Back at the beginning of 2024, we were testing the ECS LIVA Z5 Plus, incorporating the Intel Core i5-1335U SoC and we have noted impressive performance for its small size, featuring active cooling, a single M.2 NVMe SSD slot for storage purposes but also DDR4 RAM.

Shuttle did launch the XPC slim DS50U series a bit later, but their implementation is fanless so little to no maintenance is required, it can operate in sound-sensitive environments, while the port selection is quite extensive!

Our sample does feature the Intel Core i7-1355U, with 2 performance cores for a total of 4 threads thanks to HyperThreading, 8 efficiency cores, a L3 cache of 12MB, with support for up to DDR5-5200 RAM and a maximum of 1300MHz for the iGPU. The iGPU does also integrate 96 EUs so we may expect better 3D performance versus the i5 counterpart which only comes with 80 EUs.

The DS50U7 barebone is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard enclosure, with the usual Shuttle box art containing a drawing of the product inside, in the frontal area:

Technical specifications are available on the side, along with the product serial number:

The box is also provided with a handle, for easy manipulation:

The inside content is protected with foam material:

Besides the barebone, we will also find some documentation in a transparent, re-sealable bag but also a box with the hardware bundle:

The documentation does help the user with all steps to install the rest of the necessary hardware:

A separate leaflet is supplied for the VESA mount installation procedure:

Let’s take a deep dive inside the hardware bundle!

We will get a power adapter, the power lead, two thermal pads for two SSDs, two thermal pads (one thicker and one thinner) for the memory modules, fixing screws, the vertical stand components, but also the VESA mount:

The power adapter is quite small, since this barebone is very power efficient: