New shuttle XPC: SB86i pico-BTX

Tintagel · Post by **Tintagel** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:22 pm

New xpc released!
Pico-BTX, Steel made, PCI express...

There is quiet, there is Zen quiet, and then there is "i" quiet. The newest member to the Shuttle Silent X family, the SB86i is the quietest XPC ever designed.

Link:
http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/bareb ... /SB86i.asp

What do you think of this?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:33 pm

The good:

- steel case

The bad:

- BTX form factor with intake cooling fan right at front of case.

- Preshott CPU

davidstone28 · Post by **davidstone28** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:55 pm

Good:

- looks nice

Bad

- 38cm long? I thought these SFF PCs were supposed to be small?
- Price - in the UK it's £325.

colin · Post by **colin** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 6:12 pm

So the second fan is the one in the power supply at the back? Seems odd that blowing air in a straight line is being heralded as a major technological breakthrough.

There was speculation on slashdot that the BTX design was driven by the problems of cooling a Prescott system. And it is about 4 inches longer than current shuttles -- a sort of ammunition-case look. I guess that's a consequence of having to build what amounts to a tunnel, with open space front to back.

Let's hope that Shuttle's design intelligence can also be applied to systems built around radically cooler processors.