Shuttle SV24 Case
They say good things come in small packages and this most definitely holds true for the Shuttle SV24 barebones system. By barebones system, I mean it ships with the case, motherboard, power supply and not much else. With Dimensions of only 19cmx17cmx27cm and weighing only 2.4kg, this system features more than what your average PC does. If you are short on space or require a small computer for a specific purpose, then the SV24 might well be for you. I don't actually have one of these,:( but after reading various reviews and the SV24 thread from the VIA Hardware forums I realised this box is something special! This article will look at the SV24 itself and some of the uses for it. This system is not designed to be a performance unit so no benchmarks were ran.
Features
Shuttle FV24 FlexATX Motherboard
Integrated Video/Audio/Network/FireWire/USB
Front Access USB/TV-Out/Audio/Microphone
Light Weight Alluminium Case
1 3.5" External Drive Bay
1 5.25" External Drive Bay
1 3.5" Internal Drive Bay
145Watt Power Supply
Motherboard
The motherboard used in the SV24 is Shuttle's own FV24. This motherboard would have to be one of the smallest if not the smallest motherboard in retail and OEM channels with dimensions of 18cmx19cm. Like many boards close to this size, it uses the FlexATX form factor. VIA has release a smaller form factor but I haven't seen any boards using it yet but there is bound to be some. This board includes many features that you wouldn't see in a typical system and one is usually only seen in high end systems. Just read the specs below and you'll know what I mean.
Socket 370 for Pentium 3/Celeron/C3 (No Tualatin Support)
VIA Apollo PL133 North Bridge
VIA VT82C686B South Bridge
Integrated S3 Savage 4 Video
Integrated VIA VT1611A AC'97 Audio
Integrated VIA USB Controller with 4 Ports
Onboard Realtek 10/100 Ethernet Controller
Onboard Lucent Technologies IEEE 1394 FireWire Controller
Onboard TV-Output
1 PCI Slot (Requires PCI Riser Card to Use With SV24)
2 DIMM Slots supporting PC133 SDRAM
For additional features this board is second to none. My Microstar MS-6309 has very few of the features above. Some features like integrated video and audio many will be glad not to have but for some they are a money saver. With this board in the SV24, all you really need is a CPU, RAM, hard disk and removable storage and your SV24 is set.
CPU Choice
The CPU is the most important thing you need to add to this system and you need to make the right decision based on what you are going to use this system for and for certain issues like power and cooling. This system isn't really designed for the hardcore gamer. For this reason you don't really need a fast Pentium 3. This leaves the competition down to two. You have the Intel Celeron and the VIA C3. The Celeron is more expensive than the C3 and as long as you don't do anything that is FPU intensive, they both perform similarly. From a price/performance viewpoint the C3 wins out and for a low cost system like the SV24 the VIA C3 is the CPU of choice. Lets face it you don't need anything fast to run Office applications or surf the web so a C3 is a sound investment. The C3 when coupled with a Geforce class graphics accelerator can run games like Quake 3 Arena quite easily so you can play some games. It is also more than capable of playing and DVDs or MP3s you throw at it. Power and heat are other reasons to get a C3 because it is the smallest x86 CPU on the market and uses the least power, thus generating the least amount of heat. This is a major plus for the SV24 because you can get away with only passive cooling and the small 145 Watt power supply. To show you how good the cooling of the C3 is, I've streamed a small version (255KB) of the VIA Burn video.
SV24 Uses
The Shuttle SV24 is the perfect PC for many tasks. It could be used as a home entertainment system for playing MP3s or even DVDs if you include a DVD drive. It could also be used as a LAN gaming box because of it's portability as long as the games aren't too taxing. Some users have added a low profile ASUS Geforce 2 MX PCI to give it some gaming grunt. If Linux was installed on the SV24 it would make a very good Apache web server or a small file server. The SV24 is also more than capable of doing the usual office duties and web browsing.
Conclusion
To sum things up, I'm very impressed with the Shuttle SV24. If I do get some spare cash anytime soon one thing's for certain! The Shuttle SV24 is right at the top of my shopping list and second is a VIA C3 to put in it. Overall the SV24 is the best compact PC I've seen and I want one!