Shuttle X27D

Shuttle has broken with tradition with its new X27D barebones by bundling a processor – Intel’s new dual-core Atom – as well as the case, motherboard and power supply.

We’ve had no complaints about the meagre performance Intel’s single-core Atoms provide so far, since they’re cheap and draw little power. The new Atom 330 remains a frugal desktop processor, even if its Thermal Design Point (TDP) has doubled to 8W compared with its 4W Atom 230 predecessor (which is much higher than the Atom N270 for laptops, with 2.5W TDP). The TDP, which equates to its energy consumption, would probably have been lower if this were a native dual core. Instead, the Atom 330 contains two separate processor dies.

It continues to operate at 1.6GHz, while the extra core means Level 2 cache has been doubled to 1MB. Intel has also added 64-bit support to the Atom 330, although that doesn’t benefit the Shuttle X27D, which has a 2GB Ram limit.

Overall, our benchmarks show that its performance sits between the single-core Atom and low-frequency Core 2 Duo. Performance doesn’t improve in applications that aren’t multi-threaded, but in our multi-core Cinebench test performance increased 85 per cent, while performance went up 37 per cent in our PCmark05 CPU test over the single-core Atom.

The Atom 330 has a similar TDP to a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600, but is half the speed in our Cinebench 9.5 tests and a third slower in PCmark05’s CPU test. Vista operation is sluggish and the dual-core Atom can be justified in low-cost devices only.

The Shuttle X27D’s physical design is impressive. It’s a compact, all-metal chassis, with ventilated sides and an external power brick. A solitary fan whirs quietly inside below a removable metal caddie that can only accommodate a laptop-size 2.5in hard drive and slimline optical drive. Externally you get DVI and VGA ports, as well as six USB ports and analogue surround-sound 3.5mm jacks.

Our X27D, fitted with a 5,400rpm hard drive and 1GB of Ram but no optical drive, idled at 25W and drew 28W under load. This is an excellent result and only the Eee Box B202 and PCs using laptop Core 2 Duos (such as the Novatech Solo Pro).

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