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

Shuttle has been a contender for a while now

[pogle]

I've personally built quite a few Shuttles, among 4 different models, and I love them; unless I need a big server with redundant RAID or something, Shuttle is all I'll ever go with now. Quiet, runs fast and cool, and my decked out one is more than adequate for games; I'm willing to bet I can run Doom3 at a bearable frame rate, even. And I tote it to LAN parties to destroy people in UT2k4 or America's Army, running either 1600x1200fullscreen or 1280x1024windowed with no performance loss.

You can make a perfect home/office/small business machine for under $400, that will last for years. Media center PCs, LAN party rigs, Shuttles can do just about everything; they can even fulfill /.'s love of a Beowulf cluster of xxx :p Small form factor is the way to go.

Only thing they lack is space for more than 2 or 3 hard drives (without modding), so a large redundant RAID is not so easy. But the SFF PC is the way to go for most things now, and Shuttle leads the market there. My only complaint is that I like the G2 case style better than all the others, and they haven't put out a new G2 in a while.