Introduction

We would like to thank Shuttle for supplying the review sample.



Shuttle recently introduced the SZ170R8 XPC Cube, which utilizes the fresh R8 chassis. This barebone supports Intel's 6th Generation Skylake LGA1151 CPUs with a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of up to 95W. The SZ170R8 features a PCI-E x16 and PCI-E x4 slot and can support up to a dual-slot graphics card. Its integrated 80 PLUS Silver certified PSU with a capacity of 500 W will easily support a high-end NVIDIA or AMD GPU.

Shuttle's new SZ170R8 system is mostly for demanding users in need of something elegant and small. You only need to install a CPU, some RAM, a storage device, and your graphics card if you plan to use it for demanding video applications or games. Should you not won't to use it for gaming, there is the possibility to use the CPU's embedded GPU. However, with a strong GPU installed, this barebone can be the base of a nice VR system. Without a discrete graphics card, up to three monitors can be connected, which is due to two DisplayPorts and an HDMI port on the mainboard. Shuttle also made the chassis of the SZ170R8 compatible with mini-ITX mainboards should you wish to replace the mainboard, leaving you with an upgrade path.

Specifications

In order to hold as many HDDs as possible, the SZ170R8 doesn't support an optical drive. This is absolutely fine with us since HDDs have really come down in price within the last years and optical drives are now usually left out of system builds. Should you need one, you can always use an external ODD. In total, this barebone can take up to four 3.5" HDDs, and with its optional HDD rack, it is even able to accommodate up to eight 2.5" SSDs or HDDs. Given its compact dimensions, the number of supported storage devices is adequate.

The I/O ports consist of two DispayPorts and an HDMI port, which can be utilized without a discrete graphics card as these rely on the CPU's embedded GPU. There are also plenty of audio ports, but Shuttle chose to only include one Ethernet port. Two of them with a teaming option would have been a welcome sight.

The PSU that powers this system is 80 PLUS Silver certified, and its capacity is set at 500 W, which is enough for all possible configurations. After all, this barebone can only hold a single graphics card, and given the low power consumption of modern GPUs, 500 W is more than enough. We would, however, opt for a PSU with a higher efficiency rating (e.g. 80 PLUS Gold). Priced at the high end, we do believe the price to be justified by the system's features.