Re: [tlug] fanless pcs

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2018-07-03 20:39 +0900 (Tue), Benjamin Kowarsch wrote:

> Has anyone used the Taiwanese Liva Z fanless pc?
> 
> http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_Overview.aspx?DetailID=1729&CategoryID=-1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=-1&LanID=0

Yes. I have two, a Celeron N3350 and a Pentium N4200. Specs and
vendors at <https://github.com/0cjs/sedoc/blob/master/hw/sff.md>.

The 2-core Celeron N3350 (¥22k) is too sluggish to be worthwhile;
Chrome really bogs down on it. The 4-core Pentium N4200 (¥25k if
you're willing to wait a couple of weeks for delivery) is much better
value and has been my main desktop system at work for a half year now
and I'm very pleased with it.

I do mainly Python development, which does from time to time involve
large C builds (I end up building local versions of Python from source
on a regular basis, in fact a half dozen times just today, by chance)
but I don't do enough of it that I feel I want to upgrade to a real
desktop CPU. Chrome is not totally snappy, but is good enough, even
though I do a lot of browsing. I honestly don't usually notice the
difference between it and my Core i5-3450. (PassMark CPU and other
specs at <https://github.com/0cjs/sedoc/blob/master/hw/cpu.md>.)

I have 8 GB in both systems, but I've used them with 4 GB and even
that worked fine in my fairly lightweight fvwm desktop environment
with minimal visual tools. Right now, with 16 tabs open in Chrome and
a couple of dozen urxvts (many running vim) it's using 3.77 GiB of
memory. Opening VSCode brings that up to 4.33 GiB, though.

One of the really nice things about them is the on-motherboard 32 GB
MMC solid-state drive. It's about as fast as any run-of-the-mill SSD
and provides enough space for reasonable development in my experience,
even with a half dozen Python interpreters, lots of virtualenvs, and a
few full-size (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) Docker images on it. I did add a
32 GB USB 3.0 flash drive to my work machine on which I keep less
frequently accessed stuff, such as my book collection from Dropbox and
a large pile of less-frequently-used repos from GitHub. Stuff on there
is too slow to use for more than occasional development, though.

I'm also pleased with the display support. I'm sure it wouldn't do for
gaming, but it runs my 4K monitor off the DisplayPort interface just
fine at 60 Hz, and at one point I did have a second 4K monitor hooked
up to the HDMI output, though that ran at only 30 Hz.

> I am looking at using something like that as a development station,
> basically running Ubuntu and various different builds of GCC and Clang,
> plus VIM or VS Code for editing and a browser and PDF reader for reading
> documentation on a second display. So nothing heavy.

I'd definitely put 8 GB of RAM in it. Otherwise, so long as you're not
constantly doing massive compiles, it would probably be fine. And it's
cheap enough that if you do get annoyed at it being too slow you can
either fork out for a VM in AWS or GCP with some real ooomph or just
buy another machine without feeling too bad about it.

On 2018-07-03 09:17 -0300 (Tue), Schwartz, Fernando G. wrote:

> Not recommeded for development (compiling), I guess. Even in mild 
> European climate, similar hardware I've found (brand name "ZOTAC"), 
> reaches threshold temp in internal storage easily (bites 50 degrees 
> Celsius). Just to mention that component, I guess. Issue < smartctl -a 
> /dev/sda > and the problem is clearly there.

Temperature hasn't been an issue for me. Not having any sensors other
than the one on the CPU, all I can say about case temperature is that,
even after ten minutes of four `openssl speed` processes grinding away
I can still keep my hand on the case indefinitely. The CPU itself idles
at around +59.0°C and, during that ten minute 4-core openssl run it
gradually rose to +98.0°C; 'high' and 'max' are advertised as +105.0°C.
It might be more of an issue if I weren't in an air-conditioned office.

Summary:

If I needed another desktop machine, I'd probably buy another N4200;
it runs one or two 4K monitors, speed is OK, and the size (hardly
bigger than my hand) is very convenient.

I've looked at the i5-7200U version as well, but it's considerably
more expensive, especially if you wouldn't be buying an M.2 SSD for
the N4200. (The i5 model doesn't have the on-board 32 GB MMC drive.)
Once I start spending ¥50k instead of ¥25K I'd start to consider a
significantly more powerful desktop CPU. A ¥13k Core i3-8100
benchmarks four times as fast, so you could probably put together a
nice Mini-ITX system for under ¥80k

cjs
-- 
Curt J. Sampson      <cjs@example.com>      +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
    - L Peter Deutsch