At first we would like to thank Shuttle Europe for offering a sample of their latest XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 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."

 

Robust, Stylish and Extremely Small

You should have held it in your own hands to experience how small it actually is. Barely 1.35 litre in volume, its rigid steel chassis design 9meets the high standards towards quality and stability that are essential for professional applications like digital signage. Despite its diminutive size, the processing power inside the DS10U3 is sufficient to meet the needs of the most demanding multimedia and computational workloads. The well-designed interior of the DS10U3 makes installations and upgrades simple. Other than rough environments, its sleek and stylish look also blends seamlessly in both home and office.

 

Ease of installation thanks to bay covers

The Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 features two practical bay covers at the bottom of the chassis which make the installation or upgrade of hardware components a breeze. No cable is required and no cooling system needs to be installed. 24/7 nonstop operation and 0~40°C temperature range The Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 is officially approved for 24/7 permanent operation. Thanks to its low power consumption and completely passive cooling, this PC runs highly reliably making it perfectly suitable for digital signage and POI/POS applications – even at ambient temperatures of up to 40 °C.

 

Conditions for permanent use:

- Free circulation of air amongst the PC must be guaranteed

- Ventilation holes must stay clear

- If a hard disk is installed, this must also be approved for permanent operation by its manufacturer

- For high ambient temperatures higher than 35 °C we strongly recommend to use an SSD instead of an HDD.

 

No fan noise

A large heatsink is concealed behind a plastic cover and cools down the processor in a passive way without any fan. Using an SSD drive instead of a hard disk makes the system virtually noiseless and hence perfectly suitable for noise-sensitive environments like e.g. a library, living room, music studio or even a bedroom.

 

Energy-saving

Power consumption mainly depends on system load. Equipped with a 2.5” SSD drive, the system consumes about 6 W in idle mode. Assuming the device runs 5 days a week for eight hours a day in idle mode, the annual consumption would amount to less than 12,5 kWh which would mean just 4 Euros on the power bill (30 Euro ct/kWh) - way less than a conventional desktop PC draws.

 

Energy-efficient Intel® Whiskey Lake-U Processor

The Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 is equipped with an Intel® Core processor of the Whiskey Lake-U series which is soldered to mainboard and passively cooled by a large heatsink. This ultra low voltage (ULV) processor belongs to Intel's 8th-generation Intel Core processor family manufactured in a new energy-efficient 14 nm architecture. As a result of further integration, it comes as a system-on-a-chip (SoC) without the need of an extra chipset. The integrated Intel HD Graphics engine supports DirectX 12 and Ultra HD / 4K resolution via DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0a.

 

Triple Display with HDMI 2.0a, DisplayPort 1.2 and VGA

The DS10U3 features three video outputs which helps improve on productivity by allowing for spreading multiple windows across three monitors while working with them simultaneously. It even supports two Ultra HD displays at 60 Hz via its digital HDMI and DisplayPort outputs.

 

Dual Intel Gigabit LAN Network

The Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 supports Dual Gigabit LAN with Intel network adapters, which are popular for their excellent performance and driver compatibility and are the preferred choice for professional environments.

 

RS-232/422/485 serial port

Many PCs do not have these legacy ports any longer, since they have been superseded and replaced by USB for most consumer applications, but they are still commonly used for applications such as industrial automation, scientific analysis, POS systems and other such fields of application. The Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 features one serial RS-232/422/485 port which also supports both 5 and 12 V auxiliary voltage. Optionally, a second RS-232 COM port can be installed, if the VGA port is not required.

 

M.2-2280-Slot for SSD cards

The M.2-2280 slot supports M.2 SSD storage cards with PCIe interface and NVMe support or the SATA standard. Type 2280 means, it supports the usual M.2 cards with a width of 22 mm and a length of 80 mm, but also 2242 and 2260 standard cards are supported.

 

SD Card Reader

The built-in SD card reader at the front makes file transfer from and to a digital camera easy. It takes SD, SDHC and SDXC memory flash cards in standard size format and also supports booting from bootable SD cards.

 

External power button

If space is an object (e.g. in case of a fixed installation) and the machine cannot be switched on by pressing the front power button, it can be powered on by a separate remote line (also see Shuttle Accessory CXP01). An appropriate four-pin-connector “SW2” can be found at the back panel of the Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 (pitch 2.54 mm). In addition, this connector also provides the Clear CMOS function and an external 5 V DC voltage supply.

 

Power on after Power fail

The BIOS setup provides a "Power-On after Power Fail" function that can be found under "Power Management Configuration". As the name indicates, this function determines the PC's behaviour after power failure: (1) unconditional power on, (2) restore former status, (3) keep system turned off or (4) Power On by LAN. As a matter of the nature of this function, it may fail after short power failures. This is why the DS10U3 also comes with a hardware-based solution. By removing Jumper J9 (see quick guide) the system will start unconditionally once power is applied.

 

Kensington Lock

This is a small, metal-reinforced hole as part of an anti-theft system. The Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 provides an appropriate hole on both sides of its chassis. The lock-and-cable is not included.

 

VESA mount

The supplied 75/100mm VESA mount allows the Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 to be wall-mounted or just to be affixed on the rear side of a monitor which is particularly interesting for the industry segment, company buildings and public institutions. Besides, the chassis of the Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 provides numerous threaded holes (M3) enabling it to be fitted almost anywhere.

 

Fanless and Silent

Passive cooling, no fan noise at all

Perfect to be used in noise-sensitive environments

Fanless, dust-free and thus virtually maintenance-free

 

Low Power Consumption

Power consumption in idle mode with 2.5" SSD under Windows 10: ca. 6 W only

 

24/7 Nonstop Operation

This device is approved for 24/7 permanent operation.

Requirements:

- Free circulation of air amongst the PC must be guaranteed.

- Ventilation holes must stay clear.

- If a hard disk is installed, this must also be approved for permanent operation by its manufacturer

 

Chassis

Slim-PC with black steel chassis

Without cooling fan, passive cooling only

The bays for memory, 2.5" drive and M.2 card

can easily be accessed by removing two cover plates.

Dimensions: 200 x 165 x 39.5 mm (LWH) = 1.3 litres

Weight: 1.5 kg net and 2.2 kg gross

Two holes for Kensington Lock and numerous

threaded holes (M3) at both sides of the chassis

 

Operating Position

1) Vertical: Usual operating position with the supplied feet (DisplayPort output facing up).

2) VESA-mounted: The device can also be mounted behind an appropriate monitor using the supplied VESA mount kit.

Note: From a thermal point of view horizontal operation is permitted. However, there are no rubber feet on the device. The maximum operating temperature is 35 °C then.

 

Operating System

This barebone system comes without operating system.

It is compatible with Windows 10 (64-bit) and Linux (64-bit).

 

Processor

Model: Intel Core i3-8145U (ULV)

System-on-a-chip architecture (SoC) with integrated memory and graphics controller: no chipset required

FCBGA1528 package - directly soldered onto the mainboard

Code name: Whiskey Lake U (8th Generation Intel Core)

Cores / Threads: 2 / 4

Clock rate: 1.8 GHz

Max. Turbo Frequency: 3.9 GHz

L1/L2/L3 Cache: 128 kB / 512 kB / 4 MB

TDP wattage: 15 W maximum

Manufacturing process: 3rd-generation enhanced 14nm++

Maximum Tjunction Temperature: 100 °C

Supports 64-bit, VT-x (EPT), VT-d, Enhanced SpeedStep, NX bit, AES-NI, SSE 4.1/4.2

 

Integrated Graphics

Intel UHD Graphics 620

GPU clock frequency: 300~1000 MHz

Execution Units (EUs): 24

Supports DirectX 12

Supports full H264, H265 8/10 bit, VP8/9, VC-1, AVC hardware decoding

Supports Quick Sync Video and Clear Video HD technology

Supports up to three independent screens:

1) DisplayPort 1.2 supports Ultra HD @ 60 Hz

2) HDMI 2.0a supports Ultra HD @ 60 Hz

3) D-Sub/VGA supports analog displays

 

Mainboard / BIOS

Shuttle Mainboard FS10

All capacitors are high quality solid capacitors

Supports resume after power failure

Supports Wake on LAN (WOL)

Supports Power on by RTC Alarm

Supports boot from M.2 SSD cards, USB devices and SD card reader

AMI BIOS in 8 MByte EEPROM with SPI interface

Supports hardware monitoring and watch dog function

Supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)

Supports Firmware-TPM (fTPM) Version 2.0

 

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 cable length: ca. 170 cm

AC cable length: ca. 170 cm (with 2-pin Europlug)

 

DC Input connector

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

The DC-input of the computer supports an external

power source with either 12V±5% or 19V±5%.

 

Memory support

2x SO-DIMM slot with 260 pins

Supports DDR4-2133/2400 (PC4-17000/19200) SDRAM at 1.2 V

Supports Dual Channel mode

Supports a maximum of 16 GB per DIMM,

maximum total size: 32 GB

Supports two unbuffered DIMM modules (no ECC or registered)

 

2.5" Drive Bay with SATA connector

Supports one Serial ATA hard disk

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

Device height: max. 12.5 mm

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

Supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)

Note: no Serial ATA cable is required.

 

M.2 Slot for SSDs

The M.2 2280 BM slot provides the following interfaces:

- PCI-Express Gen. 3.0 X4 with up to 4 GB/s

- SATA v3.0 (max. 6 Gbps)

It supports M.2 cards with a width of 22 mm

and a length of 42, 60 or 80 mm (type 2242, 2260, 2280).

Supports M.2 SATA SSDs (with B+M key) and M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs (with M key)

 

Card Reader

Integrated SD card reader

Supports SD, SDHC and SDXC memory flash cards

Supports booting from SD card

 

Audio

Audio Realtek® ALC 662 High-Definition Audio

Two analog audio connectors (3.5 mm) at the front panel:

1) 2 channel line out (headphones)

2) microphone input

Digital multi-channel audio output: via HDMI and DisplayPort

 

Dual Gigabit LAN

Dual network with two RJ45 ports

Used network chips:

1) Intel i211 Ethernet Controller with MAC, PHY and PCIe interface

2) Intel i219LM PHY connected to the MAC of the processor

Supports 10 / 100 / 1.000 MBit/s operation

Supports WAKE ON LAN (WOL)

Supports network boot by Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE)

Supports Teaming mode

 

Wireless Network (WLAN)

Built-in M.2-2230-A/E WLAN card with connectors for two external antennas

WLAN Controller Realtek RTL8821AE

Supports WiFi IEEE 802.11b/g/n/ac in the 2.4 / 5 GHz band, 1T1R

Supports 20 / 40 / 80 MHz channel bandwidth

Security: supports WPA(-PSK), WPA2(-PSK), WEP 64/128 bit, IEEE 802.11x, IEEE 802.11i

Supports Bluetooth 4.0 in the 2.4 GHz band

 

Front Panel connectors/buttons

2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (max. 10 Gbps)

4x USB 2.0

Microphone input

Audio Line-out (headphones)

SD card reader (supports SD, SDHC, SDXC)

Power button

Power LED (blue)

HDD LED (yellow)

 

Back Panel connectors

DisplayPort 1.2

HDMI 2.0a

D-Sub/VGA

2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (max. 10 Gbps)

2x Intel Gigabit LAN (RJ45)

Serial COM port (5V / 12V, switchable to RS232 / RS422 / RS485) [1]

DC-input connector for external power adapter

4-pin connector (2.54 mm pitch) for power button, Clear CMOS and 5 V DC

 

Always-On Jumper

By removing Jumper J9 (please refer to the quick user guide),

the system will start unconditionally once power is applied.

 

Scope of Delivery

Multi-language user guide

Two metal feet with four screws M3 x 7

VESA mount for 75/100mm standard (two metal brackets)

Four screws M3 x 7 mm (screws together VESA mount and PC)

Four screws M4 x 10 mm (to fix the VESA mount to the external surface)

Two screws M3 x 5 mm to mount a 2.5" storage in the bay

Two screws M3 x 5 mm to mount M.2 cards

Driver DVD for Windows 10 (64-bit)

External 65W power adapter with power cord (Europlug)

 

Optional Accessories

- PCP11: adapter cable for the second COM port (replaces the VGA port)

- CXP01: adapter cable for external power button

- WWN03: LTE adapter kit for the 2.5" bay including two external LTE antennas

- PRM01: 2U rack mount front plate for two Shuttle XPC slim

- DIR01: mounting kit for 35 mm DIN-Rail

 

Environmental Specifications

Operating temperature range: 0~40 °C [5]

Relative humidity, non-condensing: 10~90 %

 

Conformity & Certifications

EMI: FCC, CE, BSMI, C-Tick

Safety: ETL, CB, BSMI

Other: RoHS, Energy Star, ErP

This device is classed as a technical information equipment (ITE) in class B and is intended for use in living room and office. The CE-mark approves the conformity by the EU directives:

(1) 2014/30/EU relating to electromagnetic compatibility (EMC),

(2) 2014/35/EU relating to Electrical Equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits (LVD),

(3) 2009/125/EC relating to eco design requirements for energy-related products (ErP),

(4) 2014/53/EU Radio Equipment Directive (RED)

 

Shuttle has recently updated their XPC slim Barebone series with the new Whiskey-Lake platform, the systems being available with Celeron 4205U, Core i3-8145U, Core i5-8265U or Core i7-8565U ULV SOCs. The 20 x 16.5 x 3.95 cm (LWH) chassis is very compact, includes a stand and a VESA mount as standard and comes with plenty of interfaces. One aspect to note is that the barebone does not produce any noise since we are talking about passive cooling solution that employs a very large heatsink on the top area of the unit. The DS10U series can run in optimal conditions with ambient temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius, but it is recommended to have a SSD installed instead of a HDD if the ambient exceeds 35 degrees Celsius (because mechanical drives are known to produce quite a bit of heat themselves).

 

The product is shipped inside a plain cardboard enclosure and the outside design reflects the compactness of the overall build:

 

 

 

If we need to look at the technical specifications, we can do so thanks to the included sticker; here we will also get to see which model is included inside the box, along with some serial numbers:

 

 

 

A plastic handle is also available for easy manipulation:

 

 

 

Shuttle always makes sure to include plenty of protective material (foam) inside the box , but also a separate enclosure with accessories:

 

 

 

Let’s take a look at the accessory box first:

 

 

 

Plenty of stuff can be found inside, each being individually packaged:

 

 

 

We do have the power adapter, the power lead, the vertical stand components, WiFi antennas, the VESA mount components but also the necessary mounting screws:

 

 

 

A DVD with drivers and documentation is also shipped with the product:

 

 

 

Upon a closer look, we could spot that the power adapter is manufactured by Asian Power Devices and is rated as 19V, 3.42A on the output:

 

 

 

The power adapter cable ends up with a jack plug:

 

 

 

The VESA mounts are supplied as standard, not as an optional accessory:

 

 

 

The barebone can be sit vertically thanks to the included dock components, each being fixed with two screws to the chassis:

 

 

 

Next, we could note the power lead:

 

 

 

The offered WiFi antennas are pretty standard:

 

 

 

The included installation guide is more compact than before and includes the necessary info in order to get the system up and running:

 

 

 

The DS10U3 almost resembles an external optical drive and features an all-black color scheme:

 

 

 

As mentioned before, under the top cover the manufacturer has included a large heatsink that keeps the SOC cool, without the need of extra fans:

 

 

 

The included sticker does note some more details regarding the product, but also details about the wireless interface, which is maintained by the Realtek 8821CE 802.11ac PCI-E NIC:

 

 

 

In the frontal area of the chassis we will find two USB 3.1 Gen2 (red) ports, no less than four USB 2.0 ports, a Power and HDD/SSD activity LEDs, a Power button, a SC Card reader, but also a Microphone and Headphone jack:

 

 

 

On the sides of the barebone we will get to see ventilation grills, in order to allow the air to circulate through:

 

 

 

 

In the back, we will find a Pin connector for the external power button, CMOS button or 5V DC voltage supply; next, we have the HDMI 2.0a output, a DisplayPort 1.2 output, a VGA output, one COM port (RS-232/422/485), two more USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, two RJ45 Gigabit LAN ports, and one DC-Input for the supplied power adapter. The WiFi antenna ports are gold plated and available in the corners:

 

 

 

The bottom area of the unit does come with two separate compartments, that can be opened individually; the UP sign does show the ideal position to have the product installed:

 

 

 

Each separate compartment cover can be easily lifted by removing one screw:

 

 

 

The 2.5’’ drive compartment can be populated with either a SSD or a HDD, while the mounting procedure is assisted by the included bracket component:

 

 

 

 

 

The included wireless AzureWave AW-CB304NF card does also add support for Bluetooth 4.2 LE besides dual-band WiFi AC:

 

 

 

The unit can be populated with up to 2x16GB DDR4-2400 SODIMM memory, for a maximum of 32GB:

 

 

 

Additional high-speed storage can be installed in the M.2 PCIe slot, supporting 80, 60 or 42mm drives:

 

 

 

On the PCB, we could easily spot the MCDP2800BC controller from MegaChips, that transforms DisplayPort 1.2 signal to HDMI 2.0:

 

 

 

Also, here we will spot the VRM components for the SoC:

 

 

 

Next to it, we have the BIOS chip:

 

 

 

In order to start testing and carefully to compare the system with the previous barebones, we did use the same DDR4-2400 SODIMM 2x4GB kit as before:

 

 

 

Same goes for storage, were we did go with an Intel 760P series SSD:

 

 

 

The extra hardware installation was pretty straight-forward:

 

 

 

 

Finally, we did attach the included WiFi antennas:

 

 

 

The UEFI BIOS on this unit comes with the classic Aptio Setup Utility skin, but as suspected, there are not a lot of optimizations to be made, considering that this is not a gaming setup. The Main area does show the current BIOS version, installed CPU but also total memory:

 

 

The Advanced area holds multiple sub-sections:

 

-TPM Configuration

-Hardware Health Configuration

-CPU Configuration

-SATA Configuration

-USB Configuration

-OnBoard Device Configuration

-Power Management Configuration

 

 

The TPM Configuration menu will allow configuration for such modules:

 

 

The Hardware Health Configuration menu is in charge of displaying the System, CPU temperatures but also the CPU and DRAM voltages:

 

 

Next, we do have the CPU Configuration with in-depth specs details, but here we can also adjust some specific options:

 

 

The SATA Configuration menu will show devices connected in SATA mode and we can also choose the operating mode of the controller; since we are using a NVMe drive, it does not get shown here:

 

 

USB Configuration menu does only list the connected devices:

 

 

From the OnBoard Device Configuration area, we will be able to enable/disable specific interfaces; the Serial Ports have a dedicated sub-menu of their own:

 

 

Specific PM-related options are available in the next menu:

 

 

The Security menu will allow to adjust the system passwords, but also work with Flash Write Protection option or Secure Boot:

 

 

The usual Boot options can be managed next:

 

 

Lastly, we have the Save/Discard/Load Defaults menu:

 

 

The DS10U3 system is equipped with the i3-8145U ScC at its core, from the 8th generation of Intel's Core processors. It sports the Whiskey Lake code name, was manufactured on the 14nm process and comes equipped with two cores, while the number of threads is four thanks to HyperThreading. The SoC base frequency is 2.1GHz and in Boost it can climb up to 3.9GHz. Additional info regarding the internal components were collected via AIDA64:

 

CPU

Motherboard

Memory Module

IMC

Chipset

SSD

Network Adapters

iGPU

Audio Devices

 

 

AIDA64

 

Cinebench R15

 

 

 

Blender Ryzen Render

 

 

PCMark 7

 

 

PCMark 8

 

 

SuperPI XS [2M]

 

X265 Benchmark 1080P 64-bit Normal

 

 

GeekBench 4

 

 

3DMark Vantage

 

 

3DMark 2013

 

 

Tomb Raider

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

 

Hitman: Absolution

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

 

Sleeping Dogs

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

Even if we are dealing only with a dual-core SoC, we are benefitting from HyperThreading and considerably higher clocks versus the Celeron SKUs we have tested in the past. The performance increase is not only visible when launching apps or working with multiple applications at once, but also in the 3D department, as you could notice from our game benchmarks. The SoC is capped at 15W so depending on the load, the clocks will differ in order to fit this power envelope. Thanks to the large heatsink, the system can function without any fan installed up to ambient of 40 degrees Celsius, so if you set it up with an SSD it will be basically noiseless.

 

Our test system power consumption is pretty much impressive, considering that we have recorded 8.45W in IDLE and only 30.3W in Full Load, while running AIDA64 stress tests.

 

Talking again about the obtained temperatures, we have measured the minimum and maximum while maintaining an ambient of 22.5 degrees Celsius:

 

 

 

The stress test was applied on the CPU/FPU/cache/RAM/GPUs and we have noted a maximum of 79 degrees Celsius on the SoC, which is well within limits.

 

Besides the plenty of storage that can be attached to the stock configuration of the barebone, we can purchase optional accessories such as the CXP01 adapter cable for external power button, the PRM01 2U rack mount kit for two Shuttle XPC units, the WWN03 LTE adapter kit for the 2.5’’ bay, that also includes two external LTE antennas, but also the PCP11 COM port adapter, for the second COM port instead of VGA. Finally, we also have a less-conventional optional accessory, the DIR01, which is a DIR-Rail mounting kit.

 

The DS10U3 unit has a RRP of 448 Euros excluding VAT.

Shuttle XPC slim Barebone DS10U3 is Recommended for:

 

 

 

 

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