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Hardware Hacking Upgrades Build Hardware

Shuttle SDXi Water-Cooled SFF PC 74

Posted by kdawson from the looks-hot-runs-cool dept.
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.
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Shuttle SDXi Water-Cooled SFF PC More

Shuttle SDXi Water-Cooled SFF PC

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  • System Noise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by corvair2k1 ( 658439 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @03:37PM (#19791649)
    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!?

    • Yeah, good luck with that... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doctor Memory ( 6336 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @03:50PM (#19791751)
      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.
      • I don't think it's that difficult. For my intents and purposes, my Mac Pro is effectively "silent". If, hypothetically you cut out the useless feet and spoilers handles, and cut the case height in half, lost a CPU socket, lost half the memory sockets, half the slots and half the drive bays, you should be able to have a pretty quiet system have something that would be about the volume of a Shuttle case, I think.

        The problem is that it seems as if Shuttle cheaps out on components, doesn't properly secure the

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by RootWind ( 993172 )
          Not saying that it can't be done, but I think you underestimate the importance of that empty space for air. It is fairly easy to make a quiet system in a large case without resorting to fancy cooling by using larger but slower RPM fans. It works since there is a lot of airflow. When you compress the entire case, you put the three largest heat producers that much closer together (CPU, PSU, Video card). Without that space, you are stuck with either using smaller louder fans (with decreased efficiency due
          • I don't know of you understand, because my assumptions do scale the free space because you hack out half the existing features in an existing computer and conceivably make a computer at half the volume, and I think that leaves plenty enough open volume for air flow - half the components with half the heat generation in half the space should contain equivalent to half the air flow of the big unit, and half the PSU size. I think it's pretty close to a perfect scaling. The Mac Pro has four 12cm fans, and wit
            • Actually they are quite a bit of a problem. I guess you're forgetting about the depth of your case - taking that into account your Mac Pro is more likely four times as big as the Shuttle. (Sorry but I can't seem to find any detailed info about the Mac Pro's size).
              Additionally you'd probably use only one VGA card in your Mac Pro, equal to the amount you'd use in the Shuttle.

              As a last detail, you probably couldn't fit 12 cm fans into the shuttle because it's back side (after subtracting the space taken by
        • My Mac Mini is also completely silent (in a quiet room you don't know that it's on)

          It's also more than adequately powerful, with the exception of the dinky hard drive and graphics card. You could hypothetically make it *twice* as thick, and put in a really nice graphics card, and throw in a normal 3.5" hard drive. It'd still be smaller than the Shuttle SFF PCs (and you can work out creative ways to deal with noise and cooling. Underclocking (heresy, I know) by just a few percent can hut heat output drama

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by apharov ( 598871 )
        The thing with Shuttle systems is that from the acoustics perspective their systems have not really developed at all during the last five (or so) years. The cases are still made of thin metal, hard drives are hard mounted (as opposed to mounted with silicon grommets for instance), fans are not too well built and power supplies use whiny small fans. Where desktop systems have taken big leaps acoustics-wise SFF systems have stayed put. Shuttle could put some effort in to silencing their systems, just steal s

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      When? When you recognize that your requirements (especially the silence) necessitate a BTX form-factor motherboard and a low-profile graphics card.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I purchased a Shuttle XPC SN21G5 about 6 months ago and it has done me well. It only has one 3.5" internal bay, but I think you can use the external one for mounting an extra hard drive. The only downside I found to this system is it has a retiring socket 939 motherboard. Luckily I owned an Athlon X2 3800+ which works great in there. I also own a huge nVidia GeForce 6800 video card which takes up a lot of space. When I first installed the card I was worried that there might be heat issues, but none so

    • Re: Mac Mini (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dystopian Rebel ( 714995 )
      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

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Nozsd ( 1080965 )
      When will I get such a system!?

      Don't hold your breath.

      I have an older Shuttle system, the SS51Gv2, and it's almost silent if you let the BIOS turn the main fan down when it isn't needed. It has the space for two HDs plus an optical, as well as being the size of a rather large toaster. That meets three of your requirements. The only problem is the graphics card. The model I have comes with an AGP slot and after a week or two of using a Radeon 9800 Pro, it burned out the power supply. It seems that the 9
    • My friend canned his SFF box in favor of a mid size ATX tower about four months ago. He upgraded the video card to the GeForce 7 series, and after doing so, the temperature sensitive fan on the video card stayed at its maximum, and incredibly annoying, RPM's all the while it was on.

      Shuttles won't be quiet and heat efficient for a long time. If you want a system with a fast, multicore processor, and a beefy video card, be a man and buy a tower.

      Although, after my friend moved some components to a new cas

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by RMingin ( 985478 )
        Why do people continually associate the maximum wattage a PSU can provide with how much it draws at the wall? This isn't engines, folks, where all that displacement burns gas no matter what. A higher wattage PSU will typically be MORE efficient than a lower wattage one, if your load is any significant percentage of the small PSU's capacity. Efficiency suffers badly, and heat production ramps up sharply as you approach a PSU's maximum wattage. The amount drawn at the wall is system draw + PSU efficiency over

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by RulerOf ( 975607 )
          Very true. I'm highly familiar with the relation between max wattage, actual wattage at operating temperature, and efficiency in various PSU's. While it's not necessarily the case that a lower max wattage PSU will consume less power, it's not that far of a stretch to assume that it is, in practice, generally the case. If you really want to nitpick you can measure a PSU's actual consumption or read reviews or whatever, but in the end, max wattage (and of course, 120v draw as rated on the device) are prett

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by J05H ( 5625 )
      Except for the full-size graphics card, you can get all of those features now in Shuttle systems. I had PCsForEveryone.com build a custom Shuttle SN25P a while ago for a studio PC. Dual 250gb RAID internal + DVD-R, 300gb external, AMD 3500, 2Gb - all parts were just shy of cutting-edge at design for maturity. During simple ops like text editing or browsing, the machine makes very little noise. CD access sometimes makes noise, but literally just touching the box stops it. Graphics have never been an issue b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by makomk ( 752139 )
        Hmmm... I have a SN25P-based system here, and whilst it's not too bad noise-wise, it's far from silent thanks to the 6 fans (2 CPU fans, 2 40mm fans to cool the drive bay, an equally small fan on the motherboard, and the GPU fan - all but the GPU fan come as standard with the case). Incidentally, I notice the system in the article doesn't have the drive bay fans, though there are grilles and screw holes to install them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by J05H ( 5625 )
          YMMV, my SN25P is whisper-quiet compared to my other PCs. Like I said, it gets a little noisy when rendering. If I expected total silence from my hardware, it'd be in an enclosed rack or separate room.

          J

    • 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 already offers it [digitalmediathoughts.com]. The noisiest component in the SD11G5 is the hard disk, even if you go for the quietest on the market.

      Unfortunately, Shuttle has not updated this amazing system so you will have to be satisfied with a pentium M processor.

    • Maybe if it's crammed full of heatpipes and the whole case [zalman.co.kr] 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 [bjorn3d.com] and powerful, but big
      small and silent, but slow
    • Interesting. My SN95 is whisper quiet ***when set properly***. Wonder if they didnt have it set optimally for testing?

      Sure it ramps up and gets louder when I put it under load (FPS gaming) as the smart fan does its job, but when its idle or even being used lightly like web/email usage, I can barely hear it. Hell, most of the noise comes from the GPU fan!

      I think the heatpipe design of their standard air cooled line is one of the best out there. Instead of just recirculating the CPU waste heat around inside t
    • I generally agree although if you want a gamer PC to run quiet you've really got to break this system down into 2 boxes:

      1) A "smarts" box with all the solid state parts in it: mobo, cpu, ram, and graphics card. These parts all have higher temperature tolerances (~85C) and put out a lot of heat, especially the graphics card. It's not hard to arrange them in a wind tunnel fashion that allows for the most absurdly large PCI16 cards with the entire front of the box being an intake for single, large, high volume
  • Since when have toaster ovens been small? Smaller than a shoebox would be good, smaller than a toaster is cool, but a toaster oven?

    Wake me when they're smaller than a box of Pop-Tarts (that's an ISO unit of measure, isn't it?)...

  • "single handedly invented"???!!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by chiark ( 36404 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @03:38PM (#19791659) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • Real Geeks have no "other halves" you insensitive clod !!!

    • Re:"single handedly invented"???!!! (Score:5, Informative)

      by BeerCat ( 685972 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @03:54PM (#19791781) Homepage

      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.


      Indeed, the Shuttle guys were interviewed for Macformat magazine, and stated that what gave them the idea was the Cube - they wanted to do a Windows equivalent of something as small

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sootman ( 158191 )
        No sense mentioning one of my all-time favorite PCs, the Compaq Deskpro EN SFF. [google.com] I've got a PII-350 which I think means it even predates Apple's Cube. (And, IIRC, they were available with classic (socket-7) Pentiums, which puts them even further in the past.) Tiny, with built-in 10-100 and two PCI slots. Very, very handy little boxes.
        • Been around quite a bit longer than P2's, wiki [wikipedia.org] says 1992, which sounds about right (386/486cpus are the oldest ones I saw on them). I went looking at them back in the day when I was thinking of making a portable mp3 player/in-dash computer, much like the one for sale at the time (for ~$1000 I think), which I forget the name of (had a vfd display panel on the front and a hard-drive to store the music, and ran linux I think). Kinda neat, they usually contain everything you need in a computer: keyboard/mouse i
      • Hi, I'm the author of this post and unfortunately those words were edited. I did not enter the words "single-handedly". My post was "almost seemingly invented the SFF PC"... which is about right. At least they introduced it to the mainstream in a significantly more retail consumer friendly product offering.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BeerCat ( 685972 )
          Bummer! (hindsight filter on) Maybe by putting "popularised the SFF PC", you wouldn't have had the meaning edited out (hidsight filter off)

    • that is so wrong ... 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.

      Shuttle may not have been innovative, but they positioned themselves in a unique niche that no one before them bothered to specifically target: the high quality SFF barebones market. Shuttle SFF boxes have a combination of advantages that no one else has:

      - DIY component selection - you pick everything but the box and the mobo
      - By far the smallest volume cases for every bay configuration up to 2x internal 3.5/2x external 5.25
      - Excellent custom heatsink
      - Excellent case airflow for its size (there are SFF cas

  • When will pico ATX be affordable? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @03:42PM (#19791695) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Futil3 ( 931900 )

      And the units that don't need a fan like Via C3s are so absurdly underpowered [...]
      I've had my EPIA M12000 (that's a 1.2Ghz C3) with a PCI Geforce 5600 - all cooled by a single 80mm case fan - acting as my main desktop for two or three years now and it has never felt underpowered at all. Overpriced perhaps, but silent and sexy as hell. :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gelfling ( 6534 )
        What is the rough equivalence in performance of a 1.2Ghz C3 or C7 compared to an Intel. My slowest desktop is a Pentium III 1.2Ghz machine.
    • Call me when they come out with yATX (yoctoATX).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Nexx ( 75873 )
        System form-factor the size of a Micro-SD card? You sneeze, and *poof*, your system is gone.

        • System form-factor the size of a Micro-SD card? You sneeze, and *poof*, your system is gone.
          So it will be running a much more stable OS than windows then?

  • I worry about Shuttle's quality control (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was on an SFF kick a few years back, built several SFF systems for friends. I thought they were the greatest thing. Then I came across an SK43G that wouldn't be stable.

    Here's a long thread on Sudhian discussing it:
    http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthrea d/50166/ [sudhian.com]

    I've built lots of computers. I know there are quirks and problems. What really frustrated me is that shuttle did *nothing* to help an obvious design or manufacturing error. So, I was stuck with bad hardware. That leaves a bad tas
  • From the article:

    "And the 1337 series, which is a complete system based on this chassis"

    It really must be c00l.

  • This is mini? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @04:01PM (#19791829) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Fucking blog spam. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Spazntwich ( 208070 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @04:03PM (#19791847)
    Kneejerk flamebait mods: Avert your eyes.

    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?artic leid=986 [hothardware.com]

    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?t =19838 [elitebastards.com]
    http://www.dvhardware.net/review/31338 [dvhardware.net]
    http://forums.hardwarelogic.com/f68/shuttle-sdxi-b arebones-system-7831.html [hardwarelogic.com]
    http://www.mbreview.com/article.php?sid=11683 [mbreview.com]
    http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p =673332 [motherboards.org]

    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.

  • "...and a slick, flamed-out paint job that you've just got to see."
    Jeeze, why not throw on a set oh chromes pipes, some saddle bags and get a big biker-like dude to ride on it. That thing is absolutely hideous, and to boot, as soon as you install an optical drive, or anything requiring a 5 1/2" bay, the grease-ball paint job goes from extremely greaseball to extremely greaseball and chopped up. Hell, a Dell charcoal SFF PC has more of a Zen appearance than this!

  • Too many hoses (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @04:17PM (#19791935) Homepage

    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!" [sooniwillb...ncible.com], 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.

  • Wow, Flames. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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?

  • 'defragged' - How quaint (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Sunday July 08, 2007 @04:39PM (#19792083)
    "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.
  • The main problem with barebones is cool this down. In this confined space there is a lot of heat to be evacuated sense and it needs a lot of noisy fans. It looks like a toaster and it is like toaster in every sense.

    I wonder if they have figure out a system with its entire components dipped in oil.
    • Well, considering it LOOKS like a toaster and ACTS like a toaster, surely they can just put a couple of slots in the top so I can heat my bread in the morning. With all that power under the hood we are just a few steps away from Talkie Toaster. Howdy-doodly-do!
  • KD, hey, so here's the deal. The contract specifies that Slashot will link to the 12 page version of the article WTF are you doing linking to the print version?? Ad money, HELLO?! Do you think we're paying you guys to link our articles for kicks and giggles?

    Either this gets fixed by the top of the hour or we expect a full refund.

    Regards,

    Wanker @ Hot Hardware

  • Finally in stock, it'd be nice if it's available earilier. Any ways, with only $7.9 usd, am I going to be able to buy it? Lucky available late or I'll score. XD
  • Then you need a good thermal design. And without meaning to sound like a fanboy, the only commodity PCs with newish CPUs that have a good thermal design are Apple PCs. The iMac is easily the quietist desktop computer out there with a core2duo. The are some pretty good non-Apple PC designs in the laptop world, but not so in desktop land.
  • Shuttle need to get their RMA supply chain sorted out before doing anything.

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