By Desire Athow
The last few years have seen a variety of form factors emerging. However, it’s easy to forget that vendors have been trying to break away from the mould (the beige mid-tower format) for ages. One of the first was a Taiwanese manufacturer called Shuttle which pioneered small form factor cubes for ages. You will need a pair of them to fill an average mid-tower case and you don’t lose any of the functionality or upgrade capabilities.
The Shuttle SZ170R8 cuts a very familiar shape, reminding us of the XPC SX38P2 Pro and the SH55J2 amongst others – it has a similar rectangular shaped chassis with a square-ish fascia. Since it is a barebones model, it comes without a processor, system memory or storage.
It is available at Ballicom for about £286 (around $420, AU$580) all inclusive which is a lot for what is essentially a pretty case, motherboard and a custom fan. Shuttle aims it at the DIY enthusiast who may use it for a microserver, a portable gaming rig or even a home theatre PC (HTPC).
The front panel is essentially a brushed aluminium, anodised black panel with a couple of …read more
Source:: techradar.com – PC and Mac