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  • NaterGator - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Now this looks like one heck of a routerbox. If only it had 10GBase-T...
  • fusebokme - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    I have this box (the XH version) running pfsense on a Pentium Gold G5600. Multiple openvpn connections don't stress it at all. Got G5600 due to high single thread performance (pppoe and openvpn are single threaded). Excellent box. Very stable. Intel NICs. As you say: 10gbit would be icing on the cake but not too many places you can get 10gbit internet yet.
  • JHBoricua - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Why? Way too expensive for that purpose, specially when you're limited to two interfaces. A HP T620 Plus with 8GB RAM and 16GB of storage plus a quad port intel i340 card can be built for half of what this costs as a barebones kit.
  • 0ldman79 - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    If you're doing traffic shaping, sure.

    If you're just moving data it's massively overkill.
  • bill.rookard - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    I have a SuperMicro itx board with an Atom D525 and dual NICs for my pfsense box - super quiet, and solid as a rock. Fraction of the price of this unit.

    (and no, there are no backdoor chips as far as I can see LOL)
  • GreenReaper - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    Other than the Intel? Its PVAP (Protected Audio Visual Path) will remain:
    https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/remote-code-exe...

    You might be able to use me_cleaner:
    https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner

    Of course, you will lose the ability to decode protected formats in hardware:
    https://www.techarp.com/bios-guide/pavp-mode/

    It may be paranoia to imagine that Intel has deliberately back-doored their decoder, but perhaps less so to imagine that there may be an exploitable bug in the code, especially given recent issues.
  • Irata - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    It seems that Backdoor chips won't be needed.
  • Hixbot - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Another small pc review with no noise measurements...
  • mikato - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    He has a couple sentences with some subjective noise analysis that was very helpful to me at least. "simply too noisy for use as a HTPC"
  • Hixbot - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    All of Ganesh's small pc reviews need objective noise measurements. It's one of the most important aspects of a HTPC. Temperature measurements are not much help if they can't be compared to noise levels.
  • mikato - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    Don't get me wrong, I would like that too. SilentPCReview.com needs to be revived perhaps. They, and their community, were the best. People lost interest I guess once storage drives, power supplies, retail computers, even GPUs improved noise by a lot. Plus other reviewers started paying attention to noise partly through their work. But with mini PCs and HTPCs maybe there is renewed thirst for noise analysis.

    The issue may be - how does Ganesh prevent outside factors and just the changing ambient noise level from influencing noise measurements? He would need some type of anechoic chamber and probably some audio equipment. Read this to see what goes into it, for removing outside influence and actually having a low enough ambient noise level for meaningful measurements - http://www.silentpcreview.com/anechoic_chamber_SPC...

    Then there are logistics issues. Will Anandtech pay for or provide what may be needed? Does he do review work at his house/apartment? Is there an Anandtech central office? Do other Anandtech reviewers mostly live in the same area? Can someone rent an anechoic chamber? Keep in mind SPCR was mostly one guy on a mission, while Anandtech and Ganesh have plenty of other concerns.

    Is there a spot in the middle where noise measurements are "good enough"? Any ideas? I do see noise measurements at other review sites sometimes, but I don't know if they are good enough for comparing among different product reviews that took place at different times and possibly at different places.
  • GDVX_111 - Monday, June 13, 2022 - link

    This query comes 3 years later, so I know that the odds on a response are not good, but WHICH existing Shuttle model is going to have more than adequate HTPC chops and features, as well as the desired quietness, heat dissipation, and reliability characteristics ? (Regardless of price, even.) I say existing model because I like Shuttle, and I don't care to build something from scratch out of disparate parts that may be available. The SH67H3 cube that still serves as my desktop computer would certainly fill the bill, and is plenty quiet even a few inches away on my desk, but of course it is several times the size and would require space I don't have in either of my video stacks.

    Another design factor that struck me as being perhaps dubious in these more compact, digital kiosk or signage oriented models has been the move to outboard power bricks, rather than an integrated PSU. But perhaps that is unavoidable, given the compact size.
  • bill44 - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    How about 3D BD ISO playback?
    Does it use LSPCon for HDMI?
  • timecop1818 - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Yes, it uses MegaChips MCDP2850 to convert DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0. You can see it on the motherboard photo in the QuickStart manual. What about 3D BD ISO playback? Why wouldn't that work?
  • ganeshts - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    3D is usually not supported if you have a LSPcon. I have reason to believe 3D is not supported over the HDMI 2.0a ports in the last two Intel platform generations.

    With the advent of 4K and HDR, the industry has got much more convincing features to make people upgrade their equipment (compared to 3D). Effectively, 3D is dead from an industry viewpoint. YMMV.
  • Opencg - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    great example of a tech killed off by lack of content (i mean good content). too many movies were simply reprocessed without being produced from the ground up with the intent of 3d. the industry tried to charge a premuim for lackluster content with hardware implementations having support and quality issues. not to mention some big problems like focal blur guessing.

    i really hope vr doesnt go the route of 3d games and 3d movies. but yeah people dont seem to understand that the most important things are affordability and minimizing barriers to entry. also not having an industry clinging to ancient monitization practices helps.
  • Death666Angel - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    I think it is more about the technology itself. In order for stereoscopic 3D to work well, you need to have most of your field of vision filled by the content. That is easily done in a cinema, where the screen is huge and the ambient lights are darkened and everyone is fine with that. At home, most people I know have their setup with a small TV (37" to 50") and it is in a corner somewhere it makes sense but is out of the way (since the TV may be on a lot, but hardly watched focused most of the time). Only some die hard movie people (like myself) have a large TV (55"+, preferably 65"+) that is not too far away from the main sitting position (couch). But even then, it is a bit too small for 3D to work well and immerse myself in it and I can't really darken everything down as much as in the cinema. And I have never had comfortable 3D glasses. They always either hurt my sides or my nose.
    VR won't go away as 3D will, since it has a much larger impact in the professional world (engineering, architecture, medicine, art...), but home VR has an uphill battle to fight still.
  • 0ldman79 - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    Honestly I'm kind of expecting 3D to come back again.

    They are now making fully transparent TVs.

    Layer the screens and you can have actual 3D (at least two layers of depth) without glasses.
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    How would that work? You still need a way to block one eye from seeing the content the other eye sees. Doing it with a parallax barrier requires cost and doesn't work for more than one person without a lot of complications (which increase price, a lot). You also lose resolution compared to full 3D SBS and active shutter glasses.
    Or do you just mean 3D in a diorama way where you have discreet layers of content? That is not 3D.
  • bill44 - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Thanks ganeshts.

    I know it's a dead format, but I would like to use it as long as my TV lasts.
    Hoping one day I can get a modern PC that has native HDMI ports (no LSPCon).

    Does anyone know of TB3->HDMI adapter/cable that does work?
  • timecop1818 - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Intel CPUs only have native DisplayPort output, not HDMI (licensing?). Nothing is technically preventing fullly complaint HDCP 2.2 path when using the MCDP part - unless shuttle cheaped out and didn't include the keys? Anyway i never looked into this as HDMI port is never something I'm looking for in a PC. I'm curious what exactly prevents the playback, as the same part (or a similar one from Parade tech) is what would be used inside a USBC to HDMI 2.0 cable as well.
  • ganeshts - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    All three display outputs support HDCP 2.2

    Intel supports HDMI, but, only 1.4a as of now. If OEMs want to put a HDMI 2.0a port, then, that HDMI capability of the Intel CPU is left un-used.

    Some LSPCons do not do Stereoscopic 3D forwarding, which results in the loss of 3D capabilities.
  • rchris - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Thanks for a good review. But please include physical dimensions; particularly important when you're reviewing a compact system. The volume specs are nice, but not sufficient. Yes, they are available at the "Full Specifications" link, but would be more helpful to be in your article.
  • Guspaz - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Be wary of Shuttle claims that their systems support standard motherboards. I bought a Shuttle XPC SZ77R5. Years later, the motherboard died and Shuttle wanted an absurd amount of money for the replacement (enough to buy a whole new computer). They claimed in the advertising for the system that it was "easily" upgradable with any standard mini-itx motherboard. In fact, the product website STILL says that.

    Three problems: the case uses a non-standard motherboard standoff height, and does not include any standoffs. There are a few of them directly welded to the chassis, but only enough for Shuttle motherboards, more are required for a mini-ITX board. I couldn't even find any of the right height online to buy, short of ordering them in bulk from China and waiting a few months. Instead, I had to take standard brass motherboard standoffs and filed them down by hand. It took hours.

    Second: the included power supply didn't have a full-width power connector that mini-ITX motherboards required. Luckily, the missing pins were just for providing power, so they seem to be in the "strongly recommended but technically not required" category, and it worked OK without them.

    Third: Shuttle motherboards don't have the CPU in the same location as a mini-ITX motherboard, so the system's custom heatpipe-based cooling system must be thrown out and replaced by traditional air cooling, which is less effective.
  • Death666Angel - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Well, mITX motherboards don't have the CPU sockets in the same location, so that point is moot. And all I just read about their advertising the ITX compatiblity (granted, I only found the German site) is that they said you can use mITX motherboards without having to modify the case. And that seems right, doesn't it?
  • Guspaz - Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - link

    It was not really true for the SZ77R5, no. Because short of fabricating custom mounting hardware like I did, you would have needed to modify the case with a deemed to install an mITX board. Requiring mounting hardware that does not exist is far from the easy upgradability they claimed. Now, hopefully this isn’t the case with the product that is the subject of this anandtech article. But I’ve been burned by them before.
  • Guspaz - Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - link

    *with a dremel, not a “deemed”
  • timecop1818 - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link

    Dude this is a completely non-standard SFF motherboard that doesn't follow any particular layout or spec. Do you complain that Intel NUC doesn't fit into Mini ITX board? There are no claims made anywhere that this board is user replaceable.
  • 0ldman79 - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    "Mini-ITX Mainboard Support
    Shuttle expands the capabilities of its R chassis, adding support for Mini-ITX mainboards (17 x 17cm or 6.7 x 6.7 inches). The Shuttle chassis can go beyond the Shuttle mainboard, so you can easily upgrade or downgrade the mainboard to your desire, without any modifications to the chassis."

    http://global.shuttle.com/main/productsDetail?prod...
  • timecop1818 - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    Yes and that link has nothing to do with the product reviewed here...
  • Guspaz - Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - link

    It has to do with the subject of my post. Shuttle sells this as a barebones claiming support for products meeting certain standards. And I’m warning that in the past they have made that claim in a way that is misleading at best and false at worst.
  • Skeptical123 - Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - link

    I personal agree with the content of the article in that it's a good box for the use case and price. Except for this one snippet that too many tech reviews have, its good but could be better if it had these expensive rarely used but cool to have features. The reality is this is a custom product for a limited market and regardless of that there is still a lot of competitions in the small form factor pc space around the mid $300 mark. Meaning the company needed to meet a certain price target which I think we can all agree they did at $330. The additional chip required for thunderbolt 3 from intel along costs up to $10s alone. Regardless any additional thunderbolt enclosure would add to the size of the unit which kinda defeats the whole point. And the reality is the people buying these systems know what they're looking for and if they find this product they can defiantly find a similar product that has what they want, say a 10gig Nic integrated in a similar size for a little more $. The company could have chosen to make that product, they did not. That is not a bad thing nor a bad decision.
  • Skeptical123 - Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - link

    the quote from the article "Shuttle does have scope for improving the DH370 further - for starters, we would have liked a couple of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports to be Type-C. A Thunderbolt 3 port would have also been nice to have, given that spare PCIe lanes from the PCH as well as the CPU are available."
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  • TomWomack - Thursday, May 16, 2019 - link

    "It is likely that driving three 4Kp60 displays can take up a significant chunk of the available bandwidth, resulting in the performance loss that we see above"

    Not that significant - 3840*2160 pixels * 4 bytes per pixel * 3 displays * 60fps is 6GByte/sec and the machine supposedly has 40GByte/sec available.
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