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Pocket Rocket
Shuttle has long been the dominant force in the small form factor (SFF) market, and has been popular amongst HTPC enthusiasts for its compact and stylish designs. Also, the vendor has consistently pushed out new products that closely mirror developments in the chipset and processor markets. And so it was always going to be a matter of when, and not if, Shuttle will turn its attention to Intel's latest X58 chipset and Core i7 processor.
Well, it's finally here - the Shuttle SX587H. It is currently the highest-end Shuttle SFF and is the only SFF from Shuttle to make use of Intel's X58 chipset. The X58 chipset, if you don't already know, is Intel's latest and was designed for the new Core i7 processors.
Back to the Shuttle SX587H and its impressive specifications. Shuttle has clearly done its utmost to provide users with a fully featured Core i7 system in a compact design. The chassis itself is similarly sized to Shuttle's older models, but as the table below shows, it has nearly everything any user would need. Of course, don't expect the ridiculous like five 3.5-inch drive bays, or space for a Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe graphics card. Here are the technical specifications of the Shuttle X58.
If you are familiar with Shuttle's systems, they all come mostly pre-assembled. The motherboard has been secured in place as is the power supply unit, and most of the cables have been pre-routed for convenience and to reduce clutter. All that needs to be done is to put the processor in place, install the memory, plug in your graphics card along with all the relevant data and power cables, and you are good to go. It doesn't get much easier than this.
Shuttle has also provided the following in the box:
Shuttle has long been the dominant force in the small form factor (SFF) market, and has been popular amongst HTPC enthusiasts for its compact and stylish designs. Also, the vendor has consistently pushed out new products that closely mirror developments in the chipset and processor markets. And so it was always going to be a matter of when, and not if, Shuttle will turn its attention to Intel's latest X58 chipset and Core i7 processor.
Well, it's finally here - the Shuttle SX587H. It is currently the highest-end Shuttle SFF and is the only SFF from Shuttle to make use of Intel's X58 chipset. The X58 chipset, if you don't already know, is Intel's latest and was designed for the new Core i7 processors.
 Intel's Core i7 is now available in small form factor thanks to Shuttle. |
Back to the Shuttle SX587H and its impressive specifications. Shuttle has clearly done its utmost to provide users with a fully featured Core i7 system in a compact design. The chassis itself is similarly sized to Shuttle's older models, but as the table below shows, it has nearly everything any user would need. Of course, don't expect the ridiculous like five 3.5-inch drive bays, or space for a Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe graphics card. Here are the technical specifications of the Shuttle X58.
Shuttle SX58H7 Specifications
| Case Parameters |
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|---|---|
| I/O Interface |
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| Motherboard Type & CPU + Memory Support |
|
| Sound Subsystem |
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| CPU Cooling |
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| Power Supply |
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| Dimensions |
|
If you are familiar with Shuttle's systems, they all come mostly pre-assembled. The motherboard has been secured in place as is the power supply unit, and most of the cables have been pre-routed for convenience and to reduce clutter. All that needs to be done is to put the processor in place, install the memory, plug in your graphics card along with all the relevant data and power cables, and you are good to go. It doesn't get much easier than this.
Shuttle has also provided the following in the box:
- Installation manual
- Driver CD
- 1 x Power cord
- 1 x eSATA expansion kit
- 1 x IDE Cable
- Y type SPDIF out
- 1 x ATI CrossFireX bridge
- 1 x Thermal paste
- 2 x Front feet
- Cable tie, cable clip, adhesive tape & screws
Shuttle Style
The Shuttle X58 is no bigger than its other siblings and is about the size of a compact oven. It's decked entirely in black and it looks stylishly understated. There's nothing to indicate that it is in fact Shuttle's top-of-the-line SFF. Perhaps the only thing that gives away its credentials is the additional LEDs on the front panel to indicate WiFi and Bluetooth activity.
The casing has a high-gloss black finish, which is nice to look at, but at the same time it is somewhat of a fingerprint magnet. The front panel, fortunately, was of a different material. The plastic front was still glossy, but happily, leaves behind no visible fingerprint marks.
There's space for a 5.25-inch optical drive, while the middle bay can be used either for a 3.5-inch hard disk or a floppy disk drive. At the bottom of the front panel are your audio jacks, USB and eSATA ports.
Here we have a headphone jack, a mic-in jack, two USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA port and the reset button.
The entire Shuttle X58H7 is glossy. Even the sides. This makes it a magnet for fingerprints and smudges too.
Around the back, the ports are all neatly placed, labeled and accessible. There's also a handy Clear CMOS button, located at the bottom right corner. It's small enough such that you won't hit it by accident, but large enough so that you can reach it if need be.
There are also vents for the system's two fans, the larger one is for the I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine) module that cools the processor, and a smaller one for the PSU. The larger fan for the I.C.E., we must note, is incredibly loud during operation. A quick check with the BIOS indicated that it was spinning near its maximum of 4000rpm, and no matter what we did, we couldn't bring it down.
Coming to the rear, we see that it's dominated by the fan exhaust that helps facilitate cooling the I.C.E. module inside for the processor.
Despite being a SFF, the Shuttle SX58H7 has all the ports and connectivity options you could ask for. Six USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, dual Gigabit RJ-45 LAN ports, audio jacks and a eSATA power port for additional SATA hard disks.
The Clear CMOS button is located right here.
Cozy Interior
Depending on whether you suffer from claustrophobia, you'll either find the interior of the Shuttle X58 either cramped or cozy. The layout is somewhat similar to the older Shuttle SFF systems and the designers tried their best to utilize any and every ounce of space they could find.
The board supports CrossFireX and SLI natively, but the lack of space means that you can only attempt multi-GPU configurations with single slot cards. Even if you opt for a single dual-slot card, fitting it might be an issue. The ASUS EN9800GTX that we used in our test setup took us quite a while to get it in place. The main difficulty encountered was connecting the two PCIe power connectors that were needed to power the card. It's a tight fit, and even if you manage to get your card in, there's still the consideration of the heat generated in such cramped quarters.
If you go the full stretch and have two hard disks and an optical drive on top of the graphics card, we're concerned that in such tight confines, it will be too hot for optimal operation. Therefore, for gamers who are looking to build a high-end system portable enough for LAN parties, the selection of the graphics card is an important one. Efficient and high performance options are key; perhaps may we suggest a pair of Radeon HD 4770 graphics cards in CrossFire?
We begin our inspection of the interior with the PSU. It is rated at 500W and has a 80 PLUS Bronze certification. Note that at the bottom right corner, there's also two USB headers.
Here's a closer look at the PSU. Note the 80 PLUS Bronze certification sticker.
On the other side, we can see that installing a high-end graphics card takes up nearly all the space that is available. It was also very difficult for us to connect the PCIe power connectors.
The Shuttle SX58H7 has two PCIe slots and is both CrossFireX and SLI compatible. The problem, however, is that multi-GPU configurations are possible only with single slot cards.
Here are the DIMM slots. Notice how most of the data and power cables have already been pre-routed for easy installation.
Removing the HDD rack, this is what we see. Yes, as you can see, it's really cramped.
To keep the processor cool, Shuttle is using what they call I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine). The heatsink uses a Vapor Chamber base to draw heat from the processor to the rear via four heat pipes so that it can be cooled by a fan.
Overclocking
The BIOS on the Shuttle X58 offered decent overclocking options and here are some of the settings that could be played around with:
- Base Clock: 100 - 250MHz
- PCIe Frequency: 100 - 150MHz
- DRAM Frequency: Auto, 800, 1066, 1333, 1600
- CPU Core Multiplier: 12 - 60
- Uncore Ratio: Auto, 6 -15
- QPI Frequency: Auto, 4800, 5866, 6400MT/s
- CPU Voltage Settings: Auto, 0.825V - 1.800V (0.025V steps)
- DRAM Voltage: Auto, 1.525 - 1.900V (0.025V steps)
- IOH Voltage: Auto, 1.125 - 2.000V (0.025V steps)
We encountered some issues when attempting to overclock the Shuttle X58. The CPU core ratio and base frequency could be adjusted fine, but we found that the memory ratio and uncore ratio had to be set to auto for any sort of overclocking to work. In the end, we only managed a meager 160MHz, which is poor considering the mATX ASUS Rampage II Gene could manage 220MHz which is on par with, or even greater, than what some full-size ATX X58 boards could manage.
Test Setup
To find how well the Shuttle SX58H7 small form factor system holds up in the performance department, we pit it against some of the Intel X58 motherboards we've tested - namely the ASUS Rampage II Gene, a mATX X58 motherboard. Also included in the comparison mix are full-size Intel X58 ATX motherboards. While they are expected to perform better, the Shuttle X58 shouldn't be too far off the mark.
This was our test configuration:
- Intel Core i7-965 XE (3.20GHz, Intel Turbo Boost, HyperThreading enabled)
- 3 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 @ 7-7-20 CAS 7.0 (7-7-22 for Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
- ASUS GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB - with ForceWare 178.24 drivers
- Intel INF 9.1.0.1007 and Intel Matrix Storage manager 8.6.0.1007 driver set
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)
The following benchmarks were used to assess the performance of the motherboards
compared in the review:-
- BAPco SYSmark 2007 (with Patch 4)
- Futuremark PCMark05 (ver 120)
- SPECviewperf 9.0
- AquaMark3
Results - SYSmark 2007 Preview
SYSmark 2007 is a popular benchmarking tool used to gauge a motherboard's performance in real world applications, and the Shuttle X58 performed on par with the mATX-sized ASUS Rampage II Gene. Comparatively, it performed poorer than its ATX-sized counterparts, but that is to be expected from a downsized X58 board which aren't usually optimized for performance.
Results - Futuremark PCMark05 Pro
Coming to PCMark05 Pro, the Shuttle X58 might have recorded the lowest score of all our test subjects, but it was only about 7% off the ASUS Rampage II Gene, our top performer. This is probably due to its lackadaisical performance in the HDD segment. In any case, the Shuttle X58's performance is in line with our expectations from a SFF board. In fact, it's somewhat similar to the ASUS Rampage II Extreme which exhibited a similar trait.
Results - SPECviewperf 9.0
The Shuttle X58 was still bringing up the rear, but it can take heart from the fact that its scores were only a tad lower than the rest of the motherboards.
Results - Aquamark 3 & Power Consumption
Aquamark 3 might be an old benchmark, but it remains to this day, a good and quick gauge of a motherboard's performance. Immediately, we could see that the Shuttle X58 was slower than its larger sized X58 counterparts.
Thankfully, the Shuttle X58 redeems itself, somewhat, thanks to its low power consumption figures. It was the runaway leader here, and this is in no small part due to its 80 PLUS certified PSU and of course its motherboard that's more power optimized (which is probably why the raw performance results weren't outstanding).
Niche Following
As one of the first X58 based barebones system to hit the market, the Shuttle SX58H7 is a decent take. Aesthetically, Shuttle has done a good job to update the looks of its new SFF, while retaining the same dimensions as its older products. On paper, Shuttle has managed to reproduce a motherboard with all of the Intel X58 chipset's features. Unfortunately, performance does suffer a tad, but that is to be expected from a SFF board as it is usually not as optimized as its full-size ATX siblings. Still, it's not a slow system by any means.
However, with the Shuttle SX58H7, it is targeted at a very niche group of users. Allow us to explain. As a HTPC, the Shuttle SX58H7 is simply an overkill. There's no point in putting down so much money for a powerful Core i7 processor and DDR3 memory if all you want to do is watch movies from your hard disk, DVD or Blu-ray drive. The fact that the SX58H7 was rather noisy in our testing only made it less suited for this role.
Hardcore enthusiasts may have their eyes on the X58 chipset due to its Core i7 pedigree and its native ability to support both CrossFireX and SLI. Sadly, given the tight confines of the Shuttle SX58H7, that would only be possible with single slot cards, and that's not even factoring in the heat that two such graphics cards will emit while in operation. And then there's the limitation posed by the PSU. It might be certified 80 PLUS Bronze, but it is nonetheless only 500W. It too will be barely adequate to support two high-end graphics cards.
Thus, the Shuttle SX58H7 looks like overkill for a HTPC while being too lightweight for hardcore enthusiasts. However, as you may expect from a Shuttle SFF, it actually makes a very good system for those who frequent LAN parties. Even when fully assembled, it was light enough for us to pot around within our labs. And with a 500W PSU, it'll have enough juice to power a decent enough graphics card, such as our GeForce 9800 GTX, for a smooth gaming experience.
We don't know of any other Intel X58 SFF machine in the market at the moment, and this one from Shuttle isn't half bad. Pity about the price though.
But there's a stumbling block in its rather hefty price tag. At US$649 (S$947), that is enough to get you a decent X58 motherboard, a Core i7 920 processor and have money leftover for perhaps a PSU or a casing. Remember, the Shuttle SX587H comes only with the bare essentials, and that is the chassis, motherboard and PSU. If you want to set up two similarly configured systems, the Shuttle will inevitably cost more. And when you consider its lack of upgrade options, then it dawns on you just how much you need to pay for this little pocket rocket.
As such, the Shuttle SX58H7 will probably follow in the footsteps of its predecessors - the previous Shuttles small form factor machines using the X48 and X38 chipset - and retain its niche following of enthusiasts who demand a customizable (to a certain extent), portable, and powerful system. - Base Clock: 100 - 250MHz
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