Mini PC Grows Up? Shuttle XPC Reviewed

Bender writes "The Tech Report has done a comprehensive review of the just-redesigned Shuttle XPC. These toaster-sized systems, sold with motherboard but sans CPU, memory, and storage, are becoming a very attractive alternative to the standard DIY system that's over twice the size. This latest PC 'cube' has everything: PCI Express, a BTX-inspired chassis design, room for a small RAID array, and pre-routed cables. The only snag is a Pentium 4 thermal throttling problem discovered through some nice investigative work. If Shuttle can fix this problem, this thing could be a killer personal workstation box."

Comments

More powerful than you think

[xenostar]

My company has a little Shuttle that we use as a temporary server in situations that require a server to go up as soon as possible, and it's the handiest thing on earth. Just stick it into a bag, go to the site, configure it and in an half hour you have a server running. I love those little things.

If this works...

[maztuhblastah]

If this works, then Apple might crap its pants. Really though, the concept of an ultra-compact, cube computer has been around for a while...this is just the PC manifestation. Maybe this could inspire Apple to re-release the Cube...



...or not.

Vindication of the Power Macintosh G4 Cube

[Anonymous Coward]

The popularity of these small, easily portable machines would seem to vindicate the G4 cube.

Although Apple users are not often the sort of gamer who would want a machine to carry to LAN parties, I've always thought that Apple had a great product in the cube, and as the years have gone past, I've come to think that it was, like the Newton, simply ahead of its time. I wonder what would happen today if Apple introduced a G5 cube in the spirit of these mini-PCs.

(And they can re-introduce the Newton any day now, but I won't hold my breath... :-)

NIce cases

[Cthefuture]

They make nice little machines. As I've said many times before, quiet and small is the future for PC's.

They have always been rather pricey though. And they never seem to get cheaper. Even the very old versions cost the same as they did when they were the latest design. All they do is keep coming out with new versions that cost even more. Goofy. That's why I haven't bought another in several years.

I wish someone would take this design a step farther. That is, since they are supplying the motherboard, power supply, and case there is a perfect opportunity to tie the components that get hot to the case. You know, to be cooled from outside the case by using the case itself as a giant heatsink (just add some subtle ridges/fins to the outside). That way you have less fans and more room inside. Or more room to make the whole thing even smaller.

I have two (they're small...)

[Darth Maul]

I have two for MythTV boxes. They are the previous model, but they're still great. The best part about one of the new model is the power brick is external, so you have less heat generated inside the small box. The fan and thermal pipe configuration makes for a *very quiet* box; perfect for home theater applications.

When will they finally create a good looking PC?

[knipknap]

Is there /any/ well designed PC out there? The only great box I have ever seen is this one: http://mini-itx.com/news/images/story0334.jpg, which is built for the less-powerful mini-itx board only.
I wish there were more boxes not looking so... PC. Hush (http://www.hush-technologies.com/start.html) is getting close, but not close enough... this is still look kind of cheap. Any hints?

Just bought 150 of them!

[leathered]

The other week I receieved 30 SN41G2s for the university I work at and I've got another 120 arriving soon. Once you've got used to how they are put together you can get the build time down to less than 25 minutes apiece.

We used to buy Dells (which I detested from a technicians point of view) but a couple of months ago we bought two Shuttle systems as a one-off. Everyone was so impressed about how quiet, compact and well engineered they were we decided to outfit an entire new building with them. The few man-hours spent on building them is well worth it to get a quality system that the usual supects (Dell, HP etc) can't seem to deliver. A classroom full of Shuttles is noticably quieter than a room full of Dells.

One thing though, if you are looking for an SN 41G2 then make sure it's a Version 2 (Silent X) model. There's still a lot of Version 1s about which are a bit noisier.