The original Shoebox PC is back, with a matching miniscule price.
At the risk of sounding out of touch, I have to be honest and let you know that it’s been five long years since I last grazed my knuckles on the interior of a Small Form Factor (SFF) PC. I remember when the first Shuttles hit the market, and played with many models thereafter (both Shuttle and the shoebox wannabes) but it’s been a long time between space-saving sips for this reviewing horse.
So when I was asked if I’d like to check out Shuttle’s newest creation, I was keen to see how its designs had evolved. Perhaps it had tapped into the Tardis’s dimension-warping powers, allowing a Tri-SLI system with water cooling and thousand watter PSU to fit inside a case the size of a Rubik’s cube? Or maybe I’d uncover a miniature cold-fusion reactor in place of the typically underpowered (by an overclocker’s standards) PSU? Turns out I was wrong on both counts – when I first slid the lid back it was as if I’d stepped back to the year 2003. At first glance, this barebones PC could have been the very same one I built a mate’s HTPC for back when DVD was still only found in enthusiast PCs. But the more I played with this new case, the more I realised that Shuttle didn’t need to reinvent the wheel with this design. It just works.
The major difference from the Shuttles I’d played with in the past is the cooling solution. The CPU is kept comfy via three heatpipes, which pass the sweat on to a small fan at the rear. While I’d seen heatpipes in a Shuttle before, the mounting mechanism wasn’t as easy to fit, nor snug, as the one in place here. It’s a very quiet solution, making this the perfect basis for a HTPC. However, if you want to thrash your CPU with higher voltages, it’s not going to cut the mustard. Overclockers beware. However, I did like the CMOS clear button on the rear of the case, so if you decide to dabble with the relatively limited options and end up with a door stop, it’s easy to reset everything to default levels.
Obviously it’s also got a new chipset. Using the Intel 945GC + ICH7 combo, it supports the latest 45nm 1,333MHz chips, but the rest of the specs aren’t too impressive. DDR2 speeds top out at 667MHz, while the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics chipset dates back to 2005, a primitive time when integrated graphics weren’t expected to deal with the weight of Blu-ray decoding. As a result you’ll need a fairly hefty CPU (2.6GHz minimum) if you want to ensure smooth HD movie playback.
Other than that, things remain unchanged. There’s a single PCI slot for an add-in soundcard, as well as a PCI Express slot for a better video card. The latter slot is fairly close to the side of the case though, so make sure your video card’s cooling solution is relatively thin – you’ve got about 22mm to play with. The onboard Realtek ALC888 audio chipset is fine for movie viewing, but it appears that optical S/PDIF outputs are optional – in the review unit there were holes on the rear of the case for in/out, but no physical connections. The manual also lists it as having Digital S/PDIF In/Out, so double check that these are included if you decide to purchase it.
There’s one final difference I noticed with this Shuttle – I can now afford one. It's certainly not because I've got more spare cash either; Sydney's back-breaking rent has taken care of that. I can thank Shuttle for dropping the price. At around $260, building a SFF PC has never been cheaper. Let your fingers do the walking and you could fill this up with all the necessary bits for another $500 or so, giving you a comprehensive HTPC for half the cost of a standalone high-end Blu-ray player.
It might not be the most feature-packed SFF barebone PC around, but there's no denying that the SB30G2 PLUS ticks all the right boxes.