ECS LIVA x2 Review: A Compact & Fanless Braswell PC
by Ganesh T S on August 24, 2015 8:00 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - I
The ECS LIVA x2 was evaluated using our standard test suite for low power desktops / industrial PCs. The performance metrics are determined using a mixture of artificial benchmarks and a few real world programs.
Futuremark PCMark 8
PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU in the system. The Celeron N3050 performs better than the Bay Trail CPUs in the earlier LIVA models. However, even though it should be better theoretically compared to the Celeron N3000 in the ASRock Beebox, we see the Futuremark benchmarks favour the latter. This could be due to a couple of reasons - the Beebox has a storage subsystem (mSATA SSD) that performs much better than the eMMC in the LIVA x2. In addition, the Beebox uses dual-channel (2x64) DDR3L memory, while the LIVA x2 appears to use LPDDR3 uses 4x x16 (1x64) DDR3L memory chips at the same frequency. While LPDDR3 using a smaller sized memory bus can save power over DDR3L, not taking advantage of the full memory bus width of the SoC definitely leads to some loss in performance.
Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks
The LIVA x2 manages to score higher than the Beebox in all of the 3DMark benchmarks except the Cloud Gate workload that is part of 3DMark 2013. The higher clocks in the Celeron N3050 (compared to the Celeron N3000) might be at play here.
3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15
We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results.
CINEBENCH comfortably brings out the effects of the higher clocks in the LIVA x2's SoC compared to the one in the ASRock Beebox. Other comparison numbers reflect the fact that the performance of the CPU cores in the Core series processors is much better than the Silvermont / Airmont cores.
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T1beriu - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Windows Image Viewer has a function that can rotate the image and auto-saves it after rotation.ganeshts - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
:) I do know that, but, then, the FLIR logo as well as the temperature reading are going to be upside down. Wanted to give importance to the temperature reading in particular, and so, the upside down picture remains.bug77 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Why would anyone waste the precious little space on this tiny box on a D-Sub connector?Flunk - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I assume because it's cheap and cheap monitors only have VGA ports.bug77 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
True, but you have to look really hard to find a monitor that only has analog VGA and doesn't have at least a DVI connector (and you can convert from HDMI to DVI).Maybe if they left D-Sub out and shaved a few bucks off the price that would have been a better choice.
DanNeely - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
A lot of these type of computers are being used not for new installations; but to replace older ones in existing installs where they need to plug into the existing (typically VGA) setup. The displays (especially customer facing ones) in a lot of point of sale setups are physically integrated into the rest of the checkout/conveyer belt/etc setup and much harder and more expensive to replace than just getting a $100 bottom end display from your local computer boxmart.xenol - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Still feel like they should throw in DVI with a DVI to VGA cable, unless there's a driving reason to stick with VGA beyond connecting to older equipment.colinstu - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
You also have to look really hard at those monitors you're talking about if they actually come with a DVI cable. They usually only come with VGA included.Uplink10 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Not true, why does AsRock Beebox then have DP, HDMI ports even though it has very good and low price? Are you trying to tell tha monitors with a low price have only VGA ports? You are wrong.V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Because it's still a universal standard? And because it offers some advantages over HDMI & co.No HDCP getting in the way for example...