Shuttle xpc sz270r9 review in Spanish (full analysis)

Shuttle is a benchmark in creating barebones and compact equipment, its "cube" type XPC models are legendary and continue to be modernized with each generation. The new Shuttle XPC SZ270R9 is the first in this range with a marked gaming character, with its new front with LEDs, but it is much more than an RGB front.

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We thank Shuttle for the loan of the product for its analysis:

Technical characteristics Shuttle XPC SZ270R9

The word barebone entered the general knowledge of the users of our country through small cubes that were the seed of what we now know as compact systems. Shuttle pioneered this type of system and has been producing them, generation after generation, without much change.

Although the Shuttle cube remains as it was in the beginning, versatile and compact, it has now begun a path of transformation towards the latest functional and aesthetic trends. Today we will show you one of his most recent creations, although not sufficiently updated, with which we can see if the format is still useful today.

The essence of the Shuttle XPC platform

Since there are barebones with a “cube” format, there is the Shuttle XPC range. They are the ones that founded this compact computer format, but with the possibility of powerful configurations, with an essential design that has hardly changed over the years.

Its main characteristics are in the use of a completely aluminum structure, except the front and not in all models, with proprietary format base plates, but with fully compatible anchors with Mini-ITX plates.

These proprietary format motherboards have significant advantages over the standardized compact format, which is the Mini-ITX. They are somewhat wider and longer boards that allow the integration of two card expansion ports and also allow the addition of the four memory slots that we usually find in larger formats. They are important advantages when assembling a work or leisure team, where we want a greater capacity for expansion.

Its modular design, with an integrated power supply, has always included good storage capacity, and with generations the best chipsets have been incorporated, with new storage systems and the possibility of adding other technologies such as wireless connectivity.

These teams have also always enjoyed a good set of connectors, it is easy to find them with two or more Ethernet ports, and varied video connectivity, to easily connect multiple displays.

Another classic feature of this Shuttle platform is the incorporation of cooling systems for direct expulsion of the hot air generated by the CPU. This is accomplished by heatpipe-based heatsinks that connect the CPU to the 80mm rear exhaust fan, which currently has excellent heat and noise management.

Change the design and functionality, but not the platform

All these basic characteristics are found in this ninth generation of the Shuttle XPC format (The R9 at the end indicates the revision of the platform), but many were already added in the R8 version that we can also find in a variant very similar to this, but something more "classic".

In these variants, R8 and R9, we can find a redesigned interior where the options for 5.25 "units disappear and where a quick anchor for 2.5" units is introduced. In these new interiors we can install up to four 3.5 storage units and Shuttle has also added a front fan, synchronized with the CPU fan, to achieve better airflow throughout the case.

The integrated source has also increased its power, it is now in the 500w with "80 Plus Silver" certification and is better dimensioned to cover all the storage units that we can house inside the box. It also accommodates a graphics card with a dual 8-pin and 6-pin PEG connector.

Another of the improvements of these new generations is that these new motherboards support the new NVMe units in M.2 format with PCI Express 3.0 connectivity of up to 4x. This motherboard has two of these connectors, one of which is also SATA capable.

The main difference between the R8 and R9 variants is found in the front. The R9 changes the traditional aesthetics of this range of Shuttle for something more "gaming" with a plastic front that has a powerful LED system with RGB configuration capabilities. We will also find custom software to manage this new platform, which supports overclocking for Intel K-series processors.

Modernized hardware, but not enough

The XPC SZ270R9 we are reviewing today comes equipped with an Intel Z270 chipset, with support for Intel's Optane Memory, limited to 6th and 7th generation Intel Core processors. The new Coffee Lake processors are not compatible with this chipset and this barebone from Shuttle does not support them.

That is certainly a major setback since Shuttle does not currently have a similar barebone with updated chipsets for Intel's Coffee Lake platform. Still, Intel's offering of processors for these generations now has very attractive prices and also very capable processors. We can mount on this barebone processors of up to 90w of consumption so any variant of Intel in socket LGA1151 is covered for sixth and seventh generation Intel Core processors.

On the back we can find four USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 type A ports and, for me the best, two Gigabit Ethernet ports with Intel i211 chipsets. The video connectivity has capacity for three screens, or more if we use dedicated graphics, with an HDMI 2.0 connector and two Displayport 1.4 connectors, all with capacity for 4k above 60Hz.

On the front we will find two additional USB 3.0 type A ports, as well as HD Audio type connectivity. As you can see the most notable lack is that we will not have access to any type of USB-C connector.

Internal connectivity is intensive and shows us why these proprietary format boards are much more capable than any standard ITX. It has two expansion slots, one of them 16x and the other 4x. That is the first difference, the second comes in the form of two M.2 slots for storage units and one more, shorter type 2230 type A, for expansion cards such as wireless network controllers.

The equipment is completed with four SATA 6Gbps connectors, which allow RAID modes 0, 1, 5 and 10 and four DDR4 memory slots, with XMP support, which support up to 64GB in 16GB modules and in a dual channel configuration.

Great versatility

Something that makes this format of Shuttle great, a format practically only cultivated by them (which also have many other compact formats with great acceptance in the industrial market) is that we can use them for all types of PCs, with few limitations. They are machines where we can mount powerful processors, where we can expand memory, storage and dedicated graphics with ease. That makes it an off-road platform.

It admits any graphics in AMD and Nvidia reference format with more than 32cm of length, it also allows a simple and accessible assembly with a lot of lateral opening and very easily to disassemble different elements that facilitate maintenance and assembly.

Everything you need is already ready, just add processor, RAM and storage. The motherboard, the power supply and all the cooling is already fitted as standard and designed to work perfectly together.

The renewed drive mounting system, which supports more disks than ever, also allows us other previously impossible uses such as high data density configurations to form data servers, virtualization machines, etc.

This without neglecting other classic utilities such as forming workstations, office computers and also the true objective of this new model, to bring the format closer to players. We can mount really capable configurations for this type of use since we can install powerful graphics cards, overclocked processors, a large amount of RAM and the best storage units on the market.

Control by XPC Overclock and lighting

The Shuttle XPC SZ270R9 also adds a couple of new features that we did not find in previous models. The front has 8 zones, forming an X, on the front of the chassis. It is the only area of ​​the box that is not built in aluminum. To accommodate this front, Shuttle has placed the front connectors in the upper frame.

This LED system can be controlled by the XPC overclock software that Shuttle releases in this model. The program allows us to monitor and control the overclocking of K series processors from Windows. It has a nice graphical interface that also real-time statistics of the operation of our system and a warning system for any problem in the operation of the equipment.

Within this application we will also have access to the RGB lighting control functions located on the front. It has two color profiles, depending on the overclocking mode that we have activated and the typical effects that we see in all RGB systems such as breathing, blinking, double blinking or fixed color.

It offers us six base colors, but then we can customize another five by mixing the three RGB channels for a total result of 16 million color combinations.

Conclusion about Shuttle XPC SZ270R9

We have decided to mount a massive storage system on this equipment that we will combine with virtual machines for development. In it we have installed an interesting processor such as the Pentium Gold G4560, with two cores and four process threads, with 16GB of RAM, in two 8GB modules, leaving room to expand memory in the future and with 4 4TB disks mounted in RAID 5 and with Windows 10 Pro as the main operating system mounted on a 128GB Toshiba NVMe PCI Express unit capable of developing up to 1.5GBps of reading bandwidth.

Be careful with the size of the RAM that we mount. That are not more than 42mm high.

We have room for more RAM, an extra SSD, we can install if we want a wireless module (it has pre-holes in the back) and we also have two expansion slots where we can add dedicated graphics, more storage, extra connectivity, or anything else we can add thanks to expansion cards.

Its dimensions of 33x22x20cm offer a cubic capacity of just over 13 internal liters, which makes it one of the most compact systems we can find on the market. Shuttle's XPC systems, with their cube shape, continue to be one of the smallest ways of mounting a high-performance PC, and it achieves this with fewer shortcomings than other systems built around the ITX format.

Cable management is good, in fact there is room to hide any excess cables.

As for this variant, the new SZ270R9 I know that it is short in terms of chipset, since we will not be able to mount the new eighth generation Intel Coffee Lake processors, but in general it offers an incredible platform without limitations beyond those that we impose ourselves us opting for compact sizes.

The bios looks classic, but it's UEFI and has interesting tweaks like removing lighting directly on bios.

It is a machine, which, without going overclocking, silent and quite fresh. In our tests with our 54w TDP processor and four 3.5 ”7200rpm drives inside, we have not gone above a system temperature of 40 degrees, with an ambient temperature of over 25 degrees. It has various operating profiles for the fan, depending on our needs, and it also automatically adjusts to specific processor and system requirements. The fan noise has not exceeded, at load, 40dBA of noise, using both the front and rear fans.

Noise management can be done from the bios, with various fan operating profiles.

With a more powerful processor than ours, any 7th generation Core i5 or Core i7, and adequate graphics, we can have a PC to play with excellent features, or with professional graphics, a small design workstation. Shuttle SZ270R9 puts all the options on the table; you just have to choose. Its price in online stores is 400 euros.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ Great expandability	- Somewhat high price for this range
+ Excellent heat management	- Does not support 8th generation Core processors
+ Structure completely in aluminum

The Professional Review team awards him the medal of:

Shuttle XPC SZ270R9

DESIGN - 85%

CONSTRUCTION - 80%

REFRIGERATION - 85%

PERFORMANCE - 80%

83%