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.

System Noise

[corvair2k1 (658439)]

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...

[Doctor Memory (6336)]

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.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

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:

[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

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

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

Re:

[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: Mac Mini

[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:

[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:

[Daniel Phillips (238627)]

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.

Not gonna happen...

[Rob Simpson (533360)]

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

No bigger than a toaster over?

[Doctor Memory (6336)]

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"???!!!

[chiark (36404)]

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.

Re:"single handedly invented"???!!!

[BeerCat (685972)]

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:

[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.

When will pico ATX be affordable?

[gelfling (6534)]

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:

[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.

Not just flaming stripes...

[professorfalcon (713985)]

From the article:

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

It really must be c00l.

This is mini?

[Yvan256 (722131)]

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.

[Spazntwich (208070)]

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.

Paint Job?

[VE3OGG (1034632)]

"...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

[Animats (122034)]

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.

[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

[djupedal (584558)]

"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.

x6800 is a $1k chip

[bl8n8r (649187)]

Note that the x6800 costs nearly 5 times more than the x2 6000.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819103773 [newegg.com]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819115001 [newegg.com]

Re:

[larry bagina (561269)]

Only if you install the fleshlight drive.