Shuttle XPC

[Drunkagain]

Has anyone owned one of these? After spending a few hours looking around for a good LAN case, I find I keep coming back to these guys.

http://us.shuttle.com/product_mini.asp

Here is a pic of one,

http://us.shuttle.com/images/productimages/sb61g2_r.jpg

I'd love an opinion if anyone used one. Looks like it's just what I want. They come in a number of different flavors and support both AMD and Intel.

Thanks.

[Waltzer]

Own one. Awesome. Can't recommend it enough.

[Drunkagain]

Own one. Awesome. Can't recommend it enough.

What model do you have? What do you use for a video card? Is it onboard or did you put in one of your own? And of course, hows the performance in games?

Thanks.

[Waltzer]

SB65G, Radeon 9500 Pro, performance is pretty impressive. I mean, it's a P4 2.4 GHz machine, and it's tiny. Very well made, too. The fit and finish of the case are incredible, to boot.

[Drunkagain]

SB65G, Radeon 9500 Pro, performance is pretty impressive. I mean, it's a P4 2.4 GHz machine, and it's tiny. Very well made, too. The fit and finish of the case are incredible, to boot.

First off thanks for answering my questions. And here are a couple more. :) What all did you have to buy and install. Was it a pretty smooth operation or a pain in the ass? And was the cost still reasonable when it was all said and done?

Thanks again.

[Phil_Stein]

How's the noise (especially fan noise) from this thing compare to a good Dell or other conventional desktop?

[DennyA]

Check out the Biostar IDEQ series as well. Better ergonomics, better video card compatibility (some Shuttles have problems with Radeon 9700/9800 series cards on startup). I have the iDEQ 200N running with an All-in-Wonder 9800.

Sound varies as it has a temp-sensitive fan. When idling or video recording I can barely hear it from across the room. It cranks up a bit when gaming, but then you can't hear it over the game sound. :-)

The best site for info on these boxes is www.sfftech.com

[Woolen Horde]

My brother-in-law has a Shuttle, and I gave him my old GeForce4 Ti board and watched him install it, and couldn't believe how cramped everything was in there.

I have an Ideq box, and it's just really well designed internally. All the wires are carefully laid out so their out of the way, and it's designed so that there's an internal air tunnel of sorts.

All thee side and top panels have thumbscrews, so you can take it apart in about 20 seconds. Easy access to everything.

And the plus: the sliding front panel, which hides the hideously mismatched optical drive casing. That's one thing that sucks about the Shuttles. You have this sleek, brushed aluminum case, and there's a sickly beige CD-RW drive ruining the entire effect.

[Menzo]

We just got a Shuttle machine at work to take on the road on press tours. It's got a P4 3.2Ghz and an ATI 9800Pro in there. It would be a bit loud for my tastes if it were sitting in my apartment but for our use it's fine.

[bee cubed]

i have the shuttle sn45g. no complaints, i love it. the innards are a bit cramped to work on, someone with large hands might have problems. i have no complaints about the noise level. the fan speed ramps up or down, based on CPU temp, so it is only noticably loud while playing games.

very true about the sleek case vs beige optical drive. but i'm totally function over form, so i couldn't care less.


i figured that cost was pretty reasonable, considering the portability (which was a big concern for me). if you are just looking for a case to plant next to your desk and never move, it probably isn't worth it. i got mine for about $250, which is probably $100 more than a normal case/mobo combo would cost.

[sharky]

I've always liked them.. but it's about time they worked on the noise issue. I find they're pretty noisy...

[Lunch of Kong]

I have a black SB-51G stuffed with a p4 2.4ghz, 9700pro and a hauppage winTV card. I use the built-in audio to drive my 5.1 speaker set up. I like that I can plug headphones into the front and the shuttle automatically cuts out the front speakers.

I bought the black shuttle so that I could buy black dvd and floppy drives and not ruin its good looks.

During normal ops, the shuttle is about twice as loud as the antec sonata-based computer underneath it (again, BLACK!) but i dont have a graphics card in the sonata, and i also run one of those quiet zalman cpu fans in it.