iKOOLCORE R2 Max review – Part 2: 10GbE on an Intel N100 mini PC with OpenWrt (QWRT), Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04 and pfSense 2.7.2

iKOOLCORE R2 Max Review Proxmox VE Ubuntu 22.04

I’ve already checked out iKOOLCORE R2 Max hardware in the first part of the review with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel N100 system with two 10GbE ports and two 2.5GbE ports. I’ve now had more time to test it with an OpenWrt fork, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04, and pfSense, so I’ll report my experience in the second and final part of the review. As a reminder, since I didn’t have any 10GbE gear so far, iKOOLCORE sent me two R2 Max devices, a fanless model and an actively-cooled model. I was told the fanless one was based on Intel N100 SoC, and the actively-cooled one was powered by an Intel Core i3-N305 CPU, but I ended up with two Intel N100 devices. The fanless model will be an OpenWrt 23.05 (QWRT) server, and the actively cooled variant be the device under test/client with Proxmox VE 8.3 server […]

HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 Intel N150 fanless network appliances and mini PCs come with four 2.5GbE ports, four video outputs

HUNSN RJ42 Intel N150 Network Appliance

We’ve previously seen the new Intel N150 “Twin Lake” processor in mini PCs such as Beelink EQ14 and ASUS NUC 14 Essential among others, but the new quad-core CPU is now also found in HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 fanless network appliances with four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports. They also double as mini PCs with multiple video outputs and USB ports. The mini PCs ship with up to 32GB RAM and 512GB of storage, support four independent displays through HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C interfaces, and offer five USB Type-A ports for expansion. The HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 offer a similar set of features as previous Intel N100 network appliances with 2.5GbE ports such as the iKOOLCORE R2 and INCTEL N100, but with a slightly faster Intel N150 “Alder Lake-N Refresh” or “Twin Lake” processor thanks to higher clock speeds, and extra interfaces. HUNSN RJ42/RJ43 specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N150 quad-core “Twin […]

UP Xtreme i14 Edge – An Ubuntu 24.04 Pro industrial mini PC powered by Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” SoC

UP Xtreme i14 Edge

UP Xtreme i14 Edge is an industrial fanless mini PC preloaded with an Ubuntu Pro-validated Ubuntu 24.04 Linux distribution and powered by an Intel Core Ultra 5/7 “Meteor Lake” SoC with up to 64GB LPDDR5. The device is based on the UP Xtreme i14 SBC we covered last June, and comes with M.2 PCIe sockets for NVMe SSD, a SATA port, 2.5GbE and GbE interfaces, support for WiFi and 4G LTE/5G wireless modules, four 8K capable video output ports (HDMI, DP, and USB-C), and three USB Type-A ports, but is housed in a fanless metal enclosure with two RS232/RS485 DB9 connectors and an externally-accessible terminal block for GPIO signals.   UP Xtreme i14 Edge specifications: Meteor Lake-H/U SoC (one of the other) Intel Core Ultra 7 165H 16-core (6P+8E+2LPE) processor @ 1.4 / 5.0 GHz with 24MB cache, Intel 8Xe LPG graphics @ 2.3 GHz, Intel AI Boost NPU; TDP: […]

SECO launches Mediatek Genio 510 and 700 SMARC SoMs built for industrial and edge AI applications

SECO SOM SMARC Genio510 module with MediaTek Genio510

SECO SOM-SMARC-Genio500 and SOM-SMARC-Genio700 are two new SMARC system-on-modules products powered by MediaTek Genio 510 and 700 Cortex-A78/A55 series SoCs. These industrial modules are designed for high power efficiency and offer reduced energy consumption even during intensive edge AI workloads, and are suitable for retail touchscreens, intelligent industrial sensors, advanced conferencing systems, and dynamic digital signage. Both modules feature up to 8GB LPDDR4 memory, 64GB eMMC flash, two Ethernet interfaces via RGMII and USB, an optional M.2 slot for a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module, and camera inputs. We’ve previously considered Via’s offerings with the same MediaTek Genio 700 application processor: a SMARC module, a single-board computer, and a fully embedded system. The IBase ISR500 is another option featuring the Mediatek Genio 510 or Genio 700. SECO SOM-SMARC-Genio700 & SOM-SMARC-Genio510 specifications: SoC (one or the other) SOM-SMARC-Genio700 – MediaTek Genio 700 (MT8390) CPU – Octa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A78 cores @ up to […]

GEEKOM GT1 Mega review with Ubuntu 24.10 – Part 3: Linux on an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H “Meteor Lake” mini PC

GEEKOM GT1 Mega Ubuntu 24.10 Linux review

We’ve already had a look at GEEKOM GT1 Mega’s hardware with an unboxing and a teardown before following up with a thorough review of the Intel Core 9 Ultra 185H mini PC with Windows 11 Pro. After being interrupted by some Raspberry Pi reviews, I finally had the time to test the GEEKOM GT1 Mega with Ubuntu 24.10 to check out how well (or not) it works with a recent Linux distribution. I’ve tested the features of the Meteor Lake mini PC in Linux, ran some benchmarks, evaluated storage and network performance, played 4K and 8K videos on YouTube at various frame rates, went through a stress test to check its thermal design, and finally measured the mini PC’s fan noise and power consumption. Ubuntu 24.10 installation I would usually review mini PCs with the latest Ubuntu LTS version which would currently be Ubuntu 24.04.1. However, since the Intel Core […]

Vulkan 1.4 3D graphics and compute API released

Vulkan 1.4

The Khronos Group has just announced the release of Vulkan 1.4 cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API. The new release makes some of the optional extensions and features mandatory, adds streaming transfers, and supports 8K rendering on up to eight targets. Minimum hardware limits have also been increased including at least seven maxBoundDescriptorSets and eight maxColorAttachments. Vulkan 1.4 highlights: Streaming Transfers: new implementation requirements to ensure applications can stream large quantities of data to a device while simultaneously rendering at full performance. Previously optional extensions and features critical to emerging high-performance applications are now mandatory in Vulkan 1.4, ensuring availability across multiple platforms. These include push descriptors, dynamic rendering local reads, and scalar block layouts. Maintenance extensions up to and including VK_KHR_maintenance6 are now part of the core Vulkan 1.4 specification. 8K rendering with up to eight separate render targets is now guaranteed to be supported, along with several other […]

Orange Pi 5 Ultra SBC offers HDMI 2.1 output and HDMI 2.0 input

Orange Pi 5 Ultra

The Orange Pi 5 Ultra is a Rockchip RK3588 SBC that’s slightly larger than a business card and visually identical to the Orange Pi 5 Max introduced last August, but replacing one of the two HDMI 2.1 video outputs on the latter with an HDMI 2.0 input port. The new single board computer is still offered with up to 16GB LPDDR5, an eMMC flash module connector or soldered-on eMMC flash, an M.2 socket for an NVMe SSD, 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E networking, and four USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Orange Pi 5 Ultra specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 6 TOPS AI accelerator with support for INT4/INT8/INT16/FP16 mixed operation VPU – 8Kp60 H.265/VP9/AVS2 10-bit decoder, 8Kp30 H.264 decoder, […]

Barebone Intel Celeron 2955U or Pentium 3805U fanless industrial mini PC goes for $60 (Promo)

Low-cost Intel Celeron 2955U fanless mini PC

If you’re in need of a low-end, cheap x86 platform you’re in luck since XCY is selling the X46G industrial fanless mini PC powered by an Intel Celeron 2955U Haswell processor or a Pentium 3805U Broadwell CPU for just about $60 as a barebone system, or around $74 with 4GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, and a WiFi module as part of a Black Friday 2024’s promotion. It’s even cheaper in some other shops, as we’ll see below. Both CPUs have been discontinued since 2021, and nobody should use those in a desktop system unless you are of the very patient type. However, if you want to run some lightweight Windows or Linux application(s), make use of RS232 ports for industrial control, set up a Full HD HTPC, configure a dual GbE server, or need to run FreeDOS or similar x86-only operating systems, those ultra-cheap Intel mini PCs might prove […]

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