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Shuttle I 8600B

72

Good

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Pros
Deftly balances size and expandability
Cons
Single fan sometimes gets a bit noisy

Pricing: Expensive: $1670 (11/17/2005)
Performance: Good: 79
Features: Fair: 65
Design: Good: 78

Find out how these four scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Pricing

Expensive: $1670

Performance

Good: 79

World Bench 5 Tests - Very Good: 82

World Bench 5 Component Results (seconds)
ACD Systems ACDSee	625
Adobe Photoshop	399
Adobe Premiere	519
Ahead Nero	681
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	413
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	485
Microsoft Office XP	571
Windows Media Encoder	415
Mozilla	598
Multitasking	801
Musicmatch Jukebox	546
Roxio VideoWave	315
WinZip	420

Graphics Tests (frames per second)
Overall Graphics Score	Fair
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	50.43
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	49.03
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit	40.93
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	88.09
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	64.4
Unreal Tournament, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit	45.09

Features

Fair: 65

Basics
CPU	3-GHz Pentium 4 530J
System Memory	512MB Memory

Video & Display
Graphics Adapter	Integrated Intel 915G Express
Graphics Board Type	Integrated
Graphics Board RAM (MB)	Using main memory
Monitor Model	Shuttle XP17
Monitor Type	LCD
Monitor Size	17

Storage
Hard Drives	2
Total HD Size (GB)	320GB Hard Drive
RAID Type	none
Optical Drive Type	DVD-ROM
Optical Drive Speed	16
Second Optical Drive Type	CD-RW
Other Storage	Four-in-one media-card reader

Expansion
PCI Slots	1
PCI Express Slots	1
Open PCI Express X16 Slots	1
Open PCI Express X1 Slots	0
Open Slots	2
External Drive Bays	1
Open External Drive Bays	0
Internal Drive Bays	2
Open Internal Drive Bays	0

Ports
Serial Ports	1
Parallel Ports	0
Front USB Ports	2
Rear USB Ports	2
Front FireWire Ports	1
Rear FireWire Ports	1

Other
Audio Adapter Model	Integrated Realtek ALC850
Audio Channels	5.1 surround
Network Adapter	gigabit network adapter
Case Type	Compact
Operating System	Windows XP Professional
Included Software	Microsoft Office 2003 Basic Edition

Warranty & Support
Labor Warranty (years)	One
Parts Warranty (years)	One
Weekday Support Hours	8.5
Saturday Support Hours	0
Sunday Support Hours	0
Toll-Free Support	Yes

Design

Good: 78

Shuttle XPC i8600b Review

by Richard Baguley

- Resembling an oversize toaster, the Shuttle XPC i8600b is one of the largest of the small systems we looked at, but the extra size has a payoff: greater expandability. Though the case is only 8 inches high and just under 15 inches long, it includes a sample of pretty much everything a full-size PC offers, including a PCI Express X16 slot, a PCI slot, two hard drive bays, and a plethora of expansion ports. It's the only system in our ten-model roundup that comes with support for surround-sound audio: the built-in sound chip can drive up to eight channels of analog surround sound, while the other small systems we tested are limited to two channels. The $1611 XPC is also the only one with an S/PDIF digital audio-in and -out port--very useful if you want to use the system as a home theater PC. There's also an eight-in-one media card reader built into the case.

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