Shuttle XPC SZ87R6

Desde hace unos meses llevábamos en la redacción de TodoJuegos buscando un PC que cumpliera una serie de especificaciones concretas, a saber: caja pequeña, silencioso, con todo tipo de conectores externos para pinchar mandos de la Xbox 360, discos USB, etc. Y que además nos permitiera ponerle una tarjeta de vídeo PCI Express de tamaño “normal”. El objetivo lógicamente era crear un PC de juegos que poder enchufar a la televisión de cualquier salón, sin desentonar estéticamente ni atronar los oídos. La primera de nuestras intentonas la acabamos de finiquitar con el Shuttle SZ87R6, y ha sido exitosa, aunque con matices.

Lo primero que tiene que quedar claro es lo que incluye este Mini-PC, o mejor, lo que no incluye: ni CPU, ni disco duro, ni memoria. Lo que Shuttle te proporciona es una caja de PC minúscula (en alto y ancho, que no en largo como veremos a continuación), una placa base adaptada a la misma y un sistema de refrigeración especial, lo demás lo pones tú. Tiene su parte buena, que es que le puedes poner lo que más se adapte a tu gusto y presupuesto, aunque quien busque un PC completo ya construido, o no se sienta lo bastante manitas, quedará descartado como comprador.

Las especificaciones de la placa base y conectores incluidos es bastante completa, aunque sin nada que se salga de lo estándar, aquí os lo copiamos directamente del web del fabricante y a continuación os contamos lo que nos parece destacado y lo que echamos en falta:

• Chassis
  Black aluminium chassis
  Front panel: brushed aluminium
  Storage bays: 1 x 5.25" (external), 2 x 3.5" (1x internal, 1x external)
  With the optional accessory PHD3 two 2.5" drives 
  can be installed into one 3.5" bay.
  Front doors for I/O ports and storage drives
  Kensington Security Slot at the back panel (also called K-Slot 
  or Kensington lock) as a part of an anti-theft system
  Dimensions: 33.2 x 21,6 x 19.8 cm (LWH), 14.2 litres
  Weight: 3.5 kg net / 5.0 kg gross
• Mainboard / Chipset
  Shuttle "FH87/FZ87", Shuttle form factor
  proprietary design for XPCs SH87R6/SZ87R6
  Dimensions: 270 x 195 mm
  Chipset/Southbridge: Intel® Z87 (codename: Lynx Point)
  Chipset stepping is C2 or higher.
  Platform Controller Hub (PCH) as Single-Chip-Solution
  Passive chipset cooling with heat sink
  The Northbridge is integrated into the processor.
  Solid Capacitors for sensitive areas provide excellent 
  heat resistance for enhanced system durability
• BIOS
  AMI BIOS, SPI Interface, 32 MBit Flash-ROM with SPI interface
  Supports PnP, ACPI 3.0, Hardware Monitoring
  Supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) [3]
  Supports boot up from external USB flash memory
• Power supply
  Built in 500 Watt mini switching power supply
  AC input voltage: supports 100~240V, 50~60 Hz
  80 PLUS Silver [9] compliant: the PSU provides at least 
  85/89/85% of efficiency at 20/50/100% of load.
  Active PFC circuit (Power Factor Correction)
  ATX main power connectors: 2x10 and 2x2 pins
  Graphics power connector: 6 pins and 8 pins
  Other connectors: 4x SATA, 2x Molex, 1x Floppy
• Operation System
  This system comes without operating system.
  It is compatible with Windows 8, Windows 7 und Linux
• Processor support
  Socket LGA 1150 (H3) supports the fourth generation of
  Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 processors
  Maximum supported processor power consumption (TDP) = 95W
  Codename "Haswell", 22nm process technology, up to 8 MB of L3 cache
  Supports "Haswell Refresh" processors since BIOS SZ87R000.201
  Not compatible with older Socket LGA 1155 processors.
  Support the unlock-function of Intel K-series processors.
  The Processor integrates PCI-Express, memory controller
  and the graphics engine on the same die (depends on processor  type)
  Please refer to the support list for detailed processor support information.
• Processor cooling
  Shuttle I.C.E. (Integrated Cooling Engine)
  Advanced I.C.E. Heat-pipe technology with 4 pipes
  Temperature controlled 92 mm fan
  SilentX cooling and noise reduction technology with Active Airflow
• Memory support
  4 x 240 pin slots
  Supports DDR3-1333/1600 SDRAM memory (PC3-10600/12800)
  Supports 2+2 Dual Channel mode
  Supports max. 8 GB per DIMM,  maximum total size of 32 GB
• Optional: Integrated Graphics [2]
  The features of the integrated Intel HD graphics function 
  depends on the processor type used.
  Supports OpenCL 1.2, DirectX 11.1, OpenGL4.1 and DX extensions.
  Supports HDMI, max. resolution up to 1920x1200
  Supports DVI, max. resolution up to 1920x1200
  Supports D-Sub, max. resolution up to 2048x1536
  (optional VGA-to-DVI-adapter required)
  Supports HDCP function through the DVI and HDMI ports
  Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) playback via DVI and HDMI ports
  Supports Dual-Independent-Display via HDMI and DVI-I port [2]
  Supports 4 displays in combination with a discrete graphics card [7]
  HDMI supports HD-video plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable
• PCIe Expansion Slots
  1x PCI-Express x16 v3.0 slot (PEG, for graphics cards only)
  1x PCI-Express x1 v2.0 slot
  This XPC supports dual-slot (double-width) graphics cards -
  in this case the second PCI-Express slot will be occupied.
  Graphics power connector: 6 pins and 8 pins
• Mini PCIe Slots
  This XPC features two Mini PCI Express expansion slots:
  1) half size, supports PCIe 2.0 and USB 2.0, e.g. for WLAN cards [4]
  2) full size, supports PCIe 2.0, SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) and USB 2.0
  e.g. for Mini SATA (mSATA) flash memory cards [5]
• 7.1-channel HD audio
  7.1 channel High Definition Audio with Realtek ALC888S codec
  Azalia standard support
  Analog: line-out (7.1-ch), line-in, microphone, AUX input (onboard)
  Digital: optical S/PDIF-out (Digital Audio also via HDMI output)
• Dual Gigabit LAN
  Dual Realtek RTL 8111E Ethernet network controller
  with two RJ45 ports
  PCI Express interface
  IEEE 802.3u 1000Base-T compliant
  Supports 10 / 100 / 1.000 MBit/s operation
  Supports Wake-on-LAN (WOL)
• Drive connectors
  4x Serial ATA rev. 3.0, max. 6 Gbit/s (onboard)
  1x External Serial ATA rev. 2.0, max. 3 Gbit/s (back panel)
  Supports Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST 12, Raid 0/1/5/10, JBOD)
  Supports Smart Response Technology (SRT, "SSD Caching")
• Front Panel connectors and buttons
  Microphone input
  Headphone output (line-out)
  2x USB 3.0
  2x USB 2.0 (1x Quick charge with up to 2A, see 8)
  Power button
  Power indicator (LED)
  Hard disk drive indicator (LED)
• Back Panel connectors
  HDMI (supports digital audio) [2]
  DVI-I (supports analog VGA with optional adapter) [2]
  4x USB 2.0
  2x USB 3.0
  2x GigaBit LAN (RJ45)
  7.1-ch Audio line-out (2x rear/front, bass/center, surround/back)
  Audio Line-in
  External Serial ATA (eSATA 3Gb/s)
  Digital Audio: optical S/PDIF output
  Clear CMOS button
  optional: serial port RS-232 (Accessory: H-RS232)
  3x perforations for optional WLAN antennas [4]
• Other connectors
  4x USB 2.0 (two sets with 2x5 pins, one set is occupied)
  1x RS232 (2x5 pins) for optional accessory H-RS232
  2x fan connectors (4 pins), one connector is occupied
  Audio AUX input
  Low Pin Count header (LPC, 2x 10 pins, 2 mm pitch size)
  Other occupied connectors: S/PDIF, USB 3.0/2.0, audio, power buttons, LEDs
• Included Accessories
  Multilanguage XPC Installation Guide (EN, DE, FR, ES, JP, KR, SC, TC)
  32/64 bit driver disk
  2x Serial ATA cables
  Power Cord
  Screws
  Heatsink Compound
  Protector for CPU socket (do not use, if heat-pipe or fan is mounted)
• Optional Accessories
  3.5" to 2.5" adapter (PHD3)
  Backpanel COM port adapter for the RS232 serial interface (H-RS232)
  Wireless LAN 802.11n module with external antennas (WLN-C, see [4])