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Shuttle SDXi Water-Cooled SFF PC
MojoKid writes "Shuttle Computer single-handedly invented the SFF PC or Small Form-Factor PC a few years back. Their line of XPC mini-PC systems, no bigger than a toaster oven, has evolved nicely over the years. This article takes a look at the features and performance of a new XPC from Shuttle that is built on a i975X/Core 2 Duo platform and is designed with the PC enthusiast in mind. The SDXi features a number of unique features like a built-in water-cooler for Radeon GPU-based graphics cards and a slick, flamed-out paint job that you've just got to see." Update: 07/08 23:53 GMT by KD : Here is a link to the version split over 12 pages, in which the images are clickable thumbnails.
The article mentions a problem that I have had with Shuttle systems all along: Noise. Even though it's water cooled, they found noise to still be a problem.
If I could be choosy, this is what I want in my typical SFF system:
- One full size x16 PCI express slot for my big graphics card (that should fit and be adequately cooled)
- Space for two hard drives in the chassis, along with one optical drive
- Near silence except when doing something intense, like gaming or encoding
- Of course, small.
When will I get such a system!?
Shuttle Computer single-handedly invented the SFF PC or Small Form-Factor PC a few years back....
I've read some fanboi tosh on slashdot in my time, but that is so wrong it's not even ironically funny. I'd delve into prior art but I really can't be bothered: take your pick from any computer manufacturer and they'll have had something SFF.
I suppose they did attempt to make SFF attractive for the living room, but again that was nothing new: geeks have been doing that for years to try to appease other halves.
Only if you install the fleshlight drive.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I'm still waiting for the very small form factor - uATX, picoATX and smaller FF's to come way down in price. The premiums they get for a small machine are obscene. And the units that don't need a fan like Via C3s are so absurdly underpowered you have to wonder why they don't embed the whole system in a network appliance.
I think you're at cross-purposes here. You want a quiet system, but you also want a big graphics card. Most gfx cards today have their own cooling fans (meaning one more noise source in the system). Plus, you want a PCIe x16 card, which means more bandwidth, which implied higher CPU requirements (hey, something's gotta supply those polygon requirements), faster RAM, faster HD (unless you wanna cut your frame rate waiting for textures to load), all of which mean more power, which equals more cooling, which equals more noise. Unless you can come up with some way to cool your system with dry ice or some other high-thermal-differential substance, you're going to have to move larger quantities of a less-efficient medium around.
Just junk food for thought...
From the article:
"And the 1337 series, which is a complete system based on this chassis"
It really must be c00l.
From the picture that thing looks half as big as a mid-tower. That's not what I'd call a "small PC".
When I think small computer, I think Apple Mac mini and AOpen miniPC.
Kneejerk flamebait mods: Avert your eyes.
c leid=986
t =19838b arebones-system-7831.htmlp =673332
Let me start out by saying HotHardware itself is nothing better than a middle-of-the-pack hardware review site. If I remember correctly, they're a generic offshoot of one of the more major tech sites that tries (too hard) to appeal to enthusiasts but comes across as nothing more than stiff corporate whores desperately spewing cool lingo to draw hapless internet goers into viewing their adbortion (SPELLING INTENTIONAL) of a website. And I'm OK with that.
What I'm not OK with is their oh so blatant blogspam bullshit they send to slashdot. Wow guys, you reviewed a small form factor PC. If that's not front page worthy, I don't know what is! Even worse, the only link in their submission was to their own site.
In the spirit of sharing, I've decided to help out slashdotters who might be genuinely interested in the product beyond a "sweet flames, bro!" 10 pager (it's a fucking barebones system!) fluff review with some informative links. Let's start with a direct link to hothardware's printable version of the page.
http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?arti
That wasn't so hard, was it guys? Oh sure, it might cut into your ad revenue, but it would be disingenuous of me to accuse you guys of submitting this for the shallow purpose of bumping ad revenue, right? Right?!
In other news, I was looking for alternate reviews of this system. What did I find? HotHardware are apparently a bunch of linkwhoring board spamming bastards. Witness the evidence:
http://www.elitebastards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?
http://www.dvhardware.net/review/31338
http://forums.hardwarelogic.com/f68/shuttle-sdxi-
http://www.mbreview.com/article.php?sid=11683
http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?
Maybe the hardware review business is now just as inbred as most news blog sites. I don't know. What I do know is I spent way too much time writing this post. And this story is beyond worthless.
Shuttle did well with their innovative heat pipe system, which is a rigid, sealed unit connecting a heat exchanger atop the CPU with one near an air outlet and fan. The case and motherboard were designed around the cooling system. That's what makes their small form factor PCs workable without overheating problems. We used those things outdoors in summer, while field testing robots, and they held up well. I've never had a Shuttle PC overheat, even at 105F ambient.
But the new graphics card cooling technology looks like a tacky afterthought. Big hoses all over the place. Too much plumbing. It comes with a paint job that might look good on a pickup with a lift job. So you get a sense of the target market.
If you like this sort of thing, go read "Soon, I Will be Invincible!", the fictional memoir of an evil mad scientist who tries to take over the world. It's the classic dweeb fantasy, with appropriate interior decoration.
Words cannot express how much a flame paintjob puts me off buying something. The computer could run off 16 cores and come with 2TB of HDD space pre-filled with porn, with a robotic arm that gives handjobs every hour on the hour and I still wouldn't want it with that fucking paintjob. I mean really, how big can the market be for "PC enthusiasts" who are 12 years old?
"Lastly, we set Windows XP's Visual Effects to "best performance," installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives, and ran all of the tests."
Nice to note that the only non-UNIX based OS on the market continues to come from MS. Too bad such a nice little box is held back by such a stoic, muzzle-loading OS.
I have a "Small Form Factor" toaster box that is from BioStar. It's the same sort of thing as the Shuttle. It is a little noisier than I prefer.
The truly SFF, quiet computer that I have also been using for over a year is a Mac Mini. If you don't need one of those high-wattage video cards, the Mini is fast and about 1/6th the size of any of these "toaster" boxen. (I have the Mini sitting ~on top~ of the SFF PC, along with a USB 2.0 external hub.)
You can also drop a Core 2 Duo CPU into the Mini. (The current models are Core Duo.) The upgrade path for my SFF PC isn't as good.
For those of us who don't want "gaming" graphics and want a quiet computer to run OS X, Linux, or Windows, I don't see many options better than the Mac Mini.
Please note: I am not Steve Jobs. If I were, I surely would have said, "Boom. There it is," at least once in this post.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Maybe if it's crammed full of heatpipes and the whole case is a heatsink. Even then, there's a limit to how small it can get without overheating. Otherwise, your choices are:
small and powerful, but noisy
silent and powerful, but big
small and silent, but slow