Power Consumption

With its 60W Seasonic power brick the Shuttle X27-D is a highly efficient machine, despite the fact that we optimised the power use of the Gigabyte boards as close as we could with a 385W Enermax PSU.

Because the Shuttle X27-D uses a 2.5-inch drive, we retested the setups with a 2.5-inch SSD to match, although because Shuttle has redesigned its motherboard to remove the 4-pin EPS 12V power socket, the supplied PSU in the X27-D isn't compatible with other mini-ITX Atom boards like the Gigabyte. Instead this meant we had to combine the X27-D motherboard with the less efficient Enermax 285W PSU for the purposes of our comparison.

In its native housing with the 60W Seasonic DC-DC PSU and a 128GB 2.5-inch G.Skill SSD, the X27-D is super efficient at just 23W idle and 35W load. Compared to using the low power Enermax PSU, this adds an extra seven to 12W from PSU inefficiency alone.

Directly comparing the Gigabyte single-core Atom and Shuttle dual-core Atom motherboards surprisingly yields a result in favour of the Shuttle, despite the fact it should be 4W more power intensive. The idle consumption on the Shuttle is a solid 5W better with identical hardware, and while the dual-core Atom adds a 3W greater difference than the single-core, it's still lower power under load!

The AMD board with Sempron CPU uses almost exactly twice as much power in comparison, however its performance varies between a ten to 80 percent advantage (where it was an advantage), with an average of just over 56 percent in our tests. That's certainly significant, and if you're easily frustrated by waiting for things to get done or occasionally wanting to stretch the computing experience a bit more than "enough", we'd recommend the AMD solution because 40-70W really isn't that much.

Value and Conclusions

Everything about the dual-core Atom screams that it's just not worth the money over the single-core variants at the moment. With HyperThreading already included in the Atom, it already has some element of multi-tasking, but as a very simple CPU I can't see why it needs a second core bolted onto very limited front side and memory buses.

In terms of performance improvements, there's very little gained in quite a few of the applications we tested - the biggest gain was with large file compression but small file compression didn't see nearly the same performance increase. Thanks to Shuttle's design, it's more efficient than the extra power consumed, but it’s just not really worth the extra core for the simple "fast enough" computing its designed for.

If you want to spend a bit more, buy an Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron, or if you can find one, an Athlon 2360e which uses just 15W. These are generally much faster and will likely be paired with a far better IGP and more feature-rich motherboard, enabling the next level of computing experience over just "basic".

The Shuttle X27-D retails for a few quid over £200, and with the addition of a 2GB stick of memory, 120GB 2.5-inch hard drive and a slimline DVDRW drive that brings the whole PC closer to £300.

On the other hand, a black EeeBox with 1GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive and single-core Atom is closer to £250. There are still some websites advertising closer to £200 but they are out of stock and the ones in stock seem to have recently increased their price. Having briefly used the EeeBox at Computex last year, we know that while the Eee is smaller and more stylish on its loopy stand, the Shuttle is certainly quieter.

In contrast, while the AMD Sempron LE-1200 is barely £16 on its own, an AMD mini-ITX motherboard like the Jetway JNC62K is a weighty £82, making the package with the same products above about £188 without a PSU and case. The advantage Shuttle has here is that has an awesome looking case that's very easy to use - something virtually every other mini-ITX case on the market lacks.

Most look like they were designed by a child or on the back of a fag packet while sitting on the loo. Find a good looking one and you'll likely be parting with excess of £100, without PSU, making the AMD option still a bit more expensive but not by that much (although it'll be a lot more hassle to put together).

The Shuttle X27-D provides the convenience of an all-in-one package with a great style at a good price in addition to allowing the choice of your own components. It's a great middle ground for those looking to jump on the Atom boat, but don't want the limited choice of an Asus EeeBox. We'd probably go for the single-core Shuttle X27 and save £30 to be honest - the only thing that's missing in the whole package is the second Atom core. If you do want the single cored version like we do - BUY IT NOW because after talking to Shuttle we found out it has recently discontinued it!

Final Thoughts

Where previous SFFs have been a hard sell for Shuttle, the X27-D hits the mark very well with a fantastic looking case, a better set of features and a more flexible build than the rest of the nettop competition. The well built power unit makes the X27-D exceptionally efficient and it's super quiet too, although that depends entirely on what hard drive is used. It would be an all win situation, except for the fact the second Atom core doesn't add that much at all.

The Shuttle X27-D is a really great product in its own right, but we wouldn't buy it because it sits in an awkward medium: £30-50 is a notable extra jump over the EeeBox or (the non-D) Shuttle X27, yet the AMD Sempron build isn't that much more of an upsell again for a lot more performance.

• Performance
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• 7/10

• Features
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• -
• 9/10

• Value
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• 8/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 8/10

Score Guide