Shuttle working on Sandy Bridge barebones

Barebones manufacturer Shuttle has developed two systems based on Intel’s new Sandy Bridge platform. The barebones will not be released until the end of March, when the problems with the sata-300 ports have been solved.

The two systems support a selectable Sandy Bridge processor, also known as second-generation Core processors. The socket lga1155 of the motherboards offers space for the processors produced at 32nm with integrated GPU. The motherboards of the XPC barebones SH67H3 and SH67H7 are therefore based on the H67 chipset and therefore do not have to be provided with a separate video card. Both boards have four memory slots for DDR3 bars, up to a maximum memory capacity of 16GB.

The boards are equipped with a single PCI Express x16 slot, a PCI Express x1 slot and a Mini PCI Express connection, which can be used for WLAN cards, among other things. The components are supplied with an 80Plus certified 300W power supply and the cooling comes from a single 92mm fan in combination with heat pipes. Only the appearance of the two barebones differs; with the H3 all ports and interfaces are accessible, while the H7 version has a more tidy appearance. Both versions have, among other things, two USB 3.0 ports on both the front and rear, HDMI, DVI and two ESATA ports, 7.1 channel sound and gigabit network connections.

Given the problems with the B2 revision of the Sandy Bridge chipsets, the barebones are not yet available immediately. Shuttle will show the systems to the public at the beginning of March, during Cebit, but the barebones will not be available until the end of March. According to Shuttle, the motherboards must then be equipped with the B3 revision of the Cougar Point chipset, which has no bug in the sata-300 ports. The H3 system will cost 239 euros at the end of March, while the cleaner look of the H7 will have to pay 251 euros. Of course, that price does not include CPU, memory and hard drives or SSDs.