Shuttle KPC

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9mmx19

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 6, 2004
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$199 Linux system, theres also a $99 barebones version which should be more interesting. Should be available at the end of Q1.

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The kPC design isn't quite finalized, and Shuttle is currently grappling with whether it will include an external 5.25" optical bay. A PCI Express expansion slot should make it into the final revision, though.
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If the barebone system comes with a 5.25 bay and a PCI-e expansion slot it could be a pretty sexy HTPC. I always liked the XPC design but the cost was never really worth it before.
 
Doesn't have a 5.25" drive bay. Shuttle did say it was targeted towards corporate buyers. Having no 5.25" drive bay makes sense then as I know in our company we've been doing network installs for the past couple of years.
 
I like the case, i already have a back up pc with a 420 1 gb ram 300gb hdd and a x800xl, you think i should buy this instead?
 
I saw this and the first thing I though of was mini gaming server for lans. Hopefully the specs are nice. Can't wait until I can mess with one.
 
If it uses a 3.5" drive, I'll buy the $199 version and shove a 500GB drive in their (another $100). Then you can put Ubuntu on it (or Windows, or FreeNAS, or whatever floats your boat) and have a nice little file server.
 
Oh nice finds. Good news about that laptop optical bay at least. But what are you supposed to do about the bezel? I guess you could leave it of but then lose the style. Cutting it seems like too much hassle.
 
Newegg has them, I've got a spare slot loading DVD drive so I'm thinking of picking one up for a cheap PC.
 
Ya i was considering one of these, but the small 100watt power supplies worries me with a processor and two sata drives.
 
nodle said:
Ya i was considering one of these, but the small 100watt power supplies worries me with a processor and two sata drives.
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Depends on the processor right? An e2160 should take nothing to run leaving you with enough headroom for 2 or 3 hard working drives.
 
Yes, I just got one the other day. Barebones, have an e2180 in it with 2GB ram.
I can only tell you that I would not buy this again. There are some MAJOR engineering screw ups in this system that I will review in a new thread soon after I thrash it a bit to watch the temperature. Let me be the first to go on record for pointing this out... the CPU is NOT centered under the HSF. Like I said, I'll have a new thread up by this evening explaining the screw ups in this system.
Do not buy this unless you want to have a project on your hands. There is, btw, a reason why I believe they are only releasing a celeron option and not something with more power... get ready for the ___ to hit the fan with this little secret.
 
9mmx19 said:
Im disappointed they didnt discover or try anything with the "hidden" optical bay.
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"Hidden?" What does it have a bay, but no opening in the front? They did say this, "The only issue is that since this system does not have room for an internal optical drive, you must configure it to support a USB based optical drive."

Looks damned impressive for a full system for $200! So what is this major screwup?
 
sleepeeg3 said:
"Hidden?" What does it have a bay, but no opening in the front?
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It has an opening, it's just not exposed through the plexi:

http://bigpcgeek.com/blog/2008/03/28/shuttle-kpc-unboxed-reviewed-reveals-hidden-gem/

I haven't measured the length of my KPC yet, but the motherboard mounts are standard M-ITX and the power supply is standard for it's form factor (I forget which it is) and the rear panel has standard 90mm fan mounts, so an enterprising individual could remove or mod the plexi front, install a 5.25" slim DVD writer, upgrade the power supply, swap in a M-ITX board with a PCIe x16 slot, install a video card (perhaps even an 8800GT) and a 90mm rear fan and you'd have one of the smallest SFF gaming/performance PCs out there, period. It's certainly one of the best M-ITX cases out there.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
"Hidden?" What does it have a bay, but no opening in the front? They did say this, "The only issue is that since this system does not have room for an internal optical drive, you must configure it to support a USB based optical drive."

Looks damned impressive for a full system for $200! So what is this major screwup?
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I'm not sure what his complaint is. I did notice it was tough to get the stock heatsink/fan combo to snap into place. There's a guy over at AVS with one that didn't have any issues, either.

I've been running mine for a few weeks now. Dual core celeron e1200, 500GB WD Greenpower HDD, 2gb of $7AR HP DDR2.

Services my magicjack, TVersity, and working on getting a frontend to work to use it as a classic game HTPC. \
 
nray said:
...an enterprising individual could remove or mod the plexi front, install a 5.25" slim DVD writer, upgrade the power supply, swap in a M-ITX board with a PCIe x16 slot, install a video card (perhaps even an 8800GT) and a 90mm rear fan and you'd have one of the smallest SFF gaming/performance PCs out there, period.
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If you're replacing every component in the KPC, then why buy a KPC at all? Anyone looking for something approaching a "gaming/performance PC" shouldn't be considering a KPC in the first place. Shuttle makes X38- and P35- and nForce-based systems for those markets, with no acrylic cutting necessary for an optical drive.

The KPC would be great for my grandmother---small and quiet and she can put family pictures in the bezel. It's quite capable enough for the e-mail and word processing and Web browsing she does. Except for the lack of optical drive..... But seeing that it has the slim-drive bay makes it interesting again.

There's just enough space below the acrylic panel, I wonder if Shuttle had intended for the panel to slide down and expose the slim-drive bay? But then took that ability back out for whatever reason. Or maybe make it available in some later KPC model, without having to make a new case frame?
 
Ok that seals the deal...

I wanted one of these but got turned off by the idea of having to have an external optical drive.

Now that I see there's a spot for one, I'm going to pick one of the barebones kits up and do a mod job to cut out the drive slot of the front, hopefully with some sort of spring loaded mechanism to make it flip out and downward (like the Lian-Li cd bezels do). :)
 
rsquared said:
If you're replacing every component in the KPC, then why buy a KPC at all?
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Size and price. Speaking as someone who spent a lot of time and money trying to build the smallest M-ITX gaming PC and gave up because it meant I'd have to either fab or have fabbed for me a tiny custom case, the M-ITX market doesn't have a case as capable as the KPC case for high-performance applications.

Most M-ITX cases have no or very limited expansion card possibilities, allowing only reduced height or massively reduced length expansion cards, many times oriented parallel to the motherboard thanks to a riser card. Absolutely horrible for airflow, but, those designers primarily care about the embedded market which isn't typically high performance (unless you count the most recent generations of slot machines, but that's a whole different story and they can fab their own stuff as needed). The embedded automotive, industrial, and corporate M-ITX market doesn't care about graphics cards and airflow.

Now personally I had high hopes for the Morex Venus 668B, and thought it would be the perfect Shuttle-like case but with a motherboard I could upgrade at will:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/venus_668b

That is, until I learned that the 5.25" drive bay frame completely obstructs half the length of the inner (and in the case of non-FlexATX boards) and only slot, eliminating the possibility of using a decent video card of any sort.

Now take the KPC, which could actually fit a video card that is as long as it's interior, unobstructed! That's basically unheard of for such a small case, and to combine that with good ventilation holes on the left and the right as well as a 90mm fan in back and upgradable components for only about $5 more than the More Venus 668B, well, I declare that a steal in the M-ITX world.

Anyone looking for something approaching a "gaming/performance PC" shouldn't be considering a KPC in the first place.
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I didn't recommend it for everyday people to build a gaming/performance PC, I recommended it as one of the best cases to build one of the smallest high performance desktop PCs.

Now personally, having given up on M-ITX as a gaming platform a little over a year ago and moved to MicroATX, I bought a KPC so I could stick a quad 100Base-T ethernet card in it and run pfSense off a compact flash card in SATA adapter. It'll make one damn fine firewall.

Shuttle makes X38- and P35- and nForce-based systems for those markets, with no acrylic cutting necessary for an optical drive.
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And they're bigger cases. Have you actually physically picked up a KPC case?
 
Just ordered one from Newegg, can't wait to tear it apart and open up that optical bay and throwing a spare slot loader I have sitting around. :)
 
I'm curious if a PCI Geforce 6200 would fit into the KPC. That would give it enough oomph for HD.
 
I really wish Shuttle use external power supply like those for laptops. Quiet and best for a build of NAS. The internal PS is probably not durable.
 
fguo79 said:
I really wish Shuttle use external power supply like those for laptops. Quiet and best for a build of NAS. The internal PS is probably not durable.
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You can always get something like this: link.

I think shuttle sells an external power supply for their PCs as well, but I'm not sure how much it costs.
 
hmmm I might have to pick one of these up. I have 2gb of ram and a 200gb hard drive around. I can get an E2200 for $80 on newegg, so for $189 I would have a fun little box to play around with.

Or I could just use the Celeron 430 for $42
 
I think I'm gonna buy one of these. Does anyone know if you can fit something like a Thermalright XP-90 in this thing?
 
I think the xp-90 would be too tall for the case based on the newegg pictures. it looks like space is limited between the hsf and the hard drive.
 
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