All-in-one PC by stefan @ 2014-01-27
Shuttle has refreshed its latest XPC Barebone with a new configuration featuring the Z87 chipset, for allowing installation of the Intel Haswell processors and also features plenty of connectivity options. Thanks to the 500W power supply, we should not have a lot of issues when choosing a high performance video card, two 3.5’’ drives and a CPU with a rated TDP up to 95W.
At first I would like to thank Shuttle Europe for offering a sample of their latest XPC Barebone SZ87R6 for testing and reviewing.
"Shuttle Inc, founded in Taiwan in 1983, is specialised in development and production of innovative mini PCs. The joint-stock company is represented worldwide by a network of branch offices in Germany, the US and Japan. Since 2001 the attractive cube-shaped PCs have conquered nearly any field of application and have become the core business of the company headquartered in Taipei / Taiwan. Widely acclaimed by customers and press across the globe, Shuttle founds its success on effective management and long-term experience in making mainboards of highest quality standards. Since years Shuttle's mini PC barebones and fully-configured systems are the first choice of many system integrators, VARs, OEMs and ODMs banking on the high reliability and build quality. With appealing mini PC solutions Shuttle meets the requirements of consumers excellently and seeks to provide further user-friendly solutions of consumer electronics for the digital home environment."
The Shuttle SZ87R6 XPC Barebone is shipped inside a quite plain medium-sized cardboard box, provided with a handle for easy manipulation:
On one of the sides we will see an attached sticker which shows some of the product technical characteristics:
The insides are carefully protected with foam and the documentation is placed in a separate re-sealable plastic bag:
Besides the previously mentioned documentation, we will also get the power lead and another cardboard box which contains the rest of the bundle:
Shuttle has included two SATA cables, the necessary screws, a LGA socket protective cover, a small tube with thermal compound and also a disk with drivers:
The step-by-step installation procedures are described inside the manual:
The latest XPC barebone sports a familiar size and shape to the previous models we have looked upon:
The frontal cover is made of plastic but has a special texture so it does imitate brushed aluminum:
On the top we have the optical drive bay cover, with a tray release button:
Further down we will get to see the Power button along with the HDD activity and Power LEDs:
The middle compartment also opens in order to reveal a secondary cover:
The bottom cover hides two USB 3.0 ports, two additional USB 2.0 ports but also a headphone and microphone jack:
On the sides of the unit we will see ventilation grills in order to help with the intake:
Let’s take a look a little at the back side now; here we have a central grill for the CPU heat exhaust, the power supply, I/O shield and two slot covers:
The power supply is rated at 500W and is cooled by its own fan:
Further down we will get to see the Kensington lock port along with the Optical Audio Out:
On the I/O we have dual video output with DVI-I and HDMI, 4x USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA, 2x USB 3.0 ports, dual LAN, a small CMOS Reset button but also the Audio ports:
The two slot covers can be easily lifted by removing the two screws:
On the bottom side of the unit we have four silicone feet:
Here we will also get to see a sticker which informs us of the power rating:
After removing three thumbscrews from the back of the case, we will reveal the internals:
Most of the cables are already connected to the motherboard so no intervention is necessary:
The CPU heatsink is cooled by the fan which sits inside a metallic cage; this one can be removed easy for cleaning purposes:
On the back side of the 120mm AVC fan we can read that it is rated 12V, 0.41A:
The fan features a PWM interface:
By reading the PSU sticker we can confirm that it is a 500W model, code name PC6311005:
We do not see a change in design of the drive bay when comparing with the previous models; the bay was designed to hold on the top layer one optical drive, along with two 3.5’’ drives on the lower layer. If we want to install 2.5’’ drives, we need to buy one or two extra adapters:
On the bottom side of the drive bay we have a plastic clip for cable routing:
Here is how the 4-heatpipe CPU cooling system looks like:
The CPU plate gets fixed to the motherboard via plastic pins, however we would have preferred to see screws instead:
By flipping the assembly on the other side we will be able to see the heatpipe terminations along with the copper plate:
Here is a closer look at the heatsink:
Next, we will take a look a little at the motherboard components; near the VRM heatsink we will be able to see an extra case fan connector along with a single USB 2.0 header:
In the back of the I/O audio ports we will get to see the Audio AUX Input port:
In the vicinity of the Z87 PCH we have an USB 3.0 header which is already populated for serving the frontal ports:
Also here we have an additional fan header along with a populated USB 2.0 port:
The audio interface is provided by the Realtek ALC892 CODEC:
For expansion we have one PCI-E x16 V3.0 slot along with a small blue PCI-E x1 slot; also here we have the UEFI chip along with the CMOS battery:
Next to the right we have four SATA ports along with a LPC header and also a Mini-PCIe Slot which supports mSATA:
Near it we have an additional mini-PCIe Slot, but this time half-size:
Between these two we will get to see an ITE IT8772E SuperIO chip:
To the frontal side of the case we have a COM port header, the Front Panel header but also a CIR header:
The front panel case connectors are placed on a separate board:
Nearby we have the 24-pin ATX power connector:
The four memory slots are color-coded:
Right in the vicinity of the memory slots we have the 4-pin CPU power connector:
The power supply even has the cabling for connecting a video card with 8+6 pin connectors:
After removing the cooling system we will uncover the CPU socket, with is covered by a transparent adhesive plastic film:
We have applied thermal compound to our 4670K retail CPU and secured the cooling system:
Installing the memory inside the slots is an easy task:
Our HIS 7850 IceQ Turbo 2GB GDDR5 did not fit properly inside the case because it comes with a quite beefy cooling solution and exceeds the footprint of the Shuttle solution; when deciding to install a bigger video card, it won’t hurt consulting the compatibility table from the manufacturers’ website:
We ended up installing a more compact solution, our XFX 7790 Black Edition; with the card properly fitted we have plenty of space left:
Lastly we can install the drives inside the bay and secure it with the two top screws:
Here is a snapshot with the system ready for operation:
The latest XPC Barebone from Shuttle does not sport a nice graphical interface, but has a regular Aptio Setup Utility. On the top we have the menus, some of which come with sub-sections. Inside the Main menu we will be able to see the current BIOS date/version, the installed CPU, total RAM quantity but we can also set the system date/time:
Inside the Advanced menu we will find sub-sections like Power Management, CPU Configuration, SATA Configuration and so on:
Power Management contains some of the usual options like selection of Suspend Mode, Wake up by USB, EuP:
CPU Configuration menu allows us to see more technical details and adjust functions like Intel VT, EIST, Turbo, C State Support or the number of Active Processor Cores:
The SATA Configuration menu shows us the currently connected storage devices and from there we can also enable the Hot Plug functionality or SATA mode:
The USB Configuration menu only has one option which allows us to disable the USB 3.0 controller:
Inside the Hardware Health configuration menu we will be able to customize the fan control, see the live system temperatures/fan speeds but also the voltages:
Onboard Device Configuration menu allows us to enable or disable the audio, LAN, video interfaces and more. Here we can also enable the Intel Rapid Start Technology:
From the Frequency and Voltage Configuration menu, we are able to work with the CPU OC Function, select the DRAM frequency, timings but also adjust the DIMM Voltage Setting:
By enabling the CPU OC Function, we will be able to select a custom ratio along with the power limits:
We can leave the Memory Profile on Auto, choose the available XMP or set manual timings:
The DIMM Voltage can be modified via preset increments:
The Boot menu is pretty self-explanatory:
From the Security tab we will be able to set a Supervisor and User password, adjust the Flash Write Protection or the Secure Boot Menu:
The last Save & Exit menu allows us to save and apply the modified settings, discard or load factory defaults:
CPU: Intel I5 4670K Retail @ stock
CPU Cooler: Proprietary
Motherboard: Proprietary
RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 2x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)
Video: XFX 7790 Black Edition
Power Supply: Shuttle 500W
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11
Case: Shuttle XPC
At the time of testing, AIDA64 did not have the motherboard of the SZ87R6 XPC Barebone documented:
The Z87 PCH comes with the C2 stepping and we can also see here additional details regarding the audio and LAN chipset:
In order to check out the system temperatures, we fired up the AIDA64 Stability Test utility and logged the resulted data with the help of HWINFO64. We will be able to see very good IDLE temps for the CPU and at Full Load it climbed up to 70 degrees Celsius. The chipset stays at an IDLE temperature of 38.5 and it has climbed up to 47.5 degrees. The HDD did not heat up much, since we have recorded a maximum temperature of 37 degrees Celsius and neither the 7790 GPU which has a maximum logged temperature of 64 degrees Celsius. Prior to the testing phase we have left the system in IDLE for about 30 minutes and the ambient was set at 20.5 degrees Celsius.
Shuttle has refreshed its XPC Barebone series, but this time with the Z87 chipset for supporting the latest LGA1150 Haswell processors, while keeping quite a small footprint. The chassis layout is sleek and should fit perfectly in our living room or in our work place and has enough connectivity options in both front and back. The unit supports installation of an optical drive, but also two 3.5’’ HDDs with RAID support (2.5’’ drives can be installed too but the user needs to purchase additional adapters).
The power supply included with the system is a 500W, 80PLUS Bronze compliant and allows installation of a high-end video card; we only need to mention that we must be attentive at the clearance and for that we should inspect the compatibility list Shuttle does offer.
The air-cooler has a proprietary design which could be seen at many other models of theirs; it is called Shuttle I.C.E. (integrated cooling engine) with 4 heatpipes, which mounts on the CPU with push-pins. The temperature is regulated by the included 92mm PWM fan, which is easy to remove from the case for cleaning purposes. The maximum TDP supported is announced by Shuttle as being 95W and our retail 4670K CPU did hold well when we have stressed the system with Prime95.
The SZ87R6 should support overclocking of the CPU, we have the option available inside the BIOS (but without the ability to set the CPU voltage), but after modifying the multiplier, the processor did not raise its frequency over stock. We think that this is mainly because of early BIOS versions and would be fixed shortly in the future.
The motherboard is also equipped with 4 memory slots for a maximum of 32GB, two Mini PCI-Express slots but also Dual Gigabit LAN with teaming support.
The SZ87R6 model has a recommended price of 356 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Shuttle Europe for making this review possible!