Shuttle SG45H7 Barebone

[Stefan]

At first I want to thank Shuttle Europe for providing me the SG45H7 Barebone for testing and reviewing.

Description : In this review I will test a very nice looking barebone from Shuttle, SG45H7, which supports any LGA775 CPU to be installed, but also has space to fit a 2-slot video card, or maybe a 1-slot video card and a high fidelity sound card, to make it a perfect Media Center.

About Shuttle :

"Shuttle Inc, founded in Taiwan in 1983, is specialised in development and production of innovative mini PCs. The joint-stock company is represented worldwide by a network of branch offices in Germany, the US and Japan. Since 2001 the attractive cube-shaped PCs have conquered nearly any field of application and have become the core business of the company headquartered in Taipei / Taiwan. Widely acclaimed by customers and press across the globe, Shuttle founds its success on effective management and long-term experience in making mainboards of highest quality standards. Since years Shuttle's mini PC barebones and fully-configured systems are the first choice of many system integrators, VARs, OEMs and ODMs banking on the high reliability and build quality.
With appealing mini PC solutions Shuttle meets the requirements of consumers excellently and seeks to provide further user-friendly solutions of consumer electronics for the digital home environment."

Pricing in Romania : about 250 Euros without taxes

[BREAK=Features, Specifications]

Features :

Specifications :

[BREAK=Packaging Part 1]

Packaging :

The barebone from Shuttle comes in a big cardboard box, nicely decorated, with a plastic handle on top :

On one of the sides, we can see a sticker which has listed some of the technical specifications, we can find out that this barebone is from the "Glamor" series and that it can play High definition and Blu-Ray content without problems :

On both sides of the package, we can see a Shuttle logo, along with the xPC logo :

When we open the cardboard box, we can see that the case inside is protected with a special material on both sides, and all over its body :

Along with the barebone, inside the box we can find some instruction manuals wrapped in a bag, a box with accessories, and a power lead :

On both laterals of the case, we can see a Shuttle embossed logo and some ventilation holes :

The frontal part of the case looks very nice and stylish. In the center we can see the Shuttle logo, the HDD activity LED and the Power LED, along with the ON/OFF button :

The bottom part of the frontal opens, and reveals a headphone jack, a microphone jack, 2 USB ports, an E-SATA port and a RESET button :

A little over the central part, we can see a compartment that opens. Here we can install a card reader for example, to add more functionality to the barebone :

In the back part of the barebone, we can see some reserved spaces for the optional components that can be bought, like WLAN module, Parallel and PS/2 ports; to the left we can see the little PSU fan, a AC Power Socket. The I/O shield connectors are :

-VGA
-HDMI
-1394
-4xUSB 2.0
-2xeSATA
-RJ45
-Audio connectors

In the center we can see the exhaust for the I.C.E. Heat pipe Cooling system, and to the right we can see the spaces to install a video card or other devices :

[BREAK=Packaging Part 2]

When I first opened the barebone, I found out that the heatsink that was supposed to cover the PWM was out of place. Near it we can see a silica gel bag, which prevents humidity to accumulate inside the case :

Inside the case we can see the frame that is used for installing an optical drive, and under it a HDD. Above the HDD we can also install an extra accessory like a card reader :

In the back part of the case, we can see the I.C.E. Heat pipe Cooling system and some cables wrapped together on the left :

On the other side of the case, we can see the little flex PSU, which is 80 Plus certified :

The frame used for installing the optical drive, the HDD and maybe a card reader has to be removed before attaching the devices to it :

The Quick installation guide that is included in the package helps us to install the barebone easier :

In the accessories box, I could find a FDD cable, a S-ATA cable, a HDMI to ESATA connector, some screws and some rubber feet :

For removing the I.C.E. cooling system, I had to remove first the 4 thumbscrews from the back of the case :

After that, I had to remove the fan connector from the motherboard and unscrew the 4 socket screws :

The fan that cools the CPU heatsink is enclosed in a metal cage. The fan is PWM, the maximum rotation speed I have recorded is 3902RPM and it is rated 12V, 0.50A :

[BREAK=Packaging Part 3]

Here is how the heatsink does look. It is composed from 2 parts : the part that makes direct contact with the CPU, and the part with lots of aluminum fins that stays in the same cage with the fan :

The plate that makes direct contact with the CPU HSF is made of copper :

The barebone motherboard has a clean design, and the hot components are covered with passive heatsinks. The northbridge has an extra little high speed fan over it. To the right we can see the memory slots, the SATA connectors and the ATX PSU connector. On the bottom we can see a single PCI-Express 16x slot and a PCI slot, the CMOS battery, and places to put 6 extra USB connectors :

Near the CPU socket, we can see the ICS chip which is the clock generator (9lprs926eglf code name) :

The Marvell chip on the PCB, 88E8056, is the Gigabit LAN controller :

The audio part on this motherboard is provided by a Realtek ALC888 audio CODEC :

Near the PWM, we can see the I/O controller ITE chip, but also the Floppy connector, the Parallel port connector and the PS/2 port connector :

On the power supply body, we can see in detail the voltages, currents and frequencies that this PSU can provide. We can also see that the total output wattage is 300W :

Near the memory slots, we can see the 4-pin +12V connector for the CPU :

[BREAK=Installation]

Installation :

Before installing the CPU, we must remove the plastic socket protection, open the socket and inspect the pins :

After that, we can place the CPU into the socket and secure it properly :

Before installing the I.C.E. cooling system, we have to put a pea sized thermal compound on the CPU HSF for a better contact :

The heatsink can be installed very easy on the CPU, by simply putting it on the HSF and fixing the appropriate screws :

The final step to install the cooling system is to screw back the thumbscrews in the back of the case :

The memory can be installed very easy by putting the memory modules in the slots :

The HDD can be installed very easy by putting it into the aluminum frame and fixing it with 4 provided screws :

The optical drive can be also installed on top of the frame with the provided screws :

For installing a device in the PCI slots, we have to unscrew both screws and lift the metal part :

A video card can be very easy installed and there is plenty of space remaining :

The remaining unused cables can be very easy routed on the other side, because there is some space left between the top of the PSU and the top of the case :

[BREAK=The BIOS]

The BIOS :

The POST screen is similar to other motherboard bioses. In this screen we can find information regarding the installed CPU, its capabilities, the total memory installed, the shared memory ( when using the onboard video ). We can also see the memory frequency and its running mode and the installed devices on S-ATA :

In the main Setup window, we can see the usual menus, like Standard CMOS Features, or Advanced BIOS features :

In the Standard CMOS Features menu, we can set the date/time, but we can also see the detected devices and the total installed memory :

In the Advanced BIOS features menu, we can enable/disable some CPU features, we can set the HDD boot priority, we can also set to seek the floppy on startup, if available, and we can enable/disable the intro LOGO :

In the Integrated Peripherals menu, we can set options regarding the onchip SATA device, the onboard devices like audio or LAN, the SuperIO device and we can set also the USB Device settings :

In the Onboard Device submenu, we can also set the number of memory reserved from RAM, for the onboard video device :

In the Power Management Setup menu, we can set different ACPI suspend types, we can set a resume alarm for the PC, or we can power on the device with the PS2 mouse or keyboard :

In the PC Health Status menu, we can set the fan control mode, the fan speed percentage and the over temp protection ( at which the fan starts to rotate with its max speed ). Here we can also see all the voltages, fan RPMs and the temperatures for the chipset and the CPU :

In the Frequency/Voltage control menu, we can set a different speed to the CPU, we can set the CPU: DRAM Clock ratio, and we are shown the System Memory Frequency clock real time, when we set the CPU clock value. Also in this screen, we can modify the memory timings :

The motherboard does offer 5 memory dividers, which is very good if we have a lower quality RAM or lower rated speed RAM and we want to overclock the CPU :

Also at this menu, we can set the voltages for the CPU, memory, FSB, NB and SB :

Here is how the intro screen does look when it is activated :

[BREAK=The tests]

Testbench :

CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 65nm 1.86GHz
Motherboard : Shuttle FG45
Video : ATI RADEON 4830 and the integrated video chip ( G45/G43 Express Chipset )
Memory : 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR1000
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10

CPU-Z information regarding the installed CPU :

CPU-Z information regarding the motherboard

:

GPU-Z information regarding the G45/G43 Express chipset :

Everest Ultimate Edition 5.02 information regarding the G45/G43 Express chipset :

Everest Ultimate Edition 5.02 information regarding the motherboard :

Benchmark summary chart :

[BREAK=Conclusions]

Conclusions :

I was overall impressed by the build quality of this barebone from Shuttle. The cables inside it can fit very nice because there are lots of holes for a clean wire management.
The barebone can be made functional only by installing a CPU, some RAM and a HDD, other components being optional ( the OS can be installed very easy with a USB Flash Drive ); installing an optical drive ( DVD Writer or maybe a Blu Ray drive ), makes it a more "complete" media center.
The barebone looks very nice and can be very easy put in the living room, near a big Plasma or LCD screen, to watch movies or browse the internet.

Like it can be seen from the benchmarks I've ran ( games and synthetic ), there can be seen that the integrated video chipset does not have a lot of power, and for playing newer games it is absolutely necessary to install a video card. In this system we can install a nice 2 slot video card or 1 slot and a dedicated sound card.

The fan is very loud if it reaches maximum RPM, about 3902, when the CPU heats up, and my E6300 CPU did not exceed 52 degrees Celsius after 20 minutes of OCCT burn-in. In normal operation, like browsing the internet, the CPU temperature did not exceed 40 degrees Celsius on each core.

Regarding the power consumption, I can say that without a dedicated video card, the barebone consumed very little. For example, with onboard video, I had in IDLE 73W and in Full load 110.16W. With the 4830 installed, I have measured 94.02W in IDLE and 210.72W in Full load.

I want to thank again to Shuttle for offering me this product for review!

Overall, I will rate this product 93%!