Shuttle DH310S mini PC review

7. Summary

Review Pages

1. About the Shuttle DH310S
2. Opening the box
3. Installing the components, BIOS settings
4. CPU tests
5. GPU tests
6. Audio and video tests
7. Summary

The Shuttle DH310S is an interesting small factor PC that can be used to power your daily office computing needs, or your digital signage. As a barebone, its performance highly depends on the components you will install to it -memory, CPU and storage. The compact device is ready to accept the latest Intel processors, as long as their TDP does not exceed 65 Watts.

The essentials for a good PC setup are here. The DH310S provides plenty of connectivity options, including USB2.0/USB3.0 ports and of course HDMI/DisplayPort outputs. An SD card slot is also present, along with a very cool USB-C port placed at the front of the device. You can also add Shuttle's optional Wifi/BT modules, of choose among the VGA, VESA Monitor Holder or Vertical Stand accessories, with some extra cost.

Depending the used CPU you will get good or very high performance for office use. In every case the thermal system of the Shuttle DH310S is capable to withstand high performance loads and doesn't throttle the main CPU. For gaming use, this box is not a good solution, at least for hardcore users who much look at much bigger boxes with standalone graphics card.

The components we equipped with the barebone with were picked up in order to keep the overall budget low. We installed the affordable Intel Pentium Gold G5400 processor, paired with 2x4GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 8GB Kit (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 SODIMM kit and of a Crucial BX500 SATA 2.5-inch SSD. Installing the various components and OS is straightforward and easy, and Shuttle provides detailed guides for that.

Despite the limited overall budget, the Shuttle DH310S proved to be a perfect media player box. Combined with the LibreELEC or KODI, it supported playback of HD Audio (7.1) and up to 4K video. Due to the latest Intel chipset 10bit files are also supported. On the other hand, the available HDMI 1.4b output rules out support for HDR and 4K @ 60Hz.

The barebone's design also helped the system's temperatures to stay overall in adequate levels under heavy testing and prolonged benchmarking, and no obvious thermal throttling issues were noticed, as the least with the Intel Pentium Gold G5400 processor.

Overall, the Shuttle DH310S, despite its limitations mainly due to its compact size, is a complete PC for office, home or digital signage applications. With a smart choice in the components you will install to it in order to get it up and running, you may keep your overall budget relatively low, although Shuttle could further help here with a bit lower retail price.

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