RADIICAL SRX and Shuttle XPC Project

The Radiical SRX Water KIt and the Shuttle XPC Project

The final stage of this project is the testing of the performance of this project water cooling system.

Many water cooling system share dual roles. This Shuttle hybrid is no different and has been used for some time in a dual role of a Folding@home test bed and (in its idle moments) a full on gaming rig. As with all things finding the time to put together performance (read overclocking data) has been difficult. Still we have now come up with some figures for the reader.

The first set of testing was done to establish a very overlooked section of performance testing and that is under voltage overclocking.

Maintaining stability at very low voltages using the default stock core speed is usually a very good indicator of CPU quality. In the illustration above the CPU here seems to be doing a very good job but there is more!

Not only is this CPU able to under volt and maintain a very good default stability it under volts to a rather impressive 1.184volts. We ran the web graphic in conjunction with the Shuttles normal functions for a considerable period of time with no apparent instability.

Next the upper range at default voltage.

Rather than risk an E-penis war with claims and counter claims in the area of upper range overclocking, which is not what we are about here, we decided to limit the voltage to the bios driven default only. We were able to raise the CPU range by approximately 540Mhz without resorting to voltage increase to maintain stability.

We were satisfied with this level of performance particularly since we had not had to risk high case temps resulting from the additional CPU voltage. The aims of the project had been met with some to spare. Here we have a perfect lan box which can compete with the best in desk top applications or CPU intensive roles such as encoding and Folding@Home. With its small footprint and diminutive dimensions it has been voted by our staff as the most desired unit in our projects so far. We tested public response by taking the Shuttle project to a trade function where we set the Shuttle up to play Doom3. Within a matter of minutes the Shuttle disappeared under a bevy of gamers, neo gamers and first timers who spent several hours putting the unit through its paces. After about 30 minutes we had captured 85% of the attendance and were being barraged with questions. I just wonder what the response would have been if we had fitted speakers to the Shuttle to provide that real Doom3 experience.

To finish off this project we ran a series of CPU measurements at the CPU core using an embedded RTD in the SRX baseplate. We have included here a shot taken of the readout when the ambient was 20 degrees.

We hope you have enjoyed our Shuttle water cooling project and in some way it has been of assistance

The Shuttle Makeover