Shuttle sz170r8 review (full review)

Shuttle SZ170R8 technical features
Unboxing and design
Internal components
Test bench and performance tests
Although it may confuse you, the barebone does have a UEFI BIOS but ... its classic design does not allow us to use the mouse. Which we see as totally unnecessary today, since those of us who have spent so many years continue to use the keyboard in this very basic interface of a computer. It has an overclock menu, temperature monitoring and hard disk management.
Temperature and consumption
Final words and conclusion about Shuttle SZ170R8
Shuttle SZ170R8
DESIGN
REFRIGERATION
SONORITY
PERFORMANCE
CONSUMPTION
8/10

Choosing a good ITX tower is sometimes somewhat difficult, and Shuttle wants to make this easy for us with the launch of its barebone Shuttle SZ170R8 compatible with i7-6700k / i5-6600k processors, DDR4 memory and the possibility of installing a high-end graphics card with a standard quality power supply.

First of all, we thank the trust placed in giving us the barebone sample for analysis:

Shuttle SZ170R8 technical features

Unboxing and design

The Shuttle SZ170R8 team arrives in a fairly compact cardboard box in which we did not find a minimalist design as it has a white background and a silhouette of our new barebone. Obviously, it fulfills more than its most important function of protecting the system during transport.

We open the box and we find the own Shuttle SZ170R8 excellently protected as well as numerous accessories among which stand out the power cable, a CD with the controllers, a thermal paste syringe, hardware and a set of SATA cables to connect our hard drives. We also found a quick start guide available in multiple languages including Spanish.

The equipment front shows a design with a black brushed aluminum finish. We see already, that it does not incorporate a 5.25 ″ drive to connect a DVD or Blu-Ray drive. While in the upper area if we have located the power button and the LED indicators.

We have a small hatch that allows us access to the two USB 3.0 connections and to the two 3.5 mm jack connectors for audio and micro.

We continue to look at the sides and see holes on each side for better breathing of the internal components. While in the upper area it is completely smooth and we cannot highlight anything in particular.

View of the lower area of the barebone.

Finally the back we see the power connection of the source, the processor sink, 2 slots and all the rear connections:

6 x USB 3.01 x eSATA. 1 x Integrated Sound. 1 x Gigabit LAN Network Card. 1 x BIOS Clear Button (Clear CMOS). 2 x DisplayPort. 1 x HDMI Port.

Internal components

The Shuttle SZ170R8 is a computer that comes with the chassis and without any pre-installed components, except for the motherboard, the power supply and the aluminum sink of the processor. Like most barebone, if not all, the user only needs to add a processor, RAM and a storage unit that can be HDD and / or SSD.

In this case we have a motherboard equipped with an Intel Z170 chipset with all its benefits and compatible with Skylake processors with a maximum TDP of 95W, making it quite clear that it is an ideal equipment for high-performance tasks and that it saves us head warming when choosing a box, font and a suitable base plate.

It also accepts a total of 64GB of 2133 MHz DDR4 ram memory on Dual Channel and we have a PCI Express 3.0 to x16 connection to connect a graphics card or even a PCI Express x4 to connect a network card.

We leave you some views of the power supply phases of the motherboard and the heatsinks that protect them. More than enough for stock values or if we want to lightly overclock the processor.

We have accessible 4 SATA connections that allow us to take advantage of the possibilities of mounting a RAID or several SSD disks with a better overall system consumption.

Among the PCI express connections we find two M.2 connectors to install any SSD with type 2242/2260/2280/22110 format with the benefits of 32 GB / s bandwidth. It comes in handy to save the tedious wiring of SATA connections, and we gained a much cleaner and more assembly on such compact equipment.

Internally, the Shuttle SZ170R8 does not allow us to connect two 5.25-inch units, either internal or external ( new in this new generation ). While with adapters we can install up to 4 3.5 ″ hard drives or 8 2.5 ″ SSD or mechanical drives with RAID support 0.1, 5 and 10.

Despite having such a small size, good ventilation is appreciated at the rear thanks to its aluminum heatsink and a small 92 mm fan signed by AVC for the exact model: DS09225R12HP207 . That we can change if we see fit, take into account the height and width spaces before carrying out this operation. At the same time we have another 80 mm fan manufactured by CoolFlow that puts fresh air into the box.

It has a power supply of 500W with 80 PLUS Silver certification. It shares three + 12V lines with 16 amps the first two and 17 amps the third for a total of 588W. More than enough to house any current model of dual slot graphics card, very important. We always recommend reference models in barebones teams.

We must be careful as the maximum dimensions of the graphics card to be assembled must not exceed 280 x 120 x 40 mm. In our case we have opted for an AMD Radeon RX480 that is turbine and it will be great for us to do the temperature tests.

WE RECOMMEND YOUShuttle NC01U Review

Test bench and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	i5 - 6600k.
Base plate:	Incorporated in the Shuttle system.
Memory:	16 GB DDR4 Corsair.
Heatsink	The serial of the Shuttle.
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO.
Graphic card	AMD Radeon RX480.
Power supply	500W power supply included in the barebone.

Although it may confuse you, the barebone does have a UEFI BIOS but… its classic design does not allow us to use the mouse. Which we see as totally unnecessary today, since those of us who have spent so many years continue to use the keyboard in this very basic interface of a computer. It has an overclock menu, temperature monitoring and hard disk management.

Temperature and consumption

Final words and conclusion about Shuttle SZ170R8

The barebone Shuttle SZ170R8 meets all the requirements to be one of the best options in small equipment but with great performance. It allows us to install any sixth generation processor, a total of 64GB of memory, M.2 SATA connectivity, 4 SATA III connectors and any dual slot graphics card currently. regardless of its power by including a 500W 80 PLUS Silver source.

In our tests we have played with an AMD RX480 with an excellent result. For example, titles like Battlefield 4 have obtained 88 FPS in 1920 x 1080 resolution . Excellent Shuttle job!

Both consumption and temperatures are logical and we believe that with 120mm fans it would improve the system a lot. Another point to improve is to incorporate a USB Type C connection on the front.

Currently we can find it in stores like Amazon for a price of approximately 360 euros. We believe that today is a 100% recommended purchase.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ BLACK BRUSHED ALUMINUM.	- DOES NOT INCLUDE USB TYPE C.
+ ALLOWS TO INSTALL THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY COMPONENTS.
+ GRAPHIC CARDS WITH A MAXIMUM LENGTH OF 28 CM.
+ UP TO 8 SSD CAN BE INSTALLED AND WE HAVE ENABLED THE OPTION TO INSTALL AN M.2 CONNECTOR.
+ POWER SUPPLY WITH 80 PLUS SILVER CERTIFICATE.