While this is a neat package, I'm personally more interested in the H600. It has an x16 PCIe slot for adding a card in. While some might add a graphics card, I'd much rather add a 4 port Ethernet card as this is a good size for a homebrew router/firewall. Unfortunately, it gets rather expensive, and there are other solutions out there that are more cost efficient.
I agree. Option for an add in PCIe card would be better. Also, more ethernet ports are very useful in an industrial environment as several systems such as machine vision cameras , laser trackers etc have Ethernet IO.
Problem is that stupid DMI link, which AFAIK is PCIe 3.0 x4 (so not quite 4GB/sec). 4x 1GbE should be OK, as long as you aren't also doing anything intensive via USB3, or doing too much with the M.2 storage...
Lot of problems with it. High price for what you get, out of date specs, no way to update any of it as you have to buy configged. The case is the real draw here, even just selling an up to date barebones setup at a relatively high price would be preferable to what you can get from OnLogic.
Like, I get why. They're a specialty shop. But I suspect opening up past their industrial focus, where form factor and fanless and such is more important than specs and budget might get them a new customer segment. I'd certainly be a potential customer if they did, but I'm not holding out hope.
"are suitable for industrial applications requiring longevity and minimal maintenance"
since I had to deal with older units like the HX500, I would say they are not suited for some industrial applications - the crux of the problem is that these units are not sealed at all and certain environments can utterly destroy them
No issue there. Adapter is rated for DC output; review measured AC input “at the wall.” 120 into 138w is 87% efficient. We don’t actually know the system was pulling the full 120w DC. The fanless system obviously cannot dissipate that sustained, but settles in the 50-55w range, 60w at the wall. That’s how modern CPUs work. They idle cold, blow past the normal power budget for load and then settle closer to rated power when things warm up.
So, it's only a single design failure then (thermal throttling).
My view of thermal throttling is that it should only happen as a preventative measure to keep a system from being ruined due to user error (such as letting a machine become clogged with dust).
Otherwise, you're clocking the chip wrong or doing something else wrong with the design. Stuffing 14nm into a passive case in 2021 probably is part of the mistake.
But, for tricking people with numbers I guess hiding the real performance behind a shifting facade of throttling is fun.
So there is normal throttling and then there is emergency throttling or sometimes shutdown. The CPU is rated for 35w, even though the same silicon is known to be capable of 65 or 95w. What they do is as long as all the temperatures are cool, they let the silicon use 60w+ for a few seconds. This can happen in a laptop, or in this industrial enclosure. It makes it feel just as fast as a desktop, but it can’t last for a heavy sustained workload because of heat buildup. After it warms up, it goes back down to the voltage and frequency it was designed to sustain.
It has nothing to do with 14nm. My 7nm desktop works similarly. In 2021 Intel’s got 10nm for low-power (that’s what all Tiger Lake laptops are), but OnLogic was too cheap for that or figured their clientele doesn’t want the latest and greatest. Their case successfully prevented the 35w chip from emergency throttling, so it passed the thermal design test in my book.
I mean, it is a fanless, almost sealed enclosure the size of a standing router or cable modem - how much more can you expect? The benchmarks were more than fine. They way outclassed the Zotac, which is also fanless and the size of a router, but uses commodity plastic hole vents which would be wholly inappropriate in industrial settings but would be suitable as a living room htpc. The OnLogic system gets close to 80c peak on the case; one would hope for the sake of longevity that they used high temperature components throughout and that would be the reason for the high price.
Potential improvements are obviously a finer process node like Tiger Lake or one of the Zen 3 laptop chips, a low-power specialized fab node... but all that R&D takes time and $$. The world isn't perfect and we don't have infinite population.
I expect parts to match the capability of the cooling versus putting too-demanding parts into a box and relying on throttling. If the parts need a larger heatsink box then use that or choose less demanding parts.
The only exception is turbo that is designed to safely ‘overclock’ a chip if the cooling is better than the norm. That is a good feature.
As far as I can tell the parts match very well. All the CPU choices for the little box top out at 35w. Obviously the 138w momentary draw came from turbo; there is no separate GPU. The review found the junction temperature under sustained load hit 98C which is just under the throttling temp of 100C. A 15w chip would have undersold the capabilities of the design, and a 65w+ desktop part would have been throttled under sustained load unless perhaps operating out of Antarctica…
That’s not to say some won’t take issue with the incomplete seal, or that there might be component longevity issues down the road which is where a warranty comes in.
Any VRM cooling on this? I think I see a thermal pad for the SSD, but the VRMs will be a long term point of failure running in a sealed box with no conductive path to the heatsink.
Does this setup have anything resembling an IPx7 or X8 rating, i.e. is it sealed against water and dust ingress? Those would be among the reasons that might justify the price. Without any such protection, I wonder just how long it'd actually last in an environment that requires a fanless setup.
I run a K39 PC, which is the smallest cheap PC case on the market & only cost a few dollars from China, not the $1000 this HX500 costs. The K39 contains a standard mITX mobo, flex PSU, and a full size GPU. Works fine. My K39 isn't passively cooled, but if I left out the GPU and put in a low power chip then maybe it could be passively cooled.
I also bought in the same package a K19, which is the same form factor as the HX500 (ie no GPU) possibly a little bit smaller and a K29 which is the same form factor as the HX610. Haven't built them yet, but these cases are really tiny, only cost a few dollars, and you can run anything from an iGPU to a full i9 / Ryzen 9 in them.
The cases are all-metal, and being so small, act as part of the radiator for the system. Easy enough to add some fins if needed. Definitely not waterproof or weatherproof but neither is this system.
"A few dollars" comes out to what, $200 shipped for cheap perforated aluminium box with dodgy PSU, and you are somehow comparing that to a complete PC (motherboard, CPU, RAM, SSD included) with chassis that actually works as a heatsink? Mind boggles ...
I really love the AnandTech comment system. Instead of checking for notifications, I can check the comment counts on the stories, remember the old number to see if it has gone up at all, and then skim... only to find a new spam comment.
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lightningz71 - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
While this is a neat package, I'm personally more interested in the H600. It has an x16 PCIe slot for adding a card in. While some might add a graphics card, I'd much rather add a 4 port Ethernet card as this is a good size for a homebrew router/firewall. Unfortunately, it gets rather expensive, and there are other solutions out there that are more cost efficient.YB1064 - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
I agree. Option for an add in PCIe card would be better. Also, more ethernet ports are very useful in an industrial environment as several systems such as machine vision cameras , laser trackers etc have Ethernet IO.ZPrime - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
Problem is that stupid DMI link, which AFAIK is PCIe 3.0 x4 (so not quite 4GB/sec).4x 1GbE should be OK, as long as you aren't also doing anything intensive via USB3, or doing too much with the M.2 storage...
saratoga4 - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
>4x 1GbE should be OK~4x100 MB/s will definitely be ok on a 4000 MB/s PCIe link. 4x 10Gbe would be a little tighter, but ok in most realistic scenarios.
Frenetic Pony - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
Lot of problems with it. High price for what you get, out of date specs, no way to update any of it as you have to buy configged. The case is the real draw here, even just selling an up to date barebones setup at a relatively high price would be preferable to what you can get from OnLogic.Like, I get why. They're a specialty shop. But I suspect opening up past their industrial focus, where form factor and fanless and such is more important than specs and budget might get them a new customer segment. I'd certainly be a potential customer if they did, but I'm not holding out hope.
[email protected] - Sunday, September 19, 2021 - link
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Threska - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
The two should be sufficient since a lot use a switch anyway, which would be smaller than this box.sarahmarcus - Tuesday, March 8, 2022 - link
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TheinsanegamerN - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
That H600 box is really neat, but over $1000 for that is an eye watering price (granted I know its specialty equipment, but still).zmeul - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
"are suitable for industrial applications requiring longevity and minimal maintenance"since I had to deal with older units like the HX500, I would say they are not suited for some industrial applications - the crux of the problem is that these units are not sealed at all and certain environments can utterly destroy them
Oxford Guy - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
130W with a 120W adapter.Thermal throttling.
Double failure.
Oxford Guy - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
138W.Wrs - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
No issue there. Adapter is rated for DC output; review measured AC input “at the wall.” 120 into 138w is 87% efficient. We don’t actually know the system was pulling the full 120w DC. The fanless system obviously cannot dissipate that sustained, but settles in the 50-55w range, 60w at the wall. That’s how modern CPUs work. They idle cold, blow past the normal power budget for load and then settle closer to rated power when things warm up.Oxford Guy - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
Ok. Thanks for the clarification.So, it's only a single design failure then (thermal throttling).
My view of thermal throttling is that it should only happen as a preventative measure to keep a system from being ruined due to user error (such as letting a machine become clogged with dust).
Otherwise, you're clocking the chip wrong or doing something else wrong with the design. Stuffing 14nm into a passive case in 2021 probably is part of the mistake.
But, for tricking people with numbers I guess hiding the real performance behind a shifting facade of throttling is fun.
Wrs - Sunday, September 19, 2021 - link
So there is normal throttling and then there is emergency throttling or sometimes shutdown. The CPU is rated for 35w, even though the same silicon is known to be capable of 65 or 95w. What they do is as long as all the temperatures are cool, they let the silicon use 60w+ for a few seconds. This can happen in a laptop, or in this industrial enclosure. It makes it feel just as fast as a desktop, but it can’t last for a heavy sustained workload because of heat buildup. After it warms up, it goes back down to the voltage and frequency it was designed to sustain.It has nothing to do with 14nm. My 7nm desktop works similarly. In 2021 Intel’s got 10nm for low-power (that’s what all Tiger Lake laptops are), but OnLogic was too cheap for that or figured their clientele doesn’t want the latest and greatest. Their case successfully prevented the 35w chip from emergency throttling, so it passed the thermal design test in my book.
Oxford Guy - Sunday, September 19, 2021 - link
Marketing magic to try to justify inadequate cooling. Not a fan.Wrs - Monday, September 20, 2021 - link
I mean, it is a fanless, almost sealed enclosure the size of a standing router or cable modem - how much more can you expect? The benchmarks were more than fine. They way outclassed the Zotac, which is also fanless and the size of a router, but uses commodity plastic hole vents which would be wholly inappropriate in industrial settings but would be suitable as a living room htpc. The OnLogic system gets close to 80c peak on the case; one would hope for the sake of longevity that they used high temperature components throughout and that would be the reason for the high price.Potential improvements are obviously a finer process node like Tiger Lake or one of the Zen 3 laptop chips, a low-power specialized fab node... but all that R&D takes time and $$. The world isn't perfect and we don't have infinite population.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, September 21, 2021 - link
‘how much more can you expect’I expect parts to match the capability of the cooling versus putting too-demanding parts into a box and relying on throttling. If the parts need a larger heatsink box then use that or choose less demanding parts.
The only exception is turbo that is designed to safely ‘overclock’ a chip if the cooling is better than the norm. That is a good feature.
Wrs - Tuesday, September 21, 2021 - link
As far as I can tell the parts match very well. All the CPU choices for the little box top out at 35w. Obviously the 138w momentary draw came from turbo; there is no separate GPU. The review found the junction temperature under sustained load hit 98C which is just under the throttling temp of 100C. A 15w chip would have undersold the capabilities of the design, and a 65w+ desktop part would have been throttled under sustained load unless perhaps operating out of Antarctica…That’s not to say some won’t take issue with the incomplete seal, or that there might be component longevity issues down the road which is where a warranty comes in.
Jonny314159 - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
Any VRM cooling on this? I think I see a thermal pad for the SSD, but the VRMs will be a long term point of failure running in a sealed box with no conductive path to the heatsink.eastcoast_pete - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
Does this setup have anything resembling an IPx7 or X8 rating, i.e. is it sealed against water and dust ingress? Those would be among the reasons that might justify the price. Without any such protection, I wonder just how long it'd actually last in an environment that requires a fanless setup.Tomatotech - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
I run a K39 PC, which is the smallest cheap PC case on the market & only cost a few dollars from China, not the $1000 this HX500 costs. The K39 contains a standard mITX mobo, flex PSU, and a full size GPU. Works fine. My K39 isn't passively cooled, but if I left out the GPU and put in a low power chip then maybe it could be passively cooled.I also bought in the same package a K19, which is the same form factor as the HX500 (ie no GPU) possibly a little bit smaller and a K29 which is the same form factor as the HX610. Haven't built them yet, but these cases are really tiny, only cost a few dollars, and you can run anything from an iGPU to a full i9 / Ryzen 9 in them.
The cases are all-metal, and being so small, act as part of the radiator for the system. Easy enough to add some fins if needed. Definitely not waterproof or weatherproof but neither is this system.
Arnulf - Sunday, September 19, 2021 - link
"A few dollars" comes out to what, $200 shipped for cheap perforated aluminium box with dodgy PSU, and you are somehow comparing that to a complete PC (motherboard, CPU, RAM, SSD included) with chassis that actually works as a heatsink? Mind boggles ...The_Assimilator - Monday, September 20, 2021 - link
Which part of "The K39 contains a standard mITX mobo" was unclear to you?iammrr - Sunday, January 16, 2022 - link
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FLORIDAMAN85 - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
Oh, look: an $800.00 Raspberry Pi.nandnandnand - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
An i7-10700T is somewhere between 5 and 50 times faster.Meteor2 - Sunday, October 3, 2021 - link
The $800 model comes with a CeleronBedfordTim - Monday, September 20, 2021 - link
Not having a 24V power input is disappointing.Wrs - Tuesday, September 21, 2021 - link
Err, the specs page clearly states 12-24v input. The adapter they sell is 20v.nandnandnand - Tuesday, September 21, 2021 - link
I really love the AnandTech comment system. Instead of checking for notifications, I can check the comment counts on the stories, remember the old number to see if it has gone up at all, and then skim... only to find a new spam comment.t.s - Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - link
One of the most prominent tech news site, with abysmal comment system. Nice.