Just thinking.. the last Shuttle I owned was ~12 year ago now! http://shuttle.eu/products/mini-pc/sz170r8/ They finally got rid of the 5.25" bay so now there's 4x 3.5" space in and more accomodation for high-end GPUs. Sadly, still the outdated heatpipe cooler in it rather than space for an AIO, and they're still relying on their own MB format which I guess means they still use the crappy slim PSU rather than SFX. Get with the times, yo. Anyway, if anyone spots any internal pics please share.
Yeah, looks like it, but notice how long it took them to do it! Mine SN25P was brilliant, I actually did my first mod ever on it, but same as your adventure with Shuttle, it was 11 years ago. To be honest, their architecture made me do the mod Truth, getting rid of bay was good move, finally. As you already mentioned, they should change the format of PSU - those long ones with small fan were always loud. My second mod on that brick was to change PSU fan. Next should their cpu cooler - it was cool 10 years ago, I'm should they could change it to accommodate AIO cooler. Motherboards - I don't think they gonna change that - if they do, they will be just another case manufacturer and may gone pretty fast from the market. I actually wonder how many people buy those barebones nowadays. Back in a days, there were fresh, new, something awesome, at least by their size. I got one, even where it was pretty expensive for me, I loved the idea of having such a small pc on my desk. Many people did then...
It's bizarre that Shuttle are building their own motherboards, but simply replicating the exact same form-factor you can achieve with standard mITX boards and SFX PSUs. They could go for much more radical designs like the Asus VIEW-PAKER board with it's relocated 90° PCIe slot, or a board to take MXM modules, or something equally radical and more compact than you can do with standardised components.
I built my first proper PC in a shuttle... Good times... personally I think its the most cleverly designed chassis I've ever owned. It was bit limited for upgrade potential though...
the SN25P had 3x3,5" and 1x5,25", so also easily accepted 4 3,5" drives without an optical drive. What was the "new design" here? Still, considering the SN25P was about the size of an Ncase M1 over a decade ago... and it swallowed an impressive amount of large hardware.
Right? I still don't really follow, with the number of superb SFF cases out there, why someone buys into a shuttle - the formula lost its novelty years ago. MXM would be interesting no doubt, but they would have to come up with a seriously interesting proposition to sell that, considering the buck-for-bang of them - something like an open and upgradeable AIO could be such a proposition, but not simply another SFF box, no matter how compact.
I still have a 12 year old SN45G V2 up the loft somewhere, doesn't look much different to this I think it looks OK to be honest, not very innovative, but it is what it is and wouldn't look terribly out of place with other media equipment.
This is kind of how I feel. Shuttle are TINY compared to everyone else and I really wonder why they still make their own custom MB sizes. Seems crazy not to just take an off-the-shelf ITX board, SFX PSU and leave the cooling optional. Their education and gov contracts require pre-build and I think they just focus on that now rather than ANY consumer marketing and only do basic sales. They've completely missed out on the SFF trend of last few years. Last Shuttle I had was the SN45G V2 as well. It was a noisy ****er tbh.
Yeah I don't get it. Shuttle used to be pretty unique, years ago, offering SFF builds when the market simply didn't have them. These days ITX is easy enough to buy and build something that is identical to whatever Shuttle are offering.
And the motherboards were notorious POS with cheap capacitors, power supplies too. Guess someone somewhere must buy them, haven't come across anything newer than a CD2 system myself (and that needed all its capacitors replacing!).
I didn't even realise Shuttle were still making these things. They do also make a bunch of different "Slim" machines, mainly aimed at industrial and business applications. We use a bunch of them at work and as long as you just want a basic desktop PC, or you have a special use case where you need (eg) two serial ports and dual LAN ports they work great. Most of them use very low powered CPUs so they're all fanless. Just the job for our use as point of sales computers that get shoved under a really dusty desk with not much airflow.
Around 2010 when I visited their office and interviewed them, they had re-aligned to education + gov. But since every man+dog in E-Asia makes mini-PCs now, I can only guess they're becoming another RM and getting replaced by Chrome-devices+better value alternatives. But thinking about it, how could they redesign the XPC to get an edge these days? That boxy case design is everywhere; a 30 quid(?) CM Elite 130 or Silverstone will do the job. I can't think what circumstance would ever make me pine for one again given the wealth of alternatives now. Cheap, high volume, easy to get from resellers if you're not a direct customer of Intel.
The CM-Elite 130 has the same limitation the shuttles had a decade ago: the sides are open which makes them noisy, and prone to dust buildup. What they COULD do with their custom motherboard layout is switch the side where the GPU is sitting, so that the GPU's fans are directed inward, not outward. Coupled with a filtered frontal intake, and their ICE design outlet out the back you'd get a "windtunnel" design with all the heat/noise in the center and out the back.
I remember talking to Silverstone before - you need GPUs facing outwards to suck in the cool air. Just cooks everything when flipped, especially since most coolers are not exhaust blowers.
Well, most cases are closed, so the GPU just recycles the air inside the case, or (if it's a good case) gets air from a vent/fan somewhere. That many cards don't vent out is a shame, as this is very helpfull especially in a small case. The trend does seem to go away from venting cards for a few years now. Ah, I'll just have to wait for Nanoxia to make a mATX / ITX case.
