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The Resurrection of Beema (part two)

BIOSTAR launches its own Beema motherboard, featuring the 10W E1-6010 (Radeon R2 Graphics) from 2014 and people are not impressed. Here's a sample of what the TechPowerUp readers have to say:

"This is them just shoveling back stocked garbage to consumers."

"... an obsolete APU which was slow even when released, is just insane."

"It's nice of BIOSTAR that even in those hard times they still try and make us laugh."

✓ AMD E1-6010 (dual-core @ 1.4 GHz)
✓ 2 x DDR3 DIMM slots
✓ 1 x PCI Express slot
✓ 2 x SATA 3 connectors
✓ 2 x USB 3.0 ports
✓ 2 x USB 2.0 ports
✓ 1 x HDMI
✓ 1 x VGA
✓ 1 x PS/2 Mouse / Keyboard
✓ 1 x Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek)

Source: TechPowerUp

I built a new pc today

I built a new pc today - with a simply beautiful, solid, elegant Streacom db4 case with no moving parts but a state of the art cpu (coffee lake 8 cores 16mb cache 65W tdp) and 64gb memory on a mini atx. The case is a work of art and this hasty setup doesn’t do it justice but <3 pic.twitter.com/ECYB7ybLls

— Ben Gras (@bjg) March 14, 2020

Fractal Design's Era ITX

Fractal Design launches a unique mini-ITX case available in five colors. The stylish aluminum chassis features tool-less side panels and a mesh top that's compatible with passive cooling. The tiny 325 x 166 x 310 mm case can definitely house Arctic's Alpine 12 Passive CPU cooler and Silverstone's fanless NJ450 SFX power supply for a totally silent desktop or HTPC. The Era ITX will be available next month for $159.99 / £139.99 / 164.99€.

Source: Fractal Design

The Resurrection of Beema

The market is craving for affordable solutions but Intel's SoCs are extremely hard to find, and AMD's offering is simply nowhere to be found. Introducing the brand new ASRock QC6000M, a microATX motherboard featuring a Beema E2-6110 APU from 2014. We're rooting for AMD but frankly get the J5005-ITX while you can, performance is way better.

✓ 15W AMD E2-6110 (quad-core @ 1.5 GHz)
✓ Radeon R2 Graphics
✓ 2 x DDR3 DIMM slots
✓ 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x1 mode)
✓ 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
✓ 2 x USB 3.0
✓ 4 x USB 2.0
✓ 2 x SATA 3
✓ D-Sub, HDMI
✓ Realtek Gigabit LAN

Source: ASRock via: @momomo_us

Myth debunked: fanless PCs run hot

The Bean Canyon NUC runs cooler in the fanless Akasa Turing case than in the stock - actively-cooled - chassis.

"Now heat, or lack thereof, is not much, especially compared to stock. With ambient temps varying between 20-25C (shop gets cold and gets hot, so it's pretty good to test in), Prime95 blend, or small, or smallest, or the Intel Burn Test on any size–it doesn't matter–all hit a peak of 74-75C at 50W for about 45 seconds and settle in at about 62C on 30W. It can run for 2 hours and doesn't budge from this. I've tried it at different times of day and different ambient temps and even at 25C, it's within ~2C of the 20C ambient tests."

"When compared to stock, that's insanely low. Stock would hit 95C+ just loading Windows and startup apps/services. And Prime95 made it about 30 seconds before it hit 100C and started throttling back to below 30W. 50W lasted only for a few seconds before dropping down. Plus, no fan noise!"

Source: reddit

OnLogic's Coffee Lake offering

One of OnLogic's most powerful fanless PC is the ML510, now available from $640. The ML510G-50 can be configured with up to 6 cores (35W Celeron G4900T, Pentium G5400T, i3-8100T, i5-8500T, i7-8700T options) and 32 GB of DDR4 2666 MHz memory, making it a high-performance system with a fanless and compact footprint.

"Ready for a wide array of applications, dual Gb LAN, dual DisplayPort connectors, and six USB ports (four of them USB 3.1) make up the I/O base of the ML510G-50. Additional expansion options include 802.11ac Wi-Fi, CAN Bus, two additional LAN, up to four COM ports, and fast, reliable M.2 storage drives, giving the ML510G-50 incredible versatility."

Source: OnLogic

NUC 10 promo video

The NUC 10 is now available. Coded-named Frost Canyon the Comet Lake-powered mini PC features up to a six-core i7 processor, but also a surprisingly average GPU (especially compared to Bean Canyon's Iris Plus graphics).

Third-party NUC Elements case

French start-up Bleujour announces the very first third-party chassis compatible with Intel's NUC Elements family. The heat sink case looks a tad smaller than the original Austin Beach chassis and is definitely artsier, featuring textured aluminum and wavy fins.

Source: Bleujour

The Beautiful Machine

"The last time I built a PC, the CPU was an Intel Celeron 433Mhz Slot1. All cases available were beige and ugly. Information was scarce. Learning that a part existed was an achievement in itself. Actually producing the parts was an adventure requiring to drive around town. In the worst case, orders took months.

Being crazy into CG at the time, the graphic card I picked was a Riva TNT from a relatively new yet impressive company called Nvidia. The NV4 was one of their earlier chip and I had a hard time keeping it cool. The machine froze often during that hot French summer of 1998.

Fast forward 20 years, the world of PC enthusiasts is a marvel. Whatever you are into, there is a manufacturer with parts that will do what you want. Orders can be delivered on the next day. Sometimes even on a Sunday. In last resort, a 3D printer will solve your problem. The hardest task is to make up your mind and decide what you actually need.

I am not a hardcore CG programmer/gamer anymore. Time has allowed my tastes to evolve. Pixels pushing sessions have made way to glyphs carving and type-setting. When I set myself to build one more PC, my goals were different. I did not want to sacrifice everything to horsepower. I wanted a totally silent machine. I wanted something esthetically pleasant. I wanted something that would remind me of the NeXT hardware..."

Source: Fabien Sanglard