Shuttle SZ68R5 Review

These are available, brand new and directly from Asetek, on a certain very well known auction site.

Shipping to the UK is about £19.
 
As requested some photos showing the Asetek 545LC in place.
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A few fitting notes.
Firstly you have to remove the motherboard to put the backing plate on, which is a bit of a pain.
The radiator only fits with the tubes at the top, which is how I would want them anyway.
The Block possition needs carefull attention, I found that a sideways tube location was best and allowed the Hard drive caddy the cleanest fitting. If the tubes were a little shorter the block could be seated with the tubes at the back, but they also cross over when you do that.

Summary... Fitting is ok. The Rad fitting is perfect, the block is good and the tubes ok.

Temps... I tried this with the Shuttle ICE fan and a purchased 3800rpm 73cfm Asetek Vapochil fan and both were very similar with the Asetek one winning as its slightly quieter. Temps are way below the ICE air cooler. Here are a few samples.

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Full Size

SZ68R5@4800_prime95_1Hour_Full Fan Water_s.jpg

Full Size
 
Simon, amazing work. every time you supply more information about this, the more tempted i get to the point where im now sold on it! i was just about to order it from a UK retailer i found but they've sold out now. i guess a couple of weeks more wont hurt. again excellent work.
 
Montala said:
Probably been 'grabbed' by other readers of this thread! ;)(
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Well so far the review has had 853 visits by 634 different people viewing 4,408 pages with the average user staying 7:01 minutes

Of the 853 visits 256 have been directed from the OCUK forum

As you can tell I love my stats :)
 
Quick update on UK supply. It's odd that the SZ68R5 does not appear to be really available in the UK yet, I just spoke to Shuttle in TW and they have told me that UK distributers have just finalised thier orders and should expect product next week.
 
Excellent stuff Simon, I am going to purchase one of these to replace my SD37P2, the prices seem most reasonable nowadays.
 
My last shuttle was one SN25P. VERY tempted with this.

Some questions regarding drives though. I take it the optical drive setup is the standard "tray opens the flush fit/spring loaded door" effort? How do you think a slim optical would shape up in there maybe with the sping loaded door removed and a slot loading slim fitted flush with a fresh bit of black aluminium plate cut to fit/match?

Would be kinda nice to boost the drive bays to 6x2.5". You could pack a 4 disk raid 5 with an SSD in front for the intel speed caching thing and a bigger SSD as boot/main drive.

Get the water cooling, a good chunk of ram and my 2600k in there (under the water cooling solution) and that gives a VERY powerful little box.
 
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Mercutio said:
Some questions regarding drives though. I take it the optical drive setup is the standard "tray opens the flush fit/spring loaded door" effort? How do you think a slim optical would shape up in there maybe with the sping loaded door removed and a slot loading slim fitted flush with a fresh bit of black aluminium plate cut to fit/match?
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Yes the DVD bay setup is standard shuttle. I would think that the conversion for a slim drive would be complex and spoil the look of the front... My personal view would be to go for an external USB powered slim dvd drive which u just plug in as needed.
 
SimonMaltby said:
Shuttle have very kindly given me one of thier latest bare bones machines, the SZ68R5 which I have now reviewed.


The full review can be found Here

The SZ68R5 is a typical Shuttle cube computer built with the Intel Z68 Express chipset and this should be a great improvement over the previous SH67H3 and SH67H7 which were based on the Intel H67 chipset.

The R5 chassis is very slightly bigger than the H3/H7 and seems to have more space inside due some structural changes and the re-possitioning of the PSU.

So this shuttle is for the Intel Sandybridge 1155 socket CPU and supports unlocked K processors.

Please post any comments or questions and I will be happy to answer.
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Hy I added you via MSN, I would need your help, advice regarding the SZ68R5
 
SimonMaltby said:
Yes the DVD bay setup is standard shuttle. I would think that the conversion for a slim drive would be complex and spoil the look of the front... My personal view would be to go for an external USB powered slim dvd drive which u just plug in as needed.
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Hmmm, I guess this would be the easiest way around it. I just like the idea of a slot in the front with nothing else letting on it's the optical drive.

I'd even go as far as hiding the eject button and just using the soft eject to do it from the context menu in "my computer". It's not like that option is usually unavailable in general use. Even during setup I can't think of a sensible reason you'd need to hit the eject button. If you do, pull the flap down manually and press the button :)
 
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Hi guys,

I've in my hands an Shuttle Sz68R5 with Intel i7-2600K and last bios 1.05

I added an other fan to better cooling, and push rpm in I.C.E. from bios.
This CPU works in other mainboard over 5 GHz.

I tried to overclock CPU and testing with prime95, first to 4 GHz and after 4.5 GHz, but to 4 GHz CPU starts to 40x but drops up to 3.7 GHz in maximum test, and after push to 40x.

It's a Thermal Throttling problem, in this bios I notice isn't possible change Watt power but I checked in BIOS the following option:

Power Limit 1 Value (1/8 watt), default 520
Power Limit 2 Value (1/8 watt), default 650

I increased about 960 (120W x 8) but the problem is the same.

I see this screen:
http://www.motormice.com/reviews/SZ68R5/reviewImages/image069.jpg

in this screen, there is a power technology setting, but in my bios this setting is no displayed. I downgraded to 1.04 but in this case the setting does not exist.
 
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