Can a tiny PC pack a truly hardcore punch? Yep, and with an unbeatable performance-to-kilogram ratio.
Despite now being a bit long in the tooth, the original version of the Shuttle SX8H7 is a favourite for miniature high-end gaming PC builds. The updated Pro version promises to let you relive the glory days, or at least shrink down your LAN box thanks to a bunch of upgrades.
Inside is the same Intel X58 chipset, but it now has both USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s support. This motherboard has a LGA1366 CPU socket and can handle the latest model Intel Core i7 CPUs (including hex cores), up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM and dual video cards under CrossFire or SLI. It also has a 500W PSU, ensuring even a monster system won’t run short of juice.
The Shuttle is a barebones system, which means you need to purchase CPU, GPU, RAM and drives separately and install them yourself. For testing, we dropped in a Core i7 965 CPU, 8GB of 1,333MHz Corsair RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 GPU and a 120GB Intel SSD. With very limited room inside, the CPU mounts under a custom-built heat-pipe cooler that exhausts heat out the back.
With our high-end setup, performance is top-notch. We scored P18,965 in 3DMark Vantage, 112fps in Far Cry 2 and had more than enough grunt to get superb frame rates when 3D gaming. The heat output by the system was intense but tolerable though it did get noisy under load. There was definitely no headroom for overclocking unless you run a much lower-end CPU and GPU.
The Shuttle also has the usual features, such as eight rear USB ports (two USB 3.0 at the front), dual Gigabit LAN, eSATA, digital audio out and four SATA connectors, however you only get two 16x PCI-E slots.
At only 326 x 196 x 208mm, the SX58H7 is a tiny machine considering how much oomph it contains. For those who want to haul it along to a LAN, our fully laden machine weighed in at a very dense 7kg - though it still offers an unbeatable performance-to-kilogram ratio.
Available from Altech, retailing for $649.APC rating: 8/10 (Highly Recommended)