apps.. If you are running something that requires a dongle, then you probably are at a business buying pre-built systems, not rolling their own..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
A friend of mine is looking into upgrading his machine or simply getting a new one.
I was thinking of reccommending the SS51 to him... Until I saw that it was a P4 machine.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Did anyone notice that the three audio ports can be remapped between input and output at the user's discretion? Want surround output, set them all to output. Want to record something? Switch a port to input. VERY nice - But is the audio quality up to snuff?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This is gonna be my main box at home and primary LAN party box. My old box is gonna be relegated to the role of an Apache server. I'll put up a review of how well the SS51 runs my favorite distro when I get the thing in.
Like so many sites, the folks who did the web pages for Shuttle Computer Group seem to think that nothing can be done without Javascript - you cannot even view their site with JS turned off. I do wish these so-called web designers would realize that some of us either cannot run JS, or choose not to.
I went to the Shuttle site trying to see if they had non-P4 systems - I'd rather get a 1800MHz processor that runs like 2200MHz than a 2200MHz processor that runs like 1800MHz. Also, I'd like to know how compatible this system is with Linux.
Lastly, while it has 2 optical SPDIF ports, I'd like to have a unit with a co-ax port. Why? My stereo has one optical and one co-ax input, and the optical is being used by my DirectTivo - I'd like to use the co-ax for my MP3 player.
Of course, what I'd really like is a simple USB -> SPDIF converter - no other I/O, just USB in and SPDIF co-ax out.
www.eFax.com are spammers
they put a headphone jack, usb ports, and firewire up front, but the KEYBOARD AND MOUSE PORTS ARE STILL IN BACK. Are designers just dense? Many people actually use ps/2 mice and keyboards. If you're going to put ports up front, why not these too?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Rather, I have a bunch of SV24's, not 50's as I wrote before. We have about 10 or so of these and they're great little office boxen. Only had to RMA one bad power supply. Rest are hummin' (literally) along.
A friend and I have been tossing around the idea of a backpacked minirig system for some time now, making use of small scrap cases from HP or something and the smallest form factor parts we could find. We wanted to build the entire thing into a backpack, so we just unzip a pocket, pull out a power cord and cat-5, and plug them in to go. This would be for both LAN parties and just doing work on the fly, and much less expensive than a laptop; more upgradeable too.
/.ers tried/accomplished anything like this? Also, for those of you who've used them, whats your personal opnions on Shuttles other models? I'm especially interested in the cooling issues, as building a computer into a backpack creates even more :)
The Shuttle setups seem almost ideal to this, as they've already solved some of the cooling problems we were finding with our minirigs. I'm just waiting to see what a Shuttle w/nForce2 looks like, and maybe some AMD support instead of Intel.
I noticed recently a new rollup keyboard on thinkgeek as well, which would be suited, so long as it works well; small factor mice are readily available for laptops, so those arent an issue.
Have any other
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
(note - I'm not affiliated with Shuttle in any way, shape, or form)
Although this is a good P4 machine, I'm an AMD fan, so this machine really doesn't interest me too much.
The one I'm waiting for is the Nforce2 Shuttle that will be released soon. It's for AMD, it's Onboard Video and Audio is very good so you wont need to replace it as soon unlike other onboard components, where it's almost necessary, and it's upgradeable just like the SS51 is.
The Nforce2 Shuttle wil be a good LAN gaming machine out of the box, whereas the SS51 needs a Video and Possibly an audio card right off the bat
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Firingsquad also has a review up.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/
Over the years, my computer has replaced more and more of my media systems.
Why not replace an expensive AC3 decoder with onboard decoding and some external cheap amps? (I'm not saying get a noname amp - I'm saying get a good name amp that is a decade or so old. Sound quality's the same, the only difference is all sorts of doodads you don't need.) Or one of the recent sets of PC speakers designed for use with surround-capable soundcards?
But as I asked earlier, I wonder what the quality of the onboard audio is. The onboard audio on my Epox EP-8KHA (VIA chipset onboard) is just plain unacceptable for ANY use - HORRENDOUS feedback/squealing.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Anyone know a UK source, or someone willing to import?
Cheers,
Ian
As an aside, wouldn't low pressure air absorb less heat? Wouldn't it be better to direct the airflow in, thus having the pressure be higher at the heat sink?
Then, of course, you'd be blowing hot air around the inside of the computer case. Still... anyone have some actual knowledge to drop on this subject?
-jim
There are no trolls. There are no trees out here.
I'm sure heat is one of the main factors prohibiting them from adding an AMD version. Intel CPUs run much cooler than their AMD counterparts [I tried finding a link to Tom's Hardware (www.tomsharware.com) video where he takes the heat sinks off and the AMD chips fry) so I imagine it would be much tougher to implement a cooling solution in such a small case.
That's not really it. Simply put, Shuttle hasn't put one together yet. The article states that they are working on an nForce2-based model on the SS51 for use with AMD CPUs. Since the nForce2 boards haven't hit the street yet then you won't see the AMD model for a little while.
Shuttle does already make versions of their XPC that take AMD processors and they don't have any heat problems. The only difference is that their existing AMD and Intel lines (until the SS51) did not have an AGP slot.
Perhaps these USB to parallel adaptors would help. Bit pricy perhaps - ~$40 for the cheapest there.
Cheers,
Ian
I bought a Shuttle SS50 this month (gee, if I'd waited, I could have gotten an AGP slot...). Nice system, runs a bit hot, I wonder if the SS51 heat pipe can be retrofitted.
However, I would like to put a PCI graphics accelerator in it for LAN gaming. Question is, what's a good midrange PCI 3D card for this purpose? GeForce cards are out of the picture 'cause the reviewers point out that this chipset is too data-transfer-intensive to work well over a PCI bus. Suggestions, anyone? JPriest, what card did you use, and how much did it improve things? (Seems to me the internal on-board video's faster data path might reduce its slowness relative to a PCI plugin card, but I might be wrong...)
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Also, it looks (from the photos on their site) like the case is getting slightly bigger in the newer models. Soon we'll have a (gasp) mini-tower again!
It isn't really bigger than the old ones. From the article:
The chassis is about 8" wide, 5" tall and 11.5" deep (20.32 x 12.7 x 29.21 cm), making it around the size of a toaster but not quite as small as Apple's PowerMac G4 Cube.
There is a small photo at the top left of each page of the review that makes it look like it's much taller than it really is, but that's only because for some reason they stretched the image vertically.
I understand your point, but I'm interested in running Cubase on this. I'm specifically interested in the box because it's very quiet, but Cubase requires a dongle which connects via the parallel port.
The problem can be solved, I think, by getting a USB to parallel adaptor.
Cheers,
Ian
The difference in density of the cooling air due to the pressure rise or drop across the fan is utterly negligible in terms of heat capacity per unit volume, and may well be swamped by the results of heating of the air by the CPU heatsink (in those cases where the air path goes that way; the SS51 doesn't do that.)
The pressure across the fan is way less than 0.1 PSI, compared to 14 PSI ambient pressure at sea level, so a crude analysis would say the effect is way less than 0.5%, most likely hundreds of times less.
If you pass the air across the CPU first and then through the power supply as in the SS50, you likely get hotter PS temperatures 'cause the temp difference is lower, reducing the amount of heat transfer until the PS heats up more.)
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
This is why this computer isn't for everyone. When you buy small, integrated systems, you instantly sacrifice some level of upgrades and expansion for the small box.
Small, expandable, inexpensive. Pick two.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
If you're willing to go with water cooling or something like the CALM System's evaporative cooling, you can get even quieter than that. Or you can do what I did and run cables under the floor so you can put the thing in a closet and shut the door.
Yahoo's Silent-PC list and AVS Forum have lots of good info on building PCs a lot quieter than the new Shuttle.
But not as tiny!
Woooo! That's going to be the ultimate Shuttle bitty box...nForce2-based. The first nForce already has very usable sound onboard and the first decent onboard video of any all-in-one kit.
;-)
This is going to be the LAN party hot setup. Maybe Santa will leave one under the tree this Xmas.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
All of my coworkers are excited about the SS51, I have a feeling it's going to be a huge seller... perhaps even one of the best selling pieces of PC kit this year. I wouldn't be too surprised if, over the next six months or so, we start seeing this little wonder popping up all over the place... offices, retail point-of-sale, on sitcom sets, etc.
In a related note, I'm curious about the "optional parallel port"... is it nothing more than a USB adapter? I would love a real parallel port as I perfer parallel for printers.
IMHO, better'n the SS51. A brushed aluminum cube looks spiffier to me than the same with a clear plastic faceplate tacked on.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I run Win98 SE on mine (amazingly, I was still able to buy a copy), Win2K is a bit more resource-hungry IIRC, and XP is *not* to come into my house or it'll get shot on sight. If this weren't a LAN-party box, I'd have it dual-booting Mandrake. HL/CS, Operation Flashpoint (great game, BTW) and StarCraft are the major uses for it, and it seems to do all right in terms of frame rate, though testing is still in progress...
73 de N1XNX
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Thanks for your input. If it's comparable to any SB, then it's pretty good for an onboard sound chipset. Not that I'm saying SB is better than most - Even super-cheapie Yamaha chipset cards are "acceptable", i.e. I can't tell the difference for gaming/home multimedia use.
My definition of "bad" is the onboard audio on VIA KT266 chipsets, such as my Epox EP-8KHA. It SUCKS. It has this obscenely loud high-pitched squealing that gives you a splitting headache on 1-2 minutes flat. Needless to say, I'm now VERY wary of onboard audio solutions.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Wait another couple months. The SN40 is coming. It's based on the nForce2 chipset, but otherwise expect similar specs to the SS51.
- nVidia press release
- VIAHardware nForce2 article
- Small Form Factor forum (search for SN40)
- or Google it yourself
SN40 is probably the machine that will get me to switch my home computer from PPC to x86.Here is another review by Thresh's Firingsquad.
Hardware keys are available in USB flavors too.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Simlple - Each port has 2 channels (Stereo)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
One thing: Lian Li PC-9300, perhaps? No idea about availability, I sure haven't seen it around these parts yet, but... Check out the other similar case mentioned in the review, too, perhaps. And start reading Dan's stuff, and give him plenty of donations so I don't have to. Thank you. ;^)
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
No AGP slot though, which is what I need for my ideal system. It is in the works, however, as other posts have pointed out...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm running a SS50 right now, and it runs Linux fine- The biggest problem is the video is an SIS part that is not fully supported under linux- they won't release their IP. There is one page that has some details on what it takes to get it going (code and so-forth) but it's not simple- it takes a bit of work.
I like my ss50 a lot- a little pricey for a barebones system, but it is relatively quiet, and has been running without a hitch for a couple weeks now. The only thing I'm really missing at this point is a decent way to monitor the temperature sensors and fan speed under linux- I haven't had much luck with the lm-sensors package.
I want a Shuttle SS51. It's exactly what I need for my "living room" PC. (I like the P4 > AMD for it's better heat handling)
But unlike many Slashdot readers I have no clue what parts to get to flesh out a barebones system.
If I ordered the SS51, what do I do next?
Are there some good FAQs for building your own system?
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat