Shuttle announced a new bare-bones mini PC with the ability to be overclocked with the push of a button. Meet the SZ270R9.
The Shuttle SZ270R9 is little more than a motherboard and power supply in a small cube-like chassis. The case itself is edgy and sports RGB LED lighting on its black plastic front panel. End users are required to equip the device with their own CPU, memory, storage, and a GPU, as well as loading their own operating system.
The device supports 6th and 7th generation 95W Intel processors (Skylake and Kaby Lake) with its Z270 chipset motherboard, with support for up to 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 memory. The SZ270R9 sports a unique CPU cooler, with four heat pipes making direct contact with the CPU and feeding to aluminum fins in the back of the device (away from the CPU mount) that dissipate the heat. For storage, you can equip the SZ270R9 with up to four 3.5” or 2.5” drives (SSD or HDD), two M.2 2280 Type-M devices, or an M.2 2230 Type-A drive.
The Shuttle SZ270R9 also supports full-sized dual-slot graphics cards up to 280mm in length. However, a 500W 80 Plus Silver certified power supply limits the GPU ceiling to a GTX 1080, unless you want to run a more-powerful card with less than the recommended juice. You can connect the GPU using the SZ270R9’s 6-pin and 6+2-pin PCIe power connectors.
USB connectivity is abundant, with six USB 3.0 ports (four rear, two front) and four USB 2.0 ports. The motherboard also has its own display outputs, with an HDMI and two DisplayPort interfaces for integrated graphics, in case you choose to forgo a dedicated GPU.
Perhaps most interesting, the Shuttle SZ270R9 sports a push-button overclocking feature that will increase the frequency of your K-series CPU (and only unlocked K-series CPUs) with just one touch. Although Shuttle also offers overclocking software (and RGB lighting control software) for Windows 10, the one-touch solution will automatically select the optimized clock rate for the CPU without any further user interaction.
The Shuttle SZ270R9 supports 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 10, but the XPC overclocking and RGB lighting software is only supported on Windows 10. Pricing and availability of the new Shuttle SZ270R9 is currently unknown, but the company indicated it would be released to the wild soon.
| Product | Shuttle SZ270R9 |
|---|---|
| Processor Options | Up to Intel Core i7-7700K |
| Motherboard | Intel Z270 |
| Memory Options | Up to 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 |
| Graphics Options | 2-Slot GPU Up to 280 x 40 x 120 mm |
| Storage Options | - 2.5”/ 3.5” HDD/SSD Bay x4- M.2 2280 x2- M.2 2230 |
| Ports | - USB 3.0 x 6- USB 2.0 x4 |
| Display Output | - HDMI 1.2- DisplayPort 1.3 x2 |
| Networking | Intel i211v Dual Gigabit Ethernet |
| Power Supply | 500W 80 Plus Silver Certified |
| Power Connectors (GPU) | - 6-pin- 6+2-pin |
| Dimensions | 332 x 216 x 198mm |
