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Technology Hardware

World's First BTX Mini-PC 135

Posted by Hemos from the getting-smaller-like-the-reverse-of-spam dept.
CTZ writes "We have direct information from CES 2005 show floor that covers Shuttle's first BTX Mini-PC. It's also the world's first BTX system ever displayed. "Shuttle also had a rather sizable booth with an entire line of their products displayed, as it can be seen from the images throughout this article. Perhaps the most important interesting product they had on the show floor was the world's first XPC based on Intel's BTX standard. Shuttle is looking to make the system affordable, so they have decided to use steel for the chassis instead of aluminum. According to Shuttle, this will bring the cost of the XPC system down by $130.00. The only downside, as some may perceive it, is that the BTX XPC system will be 1" wider than regular XPCs, but regardless, you can expect the same quality from Shuttle."
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World's First BTX Mini-PC More

World's First BTX Mini-PC

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  • Thanks editors for doing your job! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:07PM (#11310961)
    Throughout the article? Either you are exaggerating beyond the normal limits of exaggeration or I am missing something here... I see exactly TWO images. One of a LCD panel and one of a square box that has some sort of tray (DVDRW/CDRW?). Woohoo!

    Let's not forget that the "article" is little more than a press release about a product that saves you $130! Saves me $130 from what? $1000? $2000? $more? Let's make sure that the editors do some weeding out of blatant advertising of crap next time.

    This "article" didn't tell me much about the product, really didn't like anywhere but to other advertisements, and left me guessing.

    Thanks for posting this to the main page. I really appreciate it.

  • Weight? (Score:4, Informative)

    by eln ( 21727 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:10PM (#11310997)
    Won't steel add weight to the thing?

    Also, the one and only experience I've had with Shuttles was when the one we had had its power supply fail. Hardly a good statistical sampling, but it was fairly new, so I personally have a negative view of Shuttle quality, but I may be in the minority on that one.
    • What sort of warranty did they offer? Did they replace it right away? How helpful were they? Those would be my questions especially considering the fact that this may be an insolated incident. On the other hand, this may be quite frequent. If so, then the quality of their service would be meaningless.

    • Re:Weight? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Squatchman ( 844798 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:18PM (#11311076)
      It isn't heavy enough until I can kill my cat with it.

    • Steel? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by phyruxus ( 72649 )
      I'm surprised that using steel instead of aluminum would cut $130 off the price. Aluminum only costs about $0.83/lb. Does it cost a lot to shape or something? I'd expect the harder steel to cost more to work.

      Steel is stronger so maybe they could use less, and not add too much weight. Of course every ounce they add will cost someone in shipping.

      Anyone know why switching to steel saves so much $?

      • Re:Steel? (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Geeks pay much more for aluminum because their 1337-masters tell them it affects performance.
      • Steel is stronger so maybe they could use less, and not add too much weight. Of course every ounce they add will cost someone in shipping.

        I wouldn't count on that too much. Alluminum preassure tanks are much larger than steel preassure tanks, but with half the weight. A steel case half the size should weigh at least twice as much as the alluminum one and yet they are making these steel cases 1 inch wider, so it soundsl ike theres more mass, not less.

      • Cost of steel (Score:4, Informative)

        by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:56PM (#11311473)
        I'm surprised that using steel instead of aluminum would cut $130 off the price. Aluminum only costs about $0.83/lb. Does it cost a lot to shape or something? I'd expect the harder steel to cost more to work.

        I'm an engineer specialized in manufacturing and I've done some work recently sourcing steel for stampings. Steel prices, along with other raw materials, have gone through the roof in the last year or so largely due to demand from China. (I was there recently and you cannot believe the amount of construction going on unless you see it. Absolutely amazing.) As of a month ago, I was getting quotes on steel that were generally in the range of $0.45-$0.57/lb depending on the alloy you wanted and where you needed it. (this is in North America) If you want forgings or something shaped, that will add to the cost. On a weight basis the steel can't cost more than $15-25 (and that's generous) given the amount of material in a typical case.

        $130 seems like a lot just for materials savings unless they were using unusual alloys or really getting ripped off on the labor. Steel is actually pretty easy to work with, often easier than aluminum in my experience. Aluminum is so soft you often have to be careful with coolants and cutting speeds. There are structural considerations sometimes too. Aluminum requires different amounts of material for the same structural strength. But the difference isn't exactly night and day. Frankly I'm having a hard time figuring out where $130 in material savings would come from since the amount of material is so small.
        • There is absolutely no way to reduce the cost of a SFF by $130 dollars by switching from aluminum to steel.
        • Indeed, my company produces copper wire (for transformers, power supplies, etc.) and raw material prices were just crazy the past year. It's strange that prices of end products haven't gone through the roof yet.
          • It's strange that prices of end products haven't gone through the roof yet.

            It shouldn't surprise you so much. A lot of firms have long term contracts to provide materials at a fixed price. In some cases the market is so competitive that they can't raise prices even if the firm was able to. Hence the firm you sell that copper wire to may be unable to pass on the cost increases to their customers. I've been working with some auto suppliers that are absolutely taking a bath because they can't pass on the
        • My bet is that they want to make it sound not as cool and they are dropping their margine signifigantly. If they can keep the consumer thinking that all prices are based on cost they can try to not undercut their high end systems and enter into a low end market.

          I have a G5 chasis and I with it was 1 inch thicker, I am currently running it with the lid off and will be cutting out one of the sides to acomodate a quite fan for my graphics card.

          if I cut it well it won't look bad, but it will be a pain to tra
      • From this article:
        http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ m i_m3165/is _n9_v24/ai_6987079 ...
        One drawback--the inability to spotweld aluminum -- is near a solution. Alcan International Ltd. assures that it soon will release a sheet-aluminum bonding material, which company officials say has achieved "commercially acceptable levels of performance" for structures that are equal to steel in stiffness, strength and crashworthiness. ...
        But automakers don't shy away from the versatile material because of past failu
        • "for structures that are equal to steel in stiffness, strength and crashworthiness. ...

          Must....resist....M$....bashing.....urge.....
        • I think the US automakers are just cheap.

          Acura has had the all-aluminum NSX out for over a decade. Take a look at the lines on that car. They only do aluminum bodies for one single car, so what's the issue with GM using aluminum? Are you telling me Acura has more money to blow on frivolous engineering?

          Also, Mitsubishi knows a thing or two about working with aluminum. The Evolution 8 has an aluminum nose and front fenders, and the MR model and all of the 2005's will have an aluminum roof as well.

          GM
    • I've had my Shuttle for well over a year, without problems. Well, last week the 80GB SATA Maxtor disk in it crashed and burned, but while I suspect heat buildup inside the Shuttle to be part of the cause, it might just have been a bad HD. ;)
  • Please stay tuned for more interesting coverage of the show floor...

    ...Because we know it couldn't be less interesting than this report.

  • How big IS this thing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fuzzy12345 ( 745891 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:17PM (#11311062)
    Given the relative prices of aluminum and steel, I'm picturing something the size of my desk! How can aluminum vs. steel construction represent a price difference of over $100?
    • Basically, because they can charge that much. Its ludicrous, and aluminum is a cheaper substance overall. People think they need the added cooling that aluminum provides and the manufacturers are quick to trump that claim up (this 'thermal conductivity' theory is even promoted by ESR's guide on buying PC parts). The markup on these things is huge, because everyone's excited about smaller computers that fit nicely in your home theater. What they fail to mention, is that you certainly can't fit an ATi Radeon
    • actually, "new" aluminum is more expensive to process that steel. scrape aluminum, on the other hand, is very cheap in comparison, partly because of the cost involved in seperating the impurities prior to the smelting process.

      yeah, steel is heavier, but it does have some advantages that aluminum lacks. it's easier to weld, it has magnetic properties, and it's more pliable than aluminum...
      • yeah, steel is heavier, but it does have some advantages that aluminum lacks. it's easier to weld, it has magnetic properties, and it's more pliable than aluminum...

        So maybe that's where the savings to Shuttle come from? Not materials, but production costs?

        • I'll believe the savings when I see them, rather than when they're speculated on by a trade show hack.
        • a little of both, actually...
          i remember drinking pop from glass bottles. the returned bottles had to go thru some type of cleaning process before refilled. this had to cost labor+time=money for the manufacturer.

          welding aluminum products requires inert gas(argon). the out gassing of vaporized aluminum is poisonous, and aluminum does burn under the right circumstances. pressure molding steel (bent/rolled edges) is easier because it doesn't crack as easily as aluminum. in fact steel can be manipulated in turn
          • Steel needs shielding as well. Typically in the form of Ar/CO2 (75-25) for GMAW and GTAW process, and flux for SMAW process. That isn't really the issue. Like you say, the issue is that steel is easier to form with presses, brakes, etc.

  • In other CES news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Leomania ( 137289 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:18PM (#11311077) Homepage
    One class of products seen on the floor at CES that has generated a lot of interest is the SEX (Slashdot-Effect eXterminator) that promises to end the near instantaneous meltdown caused by the DDoS^H^H^H^H heavy loads placed upon sites linked to by that "News for Nerds" site.

    "See that big hole in the side there?" asks Ned Farblestrom of BlackHole Technologies, pointing to a 3/4 inch hole in the side of the case. "That's where we hook up a big fat pipe to handle the load. Those Slashdotters won't be able to fill that up!"
    • I hate to break it to you, but this is a product you will never see around here, because everyone knows that /. geeks never have any. Oddly enough, I never swore an oath to celibacy, I never sought such a state, yet here I am, in the land of nothing down under. Maybe it IS the electromagnetic fields ...

  • For want of better information (Score:4, Informative)

    by asliarun ( 636603 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:19PM (#11311087)
    here's an Anandtech article on BTX:-
    http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=187 6

  • A Much Better Article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hack Jandy ( 781503 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:20PM (#11311096) Homepage
    Again, AnandTech saves the day

    BTX: http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i =2317&p=15 [anandtech.com]
    Shuttle: http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i =2317&p=6 [anandtech.com]

    More Shuttle: http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i =2317&p=5 [anandtech.com]

    God forbid CTX actually covered the show instead of just rewriting press releases...

  • Steel saves $130? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:20PM (#11311101)
    Shuttle is looking to make the system affordable, so they have decided to use steel for the chassis instead of aluminum. According to Shuttle, this will bring the cost of the XPC system down by $130.00.

    Can someone explain to me how in the hell this can be so? Even with a 3x markup, that's $43. There is absolutely no way that a switch to steel can save that much money. $10 maybe, but not $130. Someone is pissing on our backs and telling us it's raining.

    • Production costs? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dhakbar ( 783117 )
      Maybe it has nothing to do with the material costs, and everything to do with the actual production of the case?
      • Nice guess, but no. I've designed sheetmetal enclosures in both steel and aluminum and there's no significant difference in production costs. If anything, aluminum is a little cheaper to work with because it can be anodized instead of painted.

  • "You can expect the same quality from Shuttle..." (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:21PM (#11311110) Homepage
    That's Slashvertising plain and simple.

  • Image mirrors (and some more pics from shuttle) (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:22PM (#11311120)
    Ok, the article is hardly loading for me.. so here are some mirrors of the 2 images from this article and some other images from some other article about the Shuttle stand (I forget where that was, thanks to the original site whoever it was).

    Link [0daymeme.com]
    Link [0daymeme.com]

    and from the other article...

    Link [0daymeme.com]
    Link [0daymeme.com]
    Link [0daymeme.com]
    Link [0daymeme.com]
    Link [0daymeme.com]

  • "Small Form Factor"??? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jo42 ( 227475 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:23PM (#11311134) Homepage

    Is it me, or are not these so called "small form factor" machines getting bigger and bigger? To the point that they take up as much room, if not more, as compared to what we used to call a "medium tower case"? Hmmm??

    • The footprint is almost there, if not already the same. The height is what they're pushing now I imagine.

      As long as they keep the costs down they will continue to appeal to their market, but I personally like having the storage/device options that a large case affords. Nothing says "piece of mind" like knowing that you can slap another harddrive/Burner into a case instead of using an external enclosure.
    • I have two Shuttles stacked where I used to have 1 ATX machine before.

      In all honestly I want some of what you are smoking.
  • Also note, in other small form-factor PC news, that UK co Armari are now shipping the iwill zmaxdp dual-opteron SFF PC:

    overview [armari.com]
    customise [armari.com]

  • Now worldwide? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:32PM (#11311225) Homepage
    From the article:

    In North America alone, Shuttle retails around 10,000 XPC systems per month and now they are getting a demand from consumers throughout the world. Because of the demand, Shuttle has decided to retail their XPC systems to the European and Brazilian markets.

    I've had a Shuttle system on my desk for the last two and a half years, and I'm in the UK.

    I always liked the idea and looks, but dislike the noise - I don't know how more recent models compare (I have an SB51G [shuttle.com]) and would be interested to, err, hear...

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • Re:Now worldwide? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:43PM (#11311338) Journal
      I had one of the very early shuttle models--FX25 or something that like, and it was loud as hell. Now we're using a bunch of SS51G's I think is the model, P4's, at work, and you can barely hear them, period. They're great.
    • I've got a SN45G [shuttle.com] (v2 variant, not the v3 here which only seems to add SATA and change the sound chipset) and it's quite a bit quieter on normal load that my Antec 660AMG that it's sitting on. Occasionally, the fan will go full speed during some heavy compiling, but then it's only slightly louder than the Antec.
    • You did set the fan to automatically adjust it's speed based on the case/cpu temp? It's a setting in the BIOS. If not, I think it will run full speed which could be a little bit loud if it were sitting right on your desktop. I have eight XPC's at work (as a cluster) and a couple at home. They all run very quietly.

  • Worthless (Score:4, Funny)

    by shamowfski ( 808477 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:33PM (#11311234)
    Hey Look! I'm playing Duke Nukem Forever on my BTX form factor PC. Thanks to 3DRealms and Intel for making this possible...

  • you can expect the same quality from Shuttle. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by commo1 ( 709770 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:34PM (#11311248)
    Quality? From SHUTTLE? These are the guys who send wave after wave of CPU destroying VRMs on their boards. 6 months, dead CPU...
    • Have to agree with you here.

      Got two dead shuttles littering my living room. I ended up ripping the CPU out of my A64 one and putting it into a normal mobo and its been working fine since then.

      I like the form factor, but none of the manufacturers are making very reliable kit. If you want reliable, try Asus or Gigabyte mobos in a standard case.

      The small form factor sure looks cute, but its not buying you anything in the way of reliability.

  • So? (Score:3, Funny)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @01:39PM (#11311292) Homepage Journal
    Is there a sudden crash in the worldwide availabilty of desk space? Especially given that most non slaves get flat screens now?

    First off I can see tremendous fragility problems with monkeying with the screen angle and flopping the screen and the entire computer onto the desk, or worse, off the desk.

    I guess you'll see these soon on every desk in every TV show soon but in terms of reality it doesn't really answer much of a need.
    • Who says most non slaves get flat screens?
      • Well that's partially true. Most of our new machine installs where the person actually has the clout to get a new external monitor at all w/o resorting to stealing one out of a lab, gets one. The rest of us get older, odder, can't sell them to the public versions of our notebook machines.

  • BMX Mini PC? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 )
    Crap, I read that wrong. A BMX Mini PC sounded really interresting.
  • I'm confused by the product http://de.shuttle.com/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid -72/170_read-10151/ [slashdot.org]:

    Mainboard
    Shuttle FB86, Shuttle form factor, proprietary design for SB86i

    AFAIK, the term "BTX" applies just as much to the enclosure as to the motherboard. If either is not BTX-compliant, then the machine can't be marketed as such.

  • Tainted? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The monitor will be tainted with a special coating

    I'm scared.

  • ... shuttle ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ninjagin ( 631183 ) on Monday January 10, 2005 @02:42PM (#11311984)
    I have four shuttles (all are SS51Gs -- one for gaming, one is my media center PC, one is my Linux box and the fourth is a development machine) and they're all great machines. Reliable, durable, and the three that run the cool, power-sipping celerons are pretty quiet. My gaming shuttle, sporting a 2.8 P4 and a Radeon 9800 Pro AGP card, is a lot warmer and also noisier, but still less noisy than full-size ATX boxes I've built with five fans in them.

    So call me a shuttle fanboy -- I can take it. As soon as they offer a flex-ATX that takes the 64-bit AMD athlon AND has support for PCI-express, I'll upgrade the gaming box.

    Some points have been raised that BTX is a more bloated form factor than the traditional shuttle flex-ATX that we've been used to, and I'd agree. I think that the increase in size is due to a couple things:

    1. Instead of just being smaller, SFF systems are increasingly being judged on the features they incorporate. New features add heat and often need more space on-board when they're first introduced. The size of a flex-ATX board layout was probably becoming restrictive to the desire to add new features.
    2. Given that they needed the additional space, adding a half-inch on each side of a shuttle isn't that big of a bloat. These machines are very compact right from the start, and the lack of ample space for some of the wider AGP cards (or vid card heatpipes/other vid card cooling solutions) has been the subject of some shuttle SFF user grousing for awhile now.

    When I first started building PCs some 4 years ago, I became used to having to unravel driver and moboard firmware issues as part of the job. With each of my shuttles -- each sporting a different OS -- I've had zero issues. Linux support has been great (I've only tried Fedora Core, RedHat9 and Suse, so the sample size ain't all that large, admittedly).

    For me, the biggest plusses of XPCs are that they have fewer fans (and are, hence, more quiet), are very portable, and where I used to have one biga$$ tower I can have three shuttles. If I were putting together a cluster/server farm, they'd probably be a good choice, too, because I could cram lots of them into a small space.

    SFFs are getting a lot more exposure, and I think that's a good thing. That Shuttle is emerging into the BTX space is also a good thing, imho.

  • I picked up a Gateway 700GR system a few months back to replace another box and its a BTX based system. I wish more BTX stuff would hit as I'd like to replace this case with somthing nicer... http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/3726/3726nv.shtm l [gateway.com]
  • Aren't we waiting a long time for all this new technology to come out? I've been waiting to a BTX FF motherboard, socket 939 and with PCI-E on it. I'm starting to wonder if I won't be waiting 'till 2007 to be able to buy one. Is it just me, or all these nice and new things are just taking forever to show up?
  • Dimension 5000 [dell.com] is already for sale as a BTX system. Check out the product views and look at the motherboard [dell.com].

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