Systems
Intel's Meteor Lake series of processors was launched in September 2023 with a focus on mobile platforms. Multiple mini-PC vendors have utilized these processors to market offerings in the SFF / UCFF desktop market. ACEMAGIC is an Asian manufacturer with products in multiple categories including micro-PCs, UCFF (ultra-compact form-factor) and SFF (small form-factor) PCs, and notebooks. They were one of the first to market with Meteor Lake-based desktop systems. The ACEMAGIC F2A 125H is the entry-level version of the F2A line, equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor. It is a bit larger than the traditional NUCs, slotting it in the SFF category. However, that allows for the processor to be operated at 65W (compared to the 28 - 40W adopted in the...
HP Z2 Mini G3 Announced: Miniature Professional Workstation with Xeon and Quadro
This week HP has announced its new Z2 Mini G3 workstation, which weds a small form-factor with workstation-grade capabilities, along with rated reliability and performance. The new system can...
26 by Anton Shilov on 11/16/2016ECS Preps LIVA Z: Apollo Lake-Based Nettop with 4K and USB-C Support
ECS has quietly published brief specifications of its new miniature LIVA Z personal computer, which indicates that the system is set to hit the market in the coming weeks...
21 by Anton Shilov on 11/15/2016ASUS ROG GT51 Desktop: Overclocked i7-6700K, GTX 1080 SLI, 64 GB DDR4, $4999
ASUS this month finally began to sell its high-end ROG GT51 desktop in the U.S. The system comes equipped with a factory-overclocked Intel Core i7 processor, two GeForce GTX...
52 by Anton Shilov on 11/11/2016ZOTAC ZBOX MAGNUS ERX480: SFF PC with Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon RX480, USB-C
ZOTAC has introduced a new small form-factor system that integrates AMD’s Radeon RX 480 graphics as well as an Intel quad-core Core i5-6400T. The compact PC is designed to...
29 by Anton Shilov on 11/4/2016ZOTAC Announces VR GO Backpack PC with GeForce GTX 1070
ZOTAC this week has formally introduced its VR GO backpack PC designed for virtual reality enthusiasts. The system is equipped with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1070 graphics, a quad-core CPU...
30 by Anton Shilov on 11/2/2016Microsoft Announces the Surface Studio: 28-inch AIO with Touch, Pen, 4500x3000, Skylake, GTX 980M
As part of the now annual Microsoft Surface event, Panos Panay announced the next member of the Surface family, the Surface Studio. The Studio is ultimately a prosumer all-in-one...
82 by Ian Cutress on 10/26/2016GIGABYTE Updates BRIX SFF PCs with Intel’s Kaby Lake CPUs
GIGABYTE has updated its BRIX family of small form-factor PCs with Intel’s latest Core processors featuring the optimized Kaby Lake microarchitecture. The new systems are promoted to offer better...
28 by Anton Shilov on 10/12/2016Samsung ArtPC: Cylindrical PC with 360º audio, i5/i7 plus NVMe, Preorders from $1200
For most PC enthusiasts, if you ask them to name a cylindrical machine, the Mac Pro comes immediately to mind. Not to tread too heavily on Apple’s toes on...
46 by Ian Cutress on 10/10/2016Zotac ZBOX CI523 nano Fanless Skylake-U mini-PC Review
Passively cooled computing systems are popular amongst consumers worried about noise from fans and their associated maintenance requirements (particularly, for industrial use-cases). Traditionally, fanless high-performance PCs have come with...
35 by Ganesh T S on 10/5/2016GIGABYTE GB-BSi7HAL-6500 Dual LAN Skylake BRIX Review
Ultra-compact form factor (UCFF) PCs have become quite popular after Intel introduced the NUCs. They have become powerful enough to be the primary computing platform for many households. However...
25 by Ganesh T S on 9/21/2016Hands On with ASUS ROG Avalon: A Teardown Video
During Computex 2016, as part of their 10-Years of the Republic of Gamers’ celebrations and showcase, ASUS surprised me with a new take on the PC: the ROG Avalon...
41 by Ian Cutress on 9/2/2016Memory Frequency Scaling on Intel's Skull Canyon NUC - An Investigation
Overclocking has generally been the domain of enthusiasts with desktop rigs. However, increasing the CPU frequency beyond the official specification is not the only way to extract more performance...
31 by Ganesh T S on 8/29/2016Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN980 SFF PC Review - An Innovative VR-Ready Gaming Powerhouse
The PC market has been subject to challenges over the last several years. However, gaming systems and small form-factor (SFF) PCs have weathered the storm particularly well. Many vendors...
30 by Ganesh T S on 8/25/2016HP and MAINGEAR Team Up for Omen X High-End Gaming PC
HP this week re-entered the market of high-end gaming PCs with its Omen X desktop. The machine uses rather unusual cube-shaped tri-chamber design featuring high-end hardware, liquid cooling and...
19 by Anton Shilov on 8/18/2016ASRock Beebox-S 6200U Review - An Alternative to the Skylake NUC
The Skylake-U platform for mini-PCs has turned out to be an interesting one. Numerous challenges were faced by the first one in the market - the Intel Skylake NUC...
31 by Ganesh T S on 8/10/2016Intel Readies New NUCs Based on Kaby Lake and Apollo Lake SoCs
As one might expect, Intel is working on a new generation of its NUC small-form-factor systems based on the company’s upcoming Kaby Lake and Apollo Lake microprocessors. The writers...
39 by Anton Shilov on 7/15/2016Evaluating the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD on a Skylake NUC
The Skylake NUCs have faced plenty of issues since their introduction late last year. However, stability has improved with the latest BIOS updates. One of the issues with the...
16 by Ganesh T S on 7/5/2016The Intel Compute Stick (Core m3-6Y30) Review
Small and power-efficient computers in the form of NUCs and Compute Sticks are here to stay. The Compute Stick form factor is the x86 version of the popular ARM-based...
105 by Ganesh T S on 6/27/2016ASUS at Computex 2016: The 10 Years of the Republic Of Gamers (ROG) Booth Tour
For anyone following our Live Blog coverage at Computex this year, ASUS had two large press events in quick succession in different parts of town. The first focused on...
43 by Ian Cutress on 6/22/2016Lenovo Unveils ThinkStation P410/P510: Intel Xeon E5 v4 with Up to 8 Cores, NVIDIA Quadro M6000
Lenovo has unveiled its new ThinkStation P410 and P510 workstations, which are based on the recently introduced multi-core Intel Xeon E5 v4 processors with up to eight cores as...
6 by Anton Shilov on 6/16/2016