Hjemme PC: "5 out of 6 points"
 "If you're looking for a really silent PC, then building it on the
barebone technology surely is an option," state the editors of the Norwegian IT-magazine Hjemme PC. Designed for use in the home environment, the Shuttle XPC Barebone SD11G5 paid a visit to their labs and "could be a good basis" for setting up a low-noise PC.
"All you need to add is a hard disk, a DVD drive, DDR2 memory and a Pentium M processor to make the Shuttle XPC Barebone SD11G5 become a fully-configured PC," explain the editors the way of proceeding. This small cube provides enough room for S-ATA hard disks and PCI-Express graphics cards. Even with the generous test configuration with Pentium M 2.26 GHz, 1GB memory, a 160GB Samsung hard disk and Windows XP Media Center Edition, the Shuttle XPC Barebone performed "impressively quiet," according to the editors of Hjemme PC, as they add: "Thanks to the external PSU, the Shuttle barebone has only one fan left over inside cooling the processor via heatpipe and blowing warm air out of the case on the rear side."
Performancewise, the editors assured the SD11G5 is capable of delivering more performance as it is known from PCs that are supposed to sit in the living room, since they say: "We're talking about performance comparable to top-notch laptops." Apart from home and office use, the Shuttle XPC Barebone SD11G5 can even manage latest games by "simply adding a PCI-Express graphics cards.
Conclusion:
"5 out of 6 points"
Pros:
- Easy assembly
- Noiseless operation
- DVI connector for integrated graphics
- Onboard sound from Creative
- Also suited to operate as Media Center
Source: Hjemme PC, Issue 4 / 2006 |