ECS LIVA x2 Review: A Compact & Fanless Braswell PC
by Ganesh T S on August 24, 2015 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
The ECS LIVA x2 provided us with the opportunity to evaluate yet another Braswell-based passively cooled mini-PC (after already having had a look at the ASRock Beebox last month). However, the goal of ECS is quite different from that of ASRock. While ASRock aimed at getting out the maximum possible performance and provided upgradability options to the end user, ECS is aiming at the developing markets and budget-conscious consumer with the ECS LIVA x2. The soldered DRAM and eMMC storage reduce the platform cost compared to mSATA SSD and dual-channel SO-DIMM capabilities. The motherboard features (such as the presence of a VGA video output) also points to usage in markets where legacy equipments continue to be in operation. In all these scenarios, the fanless nature proves to be a huge plus.
Despite the much higher performance that one can expect from the Intel Celeron N3050 in the LIVA x2 compared to the N3000 in the Beebox, the other choices made in the platform ensure that there is not much to differentiate the two systems in terms of computing performance. This is a bit of a disappointment, since the LIVA x2 has to handle a 6W TDP SoC, while the Beebox only had a 4W TDP SoC to cool.
The thermal solution seems fine at first glance. It should allow for more than acceptable performance under normal client workloads. However, we believe the chassis design could be altered for better airflow and convective cooling. In terms of storage, I have always been critical of 32GB drives as primary OS drives. The absence of any upgrade possibilities is a big downside. ECS does have a 4GB/64GB option, and, unless the consumer is buying the PC for a specific purpose (i.e, the number and size of the programs that the consumer plans to install is known ahead of time), the 4GB/64GB option is a better choice compared to the 2GB/32GB option that we have reviewed today. Despite these shortcomings, the LIVA x2 seems like a worthy upgrade to the existing LIVA and LIVA X units.
The LIVA x2 reviewed today comes in at $170. The pricing is a positive factor compared to the ASRock Beebox which comes in at $220 (though that price includes more memory and a mSATA SSD). Talking about Braswell, the issues that Intel needs to address in the drivers has already been talked about in the Beebox review. There seems to be no change in the feature set between the driver versions used for the two reviews.
Coming to the business end of the review, we can say that, taken standalone, the ECS LIVA x2 more than delivers $170 worth of computing performance. It also manages to keep thermals under limit for consumer workloads. Features such as the EZ Charge USB 3.0 port and 802.11ac Wi-Fi are welcome changes compared to the Bay Trail LIVA units. The idle and load power consumption profiles of the LIVA x2 are excellent and continue the tradition of the LIVA PCs being one of the most power-efficient lineups in the market. ECS has taken the bold decision to cool a 6W TDP SoC compared to the 4.5W TDP SoCs in the LIVA and LIVA X. For this aspect, ECS must be commended.
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casteve - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
"Even though this is a power virus test, the chassis temperatures reach an uncomfortable 75 C. ECS has taken the unenviable task of providing passive cooling for a 6W TDP SoC in a plastic chassis, and the problems are evident. It is likely that a chassis design similar to that of the Zotac C-series nano units (with perforations all around) could help with this aspect."Maybe. I found the Zotac CI320 to have a 60+ min thermal tail with steady state idle temp of 50C. Perhaps a solution with both the perforated case of the Zotac and the better heatsink of the Liva would cut it. I think 6W TDP is the limit of what you can put in a plastic case. Beyond this, you need a metal case plate or a fan.
Thanks for the review.
takeshi7 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Can you please review the Liva Core, next?hojnikb - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I wish someone made Core M PCs. Silvermont is okay for light tasks, but thats about it.And Core M could be easily passivly cooled.
takeshi7 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
ECS makes the Liva Core. It has a passively cooled Core M.johnsonx - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Recently sold some MSI Cubi systems to clients, really nice. All use Haswell SoC's, commonly available are dual-core 1.5Ghz Celeron, 1.9Ghz Pentium, and 2.0Ghz Core i3 with Hyper-threading. They do have fans, but are VERY quiet.nathanddrews - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
AMD really needs to get new Carrizo (non-L) into this category if they can. It would be HTPC and light gaming PERFECTION.V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Having looked into both Bay Trail as well as Braswell recently when I wanted a passively cooled mini PC, I came away pretty disappointed with Braswell.The unfortunate truth is, that despite the Braswell N3050/3150 being a 14nm part, and the Bay Trail J1800/1900 a 22nm part, in most use cases the Bay Trail is faster than the Braswell.
Most users would be better off getting the older Bay Trail system with the dual core J1800 CPU or the quadcore J1900. Why?
First of all Intel cut down power usage TOO MUCH. So much that it impacts performance. The Bay Trail parts have a 10W TDP, and manage to be cooled passively just fine. The Braswell parts have 4/6W TDP, and if you want to know where Intel found the additional Watts, look at the base clock.
The Braswell parts turboclock to just over 2GHZ, but the rest of the time they skip along at a pretty slow 1.6 GHZ.
The Bay Trail quadcore part on the other hand has a base clock of 2 GHZ but turbos up to 2.4, whereas the dualcore J1800 has a base clock of 2.4 GHZ, and turbos up to 2.6 GHZ.
That's why the Bay Trail parts are faster at most tasks then the newer Braswell. If you look at some of the reviews you'll see how they handily beat them in most benchmarks...
BMNify - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
i cant see the point of any of these low power soc no matter what purpose , if it doesn't have avx/2 ( and none of these do) and at least quad cores its no better than the other 2006 sse4 simd available since Penryn then its already obsolete , IMO not even really good enough for the bargain basement generic £20 wifi router in 2015V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
You're being waaay to performance-snobbish here.Don't see the point? It's 2015 man! Intel has squeezed so much performance out of X86 that these their cheapest CPUs are fast enough for most people.
They're fine for everyday computing tasks, as long as your needs are just basic web surfing, YouTube/movie playing and light Office work.
My dad uses one for the above. Yeah, he could have gotten something with an i3 or i5 but he wanted something quiet, and for most tasks the speed difference is barely noticeable.
They also have plenty of horsepower (and Intel quicksync video) to be a nifty and silent media center. And really cheap too. You can get one an embedded CPU, mini Itx motherboard and 4gb ram, for less or right around a hundred dollars.
BMNify - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
see below for the many of the 5v/2A arm boxes that have real HDMI2 at 60fps HW/SW playback of UHD1 content....as long as intel do not provide the 2015 options (avx2 ,HDMI2/UHD1/60P etc instead of 2006 simd etc) on these low power SOC they will never pass the profitable ARM quad/octacore UHD compliant boxes we can buy right now....