Final Thoughts
Pricing
The Shuttle NC03U3 is very reasonably priced at just £273 ex VAT, and £327 inc VAT. Keep in mind that it’s compact, passively cooled, comes with a motherboard, CPU and PSU built-in or included, and a few other bits like a card reader. You can buy them pre-built or as a barebones, where you simply add your own hard drive, OS, and memory, giving you great flexibility on how you would like to deploy them.
Overview
For your day-to-day PC gamer, this obviously isn’t a product that’s tailored to that market. However, a system like this still has a place in the consumers home, as I myself use something similar for my spare office. A compact on-the-desktop system is great for those tighter work spaces. It’s going to be more than powerful enough to run Google Docs, a bit of music, and other day-to-day processing tasks.
Of course, at home is one thing, as these are great for the bigger office too. If you need something that can easily be deployed over 20 desks in your office, they’re super easy to install. Of course, they’re also very compact, they’re completely silent, don’t run hot, and efficient. I can think of a few office managers that would be ticking things off his requirements list with the NC03U3. Oh, and it’s reasonably priced, that’s always a bonus.
Performance
This system may not seem that fast to some of our regular readers, especially if you’re here looking for “can it play Crysis” as it’s not what it was ever meant to do. If you need a lightweight and “powerful enough” system for work, this is ideal. Storage performance is great, and you can easily upgrade the drive as well as the RAM too.
Style
I think it’s a great looking system as it is, but the inclusion of a vertical stand helps a lot as the whole thing takes up even less desktop space that way. Of course, if you need it to take up less space, the included VESA mount will allow you to wall mount it, or mount it to the rear of a compatible display. That last one is going to be handy for those using this as digital signage.
Applications
In the home office or any office, it’s perfect for the job for anyone not doing heavy-duty video rendering. Digital signage systems tend to be run 24/7, so the compact and efficient design is a huge benefit. It may not be a media box, you using something like Plex (in combination with a separate server), it’ll be a decent HTPC box, and you could easily use it for Steam in-home streaming… just remember you’ll need another “gaming PC” to do the rendering for that one.
Pros
- Compact design
- Incredible efficiency
- Completely silent
- Stylish aesthetics
- Upgradable storage and memory
- Good connectivity
- Vertical and VESA stands included
Cons
- None
Neutral
- Only has iGPU, but still performs great
