Look What Mr. Courier Dropped Off!

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/barebone/feature.asp?B_id=29' target='_blank'>http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/barebone/feature.asp?B_id=29</a><br /><br /></div>My friendly neighbourhood courier dropped off a very exciting piece of review hardware for me yesterday:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/shuttle-st62k.JPG" /><br /><br />Yes boys and girls, it's a lovely new Shuttle! I feel such a thrill whenever I look at new unit, because they always have improvements over the last one. Well, that's not quite true in this case because they removed the front Firewire port, which makes connecting a DV camera harder :(, but other than that this unit looks like a winner. I'm hoping to strip down my current Shuttle and transfer everything over to this new Shuttle on the weekend, and have a review published shortly after that. I'm particularly interested in testing the on-board ATI video chipset, and seeing how quiet this thing is. That's really my only complaint about the Shuttle that I have now - the noise - so if only lose a front Firewire port to get a quieter unit, that's a trade off I'm willing to make.

[possmann]

Novice question about the shuttle... I looked over their web site and I just want to confirm that this is sort of a bare bones system which means that in order to start using it I would have to install memory, disks, CDROM and DVD etc... as well as OS of choice too.. Is that right? Does it make it worth it as compared to something pre-built by, say, Dell?

I know you get more control out of the process, but is there a significant cost savings to doing it this way as well?

[Jason Dunn]

...I just want to confirm that this is sort of a bare bones system which means that in order to start using it I would have to install memory, disks, CDROM and DVD etc... as well as OS of choice too.. Is that right? Does it make it worth it as compared to something pre-built by, say, Dell? I know you get more control out of the process, but is there a significant cost savings to doing it this way as well?

Yes, that's correct - you add all those components yourself. Cost savings? Nope - it's actually probably going to be more expensive. There are three reasons why you'd build an XPC:

1) You get to pick exactly the parts you want to use - the exact DVD+R drive, the type of RAM, etc. It's the only real way to customize. Besides, Dell doesn't have anything as cool in terms of formfactor as Shuttle does. ;-)

2) You get to re-use parts you already have (hard drive, CPU, Windows XP OS, etc.)

3) The fun and learning in putting something together yourself. :-)

[possmann]

it is a VERY cool for factor and I like cooling system - I think I'm going to tweak my DELL a bit now to focus on cooling the dang thing and dropping in another disk...

Looking forward to the review (as always) Jason!

[Monamo]

Another novice in the "Shuttle" field... what's the retail price (USD) for the barebones unit? I skimmed through the site, but didn't find an answer that glared out at me.

[Jason Dunn]

Another novice in the "Shuttle" field... what's the retail price (USD) for the barebones unit? I skimmed through the site, but didn't find an answer that glared out at me.

You can see a whole bunch of prices for Shuttle units here:

http://pocketpcthoughts.pricegrabber.com/search_gen.php?form_keyword=Shuttle&topcat_id=1&manuf_sort=Shuttle&form_page_id=1426&ut=44938f58f8444204

...but they don't have a listing for the ST62K. NewEgg does ($289.99):

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=0&submit=Go&description=Shuttle,ST62K

[entropy1980]

I almost picked up their Athlon64 unit (SN85G4) 2 weeks ago but went for a full size case and Athlon64 instead...in the end I needed more space for more drives (RAID) and room for my GFX card they are nice if you don't need space for things.. :D


Edit:
I know it supports RAID but not much space for more than 2 drives :)

[Jonathon Watkins]

Very nice indeed. I'm waiting for them to bring a Zen unit out which supports normal Athlons. I built one for a friend just the other day - very nice units!

[Gary Sheynkman]

that thing is sweet Jason...but can it really replace a powerful tower?

[Jason Dunn]

that thing is sweet Jason...but can it really replace a powerful tower?

Sure, why not? With so much integrated, the one AGP and one PCI slot should be plenty for almost anyone. It can't replace computers designed to be servers with eight hard drives in a RAID array or anything of course....

[Jonathon Watkins]

I built one for my dad with 2x40Gb hard drives doing RAID 1 (with a PCI add in card). It makes a very nice photoshop machine with dual VGA built in. :P

[that_kid]

I'm debating between this or taking an nice looking old rack mount power amplifier that I'm sick of fixing and converting that into a pc. It would go really nice with my toehr rack mounted amplifiers for my hometheater setup and I can put a nice nice board in with gigabit lan. That shuttle is a nice looking machine though.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=26&id=1021

Mmmmmmmm, I just saw this, and I think this looks really nice as well! (and there's a firewire port too)