Almost two years ago, we wrote it was possible to add 10GbE to your system with a M.2 network card based on a Marvell AQC113 chip for about $170. But I’ve now been made aware prices may have come down a lot as another M.2 10GbE network based on the Marvell AQC107 chipset is now selling for $86 including shipping (to Thailand). Just like the previous model, the M.2 card does not include an RJ45 port, instead, it’s included in a separate board that’s mountable to a standard PC plate and connected through a flat cable to the M.2 module. Specifications: Network controller – Marvell AQC107 PCIe Gen3 x4 10Gbps Ethernet controller supporting 10GBASE-T, 5GBASE-T, 2.5GBASE-T, 1000BASE-T, and 100BASE-T (but not 10BASE-T) Aquantias AQrate PHY up to 10GbE using Cat 6a cables, as well as 5 GbE and 2.5 GbE over 100 meters with Cat 5e cables Energy Efficient Ethernet […]
GEEKOM Mini IT13 review – Part 3: Ubuntu 22.04 tested on an Intel Core i9-13900H mini PC
We published the review of the Core i9-13900H powered GEEKOM Mini IT13 mini PC in Windows 11 Pro earlier this week and have now installed Ubuntu 22.04 and tested the machine with the Linux-based operating system in detail with benchmarks, features testing, networking and storage performance tests, power consumption, and thermal performance which we will report in this third and final part of the review. Installing Ubuntu 22.04 on GEEKOM Mini IT13 I shrank the Windows partition by about 500 MB in Disk Management in Windows 11 (Disk 1) in order to install Ubuntu 22.04.3 in dual boot configuration. The installation went smoothly using WiFi 6 to retrieve newer files and I could log in to the Ubuntu 22.04 desktop. But there was a trick, as I had to go to Windows first to select “Advanced Startup” and select Ubuntu on the next boot since the GRUB menu would just […]
Banana Pi BPI-R4 WiFi 7 router board is powered by a MediaTek Filogic 880 processor
Banana Pi BPI-R4 is a WiFi 7 router board powered by the MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) quad-core Arm Corex-A73 processor with 4GB DDR4 RAM, 8GB eMMC flash, and 128MB SPI-NAND flash. The board also comes with two 10GbE SFP cages, four Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports, a USB 3.2 port, as well as an M.2 socket for a 4G/5G modem or an NVMe SSD, and two mini PCIe slots with PCIe 3.0 to support WiFi 7. Banana Pi BPI-R4 specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) quad-core Arm Corex-A73 processor @ 1.8GHz with AI-powered packet accelerator System Memory – 4GB DDR4 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 128MB SPI NAND Flash, microSD card slot, M.2 Key M for NVMe SSD (see Expansion section for details) Networking 2x 10GbE SFP cages (option for 1x 10Gbe SFP cage and 1x 2.5Gbe PHY) 4x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports (1x WAN and 3x LAN) USB – […]
GEEKOM Mini IT13 Review – Part 2: An Intel Core i9-13900H mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro
Earlier this month, we had a look at GEEKOM Mini IT13 hardware, a mini PC powered by an Intel Core i9-13900H Raptor Lake processor and equipped with 32GB RAM, a 2TB NVMe SSD, 8K capable HDMI and USB-C video outputs, and several high-speed ports such as 2.5GbE and Thunderbolt 4. We’ve now had time to test the powerful mini PC with the preinstalled Windows 11 Pro operating system, in the second part of the GEEKOM Mini IT13 review, we’ll report our experience with the device with features testing, various benchmarks, power consumption number, and thermal performance under load. Software overview and features testing GEEKOM Mini IT13 ships with Windows 11 Pro 22H2 build 22621.23.61 and the System->About window confirms we have a mini PC powered by an Intel Core i9-13900H and equipped with 32GB RAM. HWiNFO64 provides more details about the Intel Core i9-13900H 14-core/20-thread Raptor Lake processor, the motherboard, […]
iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC and router review – Part 1: Specs, unboxing, teardown, and first boot
iKOOLCORE R2 is an Intel Alder-Lake-N mini PC and network appliance (router/firewall/gateway) that comes with four 2.5GbE ports, up to 16GB RAM, NVMe storage, and the usual HDMI and USB ports, and offered with either Processor N95 or Core i3-N305 SoC. It’s the successor of the iKOOLCORE R1 with four gigabit Ethernet ports and Intel Celeron N5095 or Jasper Lake processor, and the company sent us a sample for testing, so we’ll start with listing the specifications, check out the mini PC and accessories with an unboxing, teardown the multilayer mini PC to check out the hardware design and explain how to update the SSD or install a wireless module, and check whether it can still boot to Windows 11 (default, preinstalled OS) after my adventurous teardown… iKOOCORE R2 specifications Alder Lake-N SoC Intel Processor N95 quad-core processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD […]
MediaTek Filogic 860 & Filogic 360 WiFi 7 chipsets target mainstream BE7200 routers and clients
MediaTek has unveiled two new WiFi 7 chipsets with the Filogic 860 tri-core Arm Cortex-A73 SoC designed for up to BE7200 mainstream routers and gateways and Filogic 360 WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 chip for client devices such as smartphones, PCs, laptops, set-top boxes, OTT streaming boxes, etc… for up to 2.9 Gbps bandwidth. The new Filogic 860 and Filogic 360 chipsets provide more cost-effective alternatives to the Filogic 880 SoC for up to BE36000 routers and Filogic 380 clients chip capable of up to 6.5 Gbps PHY data rate, both of which were introduced in May 2022. MediaTek Filogic 860 Filogic 860 specifications: CPU – 3x Arm Cortex-A73 cores clocked at up to 1.8 GHz Network Processing Unit (NPU) – Hardware QoS acceleration and Tunneling Offload Engine for VLAN / PPTP / L2TP / GRE Networking Crypto engine (EIP-197) – For IPv4 NATP / IPv6 / DS-Lite / 6RD […]
GEEKOM A5 Review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro tested on an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Mini PC
After unboxing GEEKOM A5 mini PC, checking out the hardware, and booting the device in the first part of the review, we’ve now had time to further test the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H mini PC with Windows 11 Pro operating system. The boot-up is quite fast and generally speaking the device performs well for the various tasks we ran on the mini PC. So in the second part of the GEEKOM A5 review, we will provide an overview of the system information, test features, perform benchmarks, check heat dissipation under load, and measure the power consumption of the mini PC while running on Windows 11 Pro. Software Overview and Feature Testing Going to System->About in Windows settings, we can confirm that the GEEKOM A5 mini PC is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor clocked at 3.20 GHz (base frequency) and 32GB of RAM, and runs Windows 11 Pro […]
Renesas RZ/G2UL Arm Cortex-A55/Cortex-M33 industrial system-on-module sells for as low as $17 in volume
MYiR Tech MYC-YG2UL is a tiny (39x37mm) system-on-module based on the Renesas RZ/G2UL SoC with a 1GHz Arm Cortex-A55 application core and 200MHz real-time Cortex-M33 cores designed for industrial HMIs and gateways, and the company has also launched the MYD-YG2UL development board with the module and interfaces such dual gigabit Ethernet, RS485, RS232, CAN Bus, and more. MYC-YG2UL Renesas RZ/G2UL CPU module Specifications: SoC – Renesas RZ/G2UL (Type-I) CPU – Arm Cortex-A55 processor at up to 1 GHz MCU – Arm Cortex-M33 clocked at up to 200 MHz GPU – 2D graphics (Image Scaling Unit) System Memory – 512MB DDR3L Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, 4KB EEPROM 1.0mm pitch 140-pin castellated holes and 50-pin LGA Display – RGB LCD interface Camera – MIPI CSI interface Networking – 2x RGMII (gigabit Ethernet) USB – 2x USB 2.0 Analog – 2x ADC Other I/Os – 5x SCIF, 2x SCI, 2x CAN FD, 4x […]