At first we would like to thank Shuttle Europe for offering a sample of their latest XPC Nano Barebone (NC01U) for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About Shuttle:

 

"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."

 

High-resolution DisplayPort

The DisplayPort connector allows for connections with digital high-resolution displays. Besides picture signal, DisplayPort cables can also lead digital sounds signals in excellent quality.

 

HDMI interface

Goodbye cable spaghetti! Modern flat-screen TVs and large-format TFT screens can be connected to this Mini-PC with just a single thin cable. Often the audio output is also transferred in brilliant quality via the HDMI cable.

 

Multiformat card reader

At last – no more searching for missing digital camera leads. Simply insert the memory card and you can access all stored photos and videos immediately.

 

The fastest connection to external peripheral devices available to date

The USB 3.0 connectors of this model allow for data transfer of up to 5 Gbit/s (625 MB/s). This enables external devices such as USB hard disks to be connected and run at nearly the same speed as their internal siblings. USB 3.0 is downward compatible so that also devices of previous USB generations can be hooked up.

 

Intel chipset inside

Play it safe with the reliable chipsets from the world's largest chip manufacturer. Intel chipsets have proven themselves over many years, have been presented with awards by the trade press and offer the best possible degree of compatibility.

 

Anti-theft protection

The Kensington Lock forms part of the anti-theft system. As with many other Notebooks, this Mini-PC can also be safely locked, ensuring long-term enjoyment from your Shuttle product.

 

You can rely on SSD

This is where an energy-saving "Solid State Drive" should be used. This drive technology guarantees extremely short access times, the highest data transmission rates and considerably lower energy consumption compared to conventional hard disks. SSDs have no mechanical components at all, are therefore subject to less wear and tear and consequently benefit from a longer service life.

 

Just 2.5" HDDs

An extremely compact PC housing offers less space for drives, that's why this Mini-PC uses slimline 2.5-inch hard disks. The advantage of this is that there's less noise, less heat generated and reduced power consumption. However small hard disks in a small housing does not have to mean less memory. Modern 2.5" HDDs are every bit as good as their 3.5" brothers.

 

Fan-less external power supply

A highly effective external power supply provides the Shuttle Mini-PC with its energy. And since it works without a fan, it is completely noise-free.

 

Connections without all those annoying cables

Data is transferred by WLAN completely without cables. Accessing the Internet and local network resources (e.g. printers) is now child's play when within range of an access point/hotspot.

 

Low energy consumption

Thrift is a virtue. In terms of power consumption this Mini-PC sets an example. It is not just good for the environment but for your pocket, too.

 

Securely attached

The practical VESA mounting surface on the back of the device enables it to be attached to monitor arms or wall mounts. The VESA format is standardised, making it suitable for most mounts.

 

The interface for the fastest of memory media

Internal drives to be used inside this Mini-PC can transfer data at a speed of up to 6 Gbit/s. Hard drives thus run significantly faster and brand-new media technologies such as SSDs can use their full potential. Be sure to look for SATA 6 Gbit/s.

 

Chassis

Barebone PC with a black plastic chassis

Dimensions: 141 x 141 x 29 mm (LWH) = 577 ml

Weight: 0.36 kg net, 1.26 kg gross

Hole for Kensington Lock

Includes vertical stand and 75/100mm VESA mount

 

Low Power Consumption

Power consumption in idle mode: 5.5 W, full load: 11.6 / 22.4 W (without/with graphics)

(measured with 4 GB DDR3L SO-DIMM, 64 GB 2.5" SSD, Windows 7)

 

Operation System

This barebone system comes without operating system.

It is compatible with:

- Windows 7 (including Embedded [4]), 32- and 64-bit

- Windows 8.1 (including Embedded [4]), 32- and 64-bit

- Windows 10, 32- and 64-bit

- Linux, 32- and 64-bit (e.g. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora)

 

Processor

Model: Intel Celeron 3205U (ULV)

System-on-a-chip architecture (SoC): no chipset required

Code name: Broadwell (5th Generation Intel Core)

Cores / Threads: 2 / 2

Clock rate: 1.5 GHz

L1/L2/L3 Cache: 128 kB / 512 kB / 2048 kB

Memory controller: DDR3L-1600 Dual Channel (1.35V)

TDP wattage: 15 W maximum

Manufacturing process: 14 nm

Maximum Tjunction Temperature: 105°C

Integrated Intel HD graphics engine

Supports 64 Bit, VT-x, VT-d, Enhanced SpeedStep, NX bit, SSE 4.1/4.2

 

Integrated Graphics

Intel HD Graphics

Clock rate: 300~800 MHz

Maximum resolution: 2560 x 1600

Execution Units (EU): 12

Two digital audio/video ports: Mini-DisplayPort 1.2 [1] and HDMI 1.4a

Supports two independent screens

Supports DirectX 11.2, OpenCL 1.3/2.0, OpenGL 4.3

Supports full AVC/VC1/MPEG2 hardware decoding

Supports HD video plus multi-channel digital audio via a single cable

Dynamic, shared memory: up to 1632 MB

 

Mainboard / BIOS

Supports resume after power failure

Supports Wake on LAN (WOL)

Supports Power on by RTC Alarm

Supports booting from USB devices and SD card reader

AMI BIOS in 8 MByte EEPROM with SPI interface

Supports hardware monitoring and watch dog function (ITE 8528E)

Supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)

 

Power Adapter

External 65 W power adapter (fanless)

Input: 100~240 V AC, 50/60 Hz, max. 1.6 A

Output: 19 V DC, max. 3.42 A, max. 65 W

DC Connector: 5.5/2.5mm (outer/inner diameter)

 

Memory support

2x 204-pin SO-DIMM slot

Supports DDR3L-1333/1600 (PC3-10600/12800) SDRAM at 1.35V

Supports Dual Channel mode

Supports a maximum of 8 GB per DIMM, maximum capacity: 16 GB

Supports two unbuffered DIMM modules (no ECC)

Caution: This mainboard does only support 1.35V DDR3L memory modules.

Note: DDR3L has a lower operation voltage as DDR3

 

Slot for M.2 SSD

M.2 slot: (NGFF) type 2242, key M

Supports M.2 SSD card, key B+M, dimensions 22 x 42 mm, Serial ATA interface

Caution: SSDs with PCIe interface (M key only) are not supported

 

Audio

Audio Realtek® ALC 269Q-VC3 High-Definition Audio Codec

3.5mm / 4-pole combo audio connector for headphones and microphone [2]

Digital multi-channel audio output: via HDMI and Mini-DisplayPort

 

Gigabit LAN

Intel i218LM PHY connected to the MAC of the processor

Supports 10 / 100 / 1.000 MBit/s operation (Gigabit)

Supports WAKE ON LAN (WOL)

Supports network boot by Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE)

 

Wireless Network (WLAN)

WLAN expansion card (M.2- 2230-AE) with two internal antennas

Chip: Realtek RTL8821AE

Supports Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g/n/ac 1T1R, 2,4 GHz or 5 GHz

Max. speed: 150 Mbps (2.4 GHz) or 433 Mbps (5 GHz)

Supports Bluetooth 4.0

 

2.5" Drive Bay

Supports one Serial ATA hard disk

or one SATA SSD drive in 6.35cm/2.5" format

Device height: 7 mm (max.)

Supports Serial-ATA III, 6 Gb/s (600 MB/s) bandwidth

Note: no Serial ATA cable is required

 

Card Reader

Integrated SD card reader

Supports SD, SDHC and SDXC memory flash cards

Genesys Logic GL823-OGY08 with USB interface

Supports booting from SD card

 

Front Panel connectors

2x USB 3.0 (both support 2.0 A charging)

SD card reader (supports SD, SDHC, SDXC)

Power button

Power LED (blue, blinking in suspend mode)

HDD LED (orange)

 

Back Panel connectors

Mini-DisplayPort 1.2 [1]

HDMI 1.4a

2x USB 2.0

Gigabit LAN (RJ45)

Audio Combo Port for headphones and microphone (3.5 mm jack, 4-pole) [2]

DC-input connector for external power adapter

 

Left Side connectors

Serial RS232 COM port (D-Sub, 9-pin)

 

Supplied Accessories

Multi-language user guide

Driver DVD for Windows

VESA mount set (made of steel, with screws)

Stand for vertical operation mode

Bracket for a 2.5" drive with screws

Power adapter with AC power cord

 

Optional Expansion Kits:

(available from Q1'16 on request)

1) Graphics: AMD R7 M370 "Litho XT"

2) I/O box: 1x Gigabit LAN, 2x USB 2.0, 1x 2.5" bay (SATA 6G)

3) I/O box: 3x RS232 COM port, 1x 2.5" bay (SATA 6G)

 

TPM (Optional)

Only available upon request:

Trusted Platform Module (TPM) supports TPM 1.2 or 2.0 specifications

 

Environmental Spec

Operating temperature range: 0~50°C [3]

Relative humidity range: 10~90% (non-condensing)

 

We have been reviewing Shuttle barebones for quite some time now and observed their tendency of sticking with their own, proven designs. With the latest XPC Nano Barebones they are trying something new which implies a chassis with less than 600ml in volume, while including enough expansion possibilities and also a good selection of pre-installed CPUs. The model we are going to look at is the NC01U which houses the Celeron 3205U (ULV) processor from Intel. The packaging style for this series has not been modified, but since the product is much smaller than its predecessors, the box has been minimized too:

 

 

 

On one of the sides, we will get to see a sticker which presents us with some of the technical characteristics of the product:

 

 

 

The box is also provided with a plastic handle, for easy manipulation:

 

 

 

Inside the box we will get to see the main product which sits fully protected thanks to the thick foam material, but also its accessory box:

 

 

 

Besides the plain cardboard accessory box, we will also receive a separate re-sealable plastic bag, which contains the documentation along with the installation disk:

 

 

 

The documentation is well organized and explains us step-by-step how to remove the bottom panel in order to install the rest of the necessary components:

 

 

 

Besides the foam material, the manufacturer has also wrapped the product inside a transparent plastic back and we will see why right away:

 

 

 

Unlike the other models, this NUC-like mini-PC comes with a gloss black plastic chassis which minimizes its weight considerably:

 

 

 

After removing the protective tapes, we will get to see that in the frontal area of the unit we have two USB 3.0 ports, one card reader but also the Power button; the activity LEDs for the HDD and Power are embedded into this button:

 

 

 

The left side of the unit houses a Serial RS232 COM port along with a ventilation grill:

 

 

 

On the back area we have the DC-IN port, one Mini-DisplayPort, a HDMI port, one RJ45 Gigabit LAN port, two USB 2.0 ports but also a combo headphone/microphone port:

 

 

 

The right side of the unit does house some additional ventilation areas along with a Kensington lock port:

 

 

 

If we look at the bottom area of the unit, we will get to see four small rubber feet along with some stickers; the product is unique because we can add expansion modules for it, which are composed from the XVB01 (AMD R7 M370 Graphics), the XLB01 (Gigabit LAN + 2x USB + 2.5’’ bay) or the XCB01 (3x COM + 2.5’’ Bay), all which can be plugged in the connector which is initially protected by a rubber cover:

 

 

 

As accessories, we are receiving the power lead, the power adapter, a vertical mount stand, but also the VESA mount along with mounting screws:

 

 

 

The power supply was manufactured by FSB Group and is rated on the output as 19V, 3.42A:

 

 

 

The Nano Barebone can be mounted vertically on the provided plastic mount with ease:

 

 

 

In order to install the rest of the needed hardware components, we will have to remove two of the four small rubber feet, for being able to remove the screws:

 

 

 

While the NC01U unit needs a 7mm storage drive and memory it order to function, Shuttle was nice and provided it with a Sandisk Z400s 128GB SSD and 8GB of DDR3L SODIMM memory from Crucial:

 

 

 

The SODIMM memory slot is additionally protected by an extra layer:

 

 

 

For avoiding short-circuits with the motherboard main components, the HDD/SSD mounting adapter does also come with a protective layer:

 

 

 

 

The SATA Data/Power connector must be handled with care in order not to damage the cable:

 

 

 

We do get WLAN thanks to the expansion card and the two internal antennas; the card has at its heart the Realtek RTL8821AE chipset and we can also consider it as a combo card since Bluetooth 4.0 is supported:

 

 

 

After removing some more screws from the motherboard, we can take a look on the opposite side of the PCB:

 

 

 

The M.2 expansion slot and the card reader are actually placed on a separate daughterboard which connects to the main board thanks to a flat cable:

 

 

 

 

Also, in order to be able to install a SODIMM module inside its slot, we will have to remove this daughterboard temporarily:

 

 

 

Nearby we will be also able to spot the ITE IT8772E SuperIO chip:

 

 

 

The CMOS battery is capsulated and more compact in order to save space (model CR1220W):

 

 

 

The CPU is cooled thanks to a blower-type ADDA fan and heatsink:

 

 

 

Shuttle has chosen again to go with a stock Aptio interface instead of a fully-fledged UEFI one and the menus are placed on the top area of the screen; Main is the first one and here we will learn about current BIOS details, installed CPU, RAM but we’ll be also able to adjust the system date and time:

 

 

 

The Advanced section comes with the following sub-menus:

 

-CPU Configuration

-SATA Configuration

-USB Configuration

-OnBoard Device Configuration

-Power Management Configuration

-Hardware Health Configuration

 

 

 

The Advanced menu will show the currently installed CPU features and some of the functions can be enabled or disabled at will like the number of active cores, Intel V.T., EIST and more:

 

 

 

 

SATA configuration menu will only show attached storage devices:

 

 

 

From the USB Configuration menu, we are able to enable or disable the USB 3.0 controller and also see which connected devices have been detected:

 

 

 

OnBoard Device Configuration area will let us work with the audio, LAN, Serial hardware interfaces but also specify the quantity of DVMT memory which should be shared:

 

 

 

Power Management Configuration sub-section allows us to change some of the usual PM options:

 

 

 

Hardware Health Configuration sub-menu allows choosing one of the pre-defined fan profiles or we can simply go with the Smart Fan Mode; here we can also see the live fan speed, component voltages along with the CPU temperature:

 

 

 

 

The Security section allows changing the Supervisor password along with some other options:

 

 

 

Boot priority can be modified from the next menu:

 

 

 

The final Exit menu allows saving the changes, discarding them or loading the factory optimized defaults:

 

 

 

First hardware monitoring program we have fired up is CPU-Z, with its multiple information tabs:

 

CPU

 

 

Caches

 

 

Mainboard

 

 

Memory

 

 

SPD

 

 

GPU-Z will give us a summary on the integrated GPU:

 

 

 

We have also fired up the latest AIDA64 for finding out more details regarding the internal components:

 

CPU

 

 

 

Motherboard

 

 

 

CPU IMC

 

 

 

 

Integrated Graphics

 

 

 

Considering that the product was equipped with a Sandisk Z400s 128GB SSD, we fired ATTO in order to check out its perfomance:

 

 

 

In the performance test charts you will be able to see not one but two positions for this product: Shuttle NC01U and Shuttle NC01U SSD. The Shuttle NC01U position is the unit with only 4GB of RAM installed and our Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 250GB HDD in order to have a fair comparison with the past systems and the Shuttle NC01U SSD position is the product as it has arrived, with the Sandisk Z400s 128GB SSD and 8GB of DDR3L RAM.

3DMark 2001

 

3DMark 2003

 

3DMark 2005

 

3DMark 2006

 

PCMark 2005

 

PCMark 7

 

CrystalMark

 

SuperPI 1.5 XS 1M

 

CineBench R10

 

CineBench R11.5

 

x264 Encoding

 

Counterstrike Source

 

 

With the Celeron 3205U at its heart, the NC01U Nano Barebone can be used for office tasks, browsing and thanks to its very small footprint it is barely noticeable on the table; of course it can be also installed to the back side of the display thanks to the included VESA mount, which will also permit a cleaner cable management. The central processing unit is actively cooled by a blower-type ADDA fan while the fan profiles can be always adjusted from inside the BIOS. This is not all: besides the 7mm HDD/SSD we can mount on one of the PCB sides we also have the option to expand the storage via the available M.2 2242 slot. Shuttle has great plans for this little box since besides the fact that it is available with multiple CPUs (NC01U3 with Intel Core i3-5005U; NC01U5 with Intel Core i5-5200U; NC01U7 with Intel Core i7-5500U), it will provide expansion boxes for it which will fit inside the special connector on the back of the NUC (XVB01, XLB01 or XCB01).

 

The most interesting expansion kit for us is the XVB01 which will house the AMD R7 M370 Graphics unit for boosting the 3D capabilities of the device. For cooling it will use an additional heatpipe + fan solution, will have 2GB of VRAM buffer on a 128-bit bus, and the video output will be through the back panel of the NC01U. Really looking forward to it and hopefully we will take it for a spin.

 

The Intel Celeron 3205U is a very cool processor so the operating temperatures are excellent thanks to the active cooling system. During stress testing, we have only succeeded to raise the temperature of the CPU to 47 degrees Celsius!

 

 

 

The power consumption is not a factor which should worry us with this system even if we leave it on for a 24/7 operation. We have measured an IDLE power consumption of 11.10W while in load it went up only at 26.88W.

 

Shuttle has priced the NC01U Nano Barebone at about 140 Euros excluding VAT which we think that it is a great price considering the expansion/upgrade possibilities.

 

Shuttle XPC Nano Barebone NC01U is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Shuttle Europe for making this review possible!