Shuttle readies DIY Atom desktop PC

By Tony Smith in Berlin, 30th August 2008

IFA Small form-factor PC specialist Shuttle showed off its first system designed for Intel's Atom processor: the X27.

Measuring just 25 x 18.5 x 7cm, the X27 nonetheless has room for a 2.5in hard drive and a slimline optical drive in addition to its mini-ITX motherboard built around Intel's 945GC chipset.

Shuttle's X27: Atom on board

Onto the board goes a 1.6GHz desktop-centric Atom 230 and up to 2GB of 533MHz or 667MHz DDR 2 memory in the board's single DIMM slot.

That's it as far as internal slots go - there are no PCI or PCIe connectors; the graphics come courtesy of the chipset. There are two 3Gb/s SATA connectors and a single parallel ATA port.

Ideal for a DIY nettop project?

The X27 has 5.1-channel HD audio and both DVI and VGA video output. It has Gigabit Ethernet and six USB 2.0 ports - two at the front and the rest round the back.

All in all, the ideal foundation for a DIY net desktop project.

Unfortunately, Shuttle didn't say when it'll be able to sell you one, or how much it will charge you for the hardware.

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