The desktop PC market has been subject to many challenges over the last few years. However, the miniaturization trend (including the introduction of the ultra-compact form factor - UCFF - NUCs) has provided some bright spots. Compact PCs have been around in the mini-ITX form factor for a relatively long time now. Manufacturers have been targeting other form factors such as the NUC and the Compute Stick also. We covered the various options briefly earlier this year. One of the form factors being promoted by Intel and its partners is the 'Mini Lake' reference design coming in at 102 x 64 mm. ECS has been using this form factor in its LIVA line of PCs. This form factor is usually reserved for Atom-based units. However, ECS is looking to use a Core M processor in the same form factor in the ECS LIVA Core.

Introduction and Setup Impressions

The success tasted by the Intel NUCs in the desktop PC market has prompted many motherboard vendors to create similar UCFF PCs. Instead of going with the NUC form factor, ECS has tried to differentiate itself with the Mini Lake reference design form factor. This is smaller than the standard NUC, but comes at a cost. Created in anticipation of applicability to Atom-based computers, the reference design called for soldered DRAM and eMMC storage. ECS followed this mantra dutifully in the LIVA, LIVA X and LIVA X2. With the LIVA Core, ECS has stepped up the game. While the DRAM continues to be soldered on to the motherboard, we now have a bonafide upgradable SSD instead of eMMC. Instead of the anemic Atom, we have a Core processor in the form of Core M. As a brief recap, Core M is the branding created by Intel for the Y-series processors (TDP of less than 5W meant for fanless tablets) starting with Broadwell. Core M has seen adoption in a number of fanless 2-in-1 designs. What can it bring to consumers in the UCFF desktop PC form factor? This review attempts to provide an answer.

The specifications of our ECS LIVA Core review configuration are summarized in the table below.

ECS LIVA Core Specifications
Processor	Intel Core M 5Y10c Broadwell-Y, 2C/4T, 0.8 GHz, 14nm, 4MB L2, 4.5W TDP, 3.5W SDP
Memory	4x 8Gb (4GB) DDR3L-1600
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 5300
Disk Drive(s)	120GB Intel SSD 535 M.2 SATA SSD
Networking	1x 1GbE Realtek RTL8168 + 1x1 Intel Wireless-AC 3165 802.11ac
Audio	Capable of 5.1/7.1 digital output with HD audio bitstreaming (HDMI)
Operating System	Retail unit is barebones, but we used Windows 10 Home
Pricing (As configured)	$453
Full Specifications	ECS LIVA Core Specifications

In addition to the main unit, the other components of the package include a 65 W (19V @ 3.43A) adapter, interchangeable UK, US and EU power plugs for the adapter, a VESA mount (along with the necessary screws), a driver CD, user's manual and a quick-start guide. The gallery below takes us around the package and the hardware in the unit.

It is not necessary to take the base off the unit, unless one wants to upgrade the internal M.2 SSD or replace the WLAN adapter. It is likely that this option is not going to be exercised by any user, since those components have more than enough performance for a PC in this form factor. In any case, we see a big thermal pad along the length of the M.2 SSD to aid in heat dissipation. It is placed in direct touch with the metal base of the unit.

Readers interested in a closer look at the heat sink and other internal parts of the ECS LIVA Core can peruse some pictures collected by FanlessTech in the post here.

In the table below, we have an overview of the various systems that we are comparing the ECS LIVA Core against. Note that they may not belong to the same market segment. The relevant configuration details of the machines are provided so that readers have an understanding of why some benchmark numbers are skewed for or against the ECS LIVA Core when we come to those sections.

Comparative PC Configurations
Aspect	ECS LIVA Core	ECS LIVA CoreASRock Beebox N3000-NUCZotac ZBOX CI320 nanoLogic Supply Core-ML320Logic Supply ML100G-30Zotac ZBOX CA320 nanoECS LIVA x2Zotac ZBOX CI540 nano
CPU	Intel Core M-5Y10c	Intel Core M-5Y10c
GPU	Intel HD Graphics 5300	Intel HD Graphics 5300
RAM	SKHynix H5TC8G63AMR-PBA 8Gb x16 DDR3L 11-11-11-28 @ 1600 MHz 4 x 8 Gb (4 GB)	SKHynix H5TC8G63AMR-PBA 8Gb x16 DDR3L 11-11-11-28 @ 1600 MHz 4 x 8 Gb (4 GB)
Storage	Intel SSD 535 Series SSDSCKJW120H6 (120 GB; M.2 Type 2280 SATA 6Gb/s; 16nm; MLC)	Intel SSD 535 Series SSDSCKJW120H6 (120 GB; M.2 Type 2280 SATA 6Gb/s; 16nm; MLC)
Wi-Fi	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps)	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps)
Price (in USD, when built)	$453	$453

Performance Metrics - I

The ECS LIVA Core was evaluated using our standard test suite for low power desktops / industrial PCs. Not all benchmarks were processed on all the machines due to updates in our testing procedures. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same.

Futuremark PCMark 8

PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU in the system. The Core M 5Y10c is no match for the Core U CPUs that operate with 3x the TDP rating. However, it manages to handily beat all the Atom-based fanless PCs that we have evaluated before. Amongst the PCs based on sub-10W TDP processors, the closest competitor actually happens to be the Haswell-Y -based Zotac ZBOX CI540 nano (which uses a i5-Y platform).

Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks

3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15

We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results.

The aspects noted while discussing the Futuremark benchmark results hold true here also. Basically, platforms using processors with higher TDP perform better. When compared to platforms with similar TDP, the Core M-based ECS LIVA Core manages to easily provide the best possible performance.

Performance Metrics - II

In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.

x264 Benchmark

First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0. This is simply a test of CPU performance. In this particular workload, we actually don't see any improvements in Broadwell-Y over Haswell-Y, but that could be influence by a variety of factors. Since this workload involves sustained CPU loading, the likely reason is that the thermal design allows the ZBOX CI540 nano to stay at higher clocks for more time compared to the ECS LIVA Core.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.

TrueCrypt

As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. CPUs supporting the AES-NI instruction for accelerating the encryption and decryption processes have, till now, been the higher end SKUs. However, with Bay Trail, even the lowly Atom series has gained support for AES-NI. The Core M 5Y10c in the ECS LIVA Core does have AES-NI support. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. Despite being no longer in development, the TrueCrypt internal benchmark provides some interesting cryptography-related numbers to ponder. In the graph below, we can get an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the ECS LIVA Core and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test.

Agisoft Photoscan

Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:

• Stage 1: Align Photographs
• Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
• Stage 3: Build Mesh
• Stage 4: Build Textures

We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software. In our case, the reasons behind the ordering in the Futuremark benchmarks can be applied here also.

Dolphin Emulator

Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the CPU capabilities, and the Zotac ZBOX CI540 nano is the only system with a similar TDP to perform better than the ECS LIVA Core (likely due to the same reasons that the x264 benchmark is in favor of the former).

Networking and Storage Performance

Networking and storage are two major aspects which influence the experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the ECS LIVA Core. On the storage side, one option would be a repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.

The Intel SSD 535 Series was launched back in April 2015 without much fanfare. While the same Sandforce SF2281 controller is retained from the SSD 530 series, the M.2 2280 SSD in the ECS LIVA Core uses 16nm MLC flash. In general the performance of the SSD is great for compressible workloads, but there are plenty of other platforms that perform better overall - particularly given the fact that the SF2281 first came out back in 2011. However, Intel's SSDs (even those of the SandForce variety) seem to have good reliability in the long run, and the SSD 535 Series should hopefully perform in a similar manner.

On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired GbE client is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iPerf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iPerf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iPerf and present the highest number in the graph below.

In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.

The Intel Wireless AC3165 is the second generation follow-up to the AC3160 in the 1x1:1 802.11ac product stack. Intel claims that the AC3165 has better performance and consumes lesser power compared to the AC3160. It is available only in the M.2 form factor. In our evaluation, the AC3165 manages to edge out the AC3160 slightly in terms of performance (though differences in the antenna placement on the client side must also be taken into consideration here). The wireless performance of the AC3165-equipped ECA LIVA Core is only bettered by the Logic Supply ML100G-30 which sports the Intel AC7260, a 2x2 solution.

HTPC Credentials

Given the ECS LIVA Core's fanless nature and the presence of Intel HD Graphics, we expect many purchasers to use it as a media playback machine / HTPC. It is obvious that we are not looking at a madVR capable machine, but one targeted at the entry-level / average HTPC user or someone looking for a HTPC to put in a second or third room (non-primary HTPC). There are two HTPC aspects that we will explore in this section, one related to network streaming (OTT services), and the other related to local file playback. Prior to that, we have a small sub-section dealing with refresh rate accuracy.

Refresh Rate Accurancy

Starting with Haswell, Intel, AMD and NVIDIA have been on par with respect to display refresh rate accuracy. The most important refresh rate for videophiles is obviously 23.976 Hz (the 23 Hz setting). As expected, the ECS LIVA Core has no trouble with refreshing the display appropriately in this setting.

The gallery below presents some of the other refresh rates that we tested out. The first statistic in madVR's OSD indicates the display refresh rate.

Network Streaming Efficiency

Evaluation of OTT playback efficiency was done by playing back our standard YouTube test stream and five minutes from our standard Netflix test title. Using HTML5, the YouTube stream now plays back a 1080p H.264 encoded stream. Since YouTube now defaults to HTML5 for video playback, we have stopped evaluating Adobe Flash acceleration. Note that only NVIDIA exposes GPU and VPU loads separately. Both Intel and AMD bundle the decoder load along with the GPU load. The following graph show the power consumption at the wall for playback of the HTML5 stream in Mozilla Firefox (v 41.0).

GPU load was around 47.56% for the YouTube HTML5 stream and 6.67% for the steady state 6 Mbps Netflix streaming case.

Netflix streaming evaluation was done using the Windows 8.1 Netflix app. Manual stream selection is available (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S) and debug information / statistics can also be viewed (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D). Statistics collected for the YouTube streaming experiment were also collected here.

Decoding and Rendering Benchmarks

In order to evaluate local file playback, we concentrate on EVR-CP and Kodi. We already know that EVR works quite well even with the Intel IGP for our test streams. EVR-CP was used in conjunction with the LAV Filters bundled with MPC-HC v1.7.9. Settings were left at default (except for 4K decoding to be hardware accelerated).

In our earlier reviews, we focused on presenting the GPU loading and power consumption at the wall in a table (with problematic streams in bold). Starting with the Broadwell NUC review, we decided to represent the GPU load and power consumption in a graph with dual Y-axes. Nine different test streams of 90 seconds each were played back with a gap of 30 seconds between each of them. The characteristics of each stream are annotated at the bottom of the graph. Note that the GPU usage is graphed in red and needs to be considered against the left axis, while the at-wall power consumption is graphed in green and needs to be considered against the right axis.

Frame drops are evident whenever the GPU load consistently stays above the 85 - 90% mark. All our test streams managed to play back without issues in the two configurations that were tested out.

Moving on to the codec support, the Intel HD Graphics 5300 is a known quantity with respect to the scope of supported hardware accelerated codecs. DXVA Checker serves as a confirmation.

The only unfortunate aspect here is the complete absence of any sort of hardware acceleration for HEVC. Even GPU-aided hybrid decode acceleration for HEVC Main profile (8b) is not available. Other codecs work flawlessly, as evident from our decoding and rendering benchmarks. On the audio side, we had no trouble getting HD audio bitstreaming to work.

Power Consumption and Thermal Performance

The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 1080p display being driven through one of the HDMI ports. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the ECS LIVA Core with other low power PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran Furmark 1.12.0 and Prime95 v27.9 together. In terms of idle power, only the ECS LIVA x2 with an Atom-class SoC platform is better.

On the full load side, we observed 17.44 W peak power consumption. However, this was in the turbo mode for less than 15 seconds. In the full load steady state, we observed the power consumption to be around 10.1 W - the lowest of any mini-PC that we have evaluated so far.

Our thermal stress routine starts with the system at idle, followed by 30 minutes of pure CPU loading. This is followed by another 30 minutes of both CPU and GPU being loaded simultaneously. After this, the CPU load gets removed, allowing the GPU to be loaded alone for another 30 minutes. The various clocks in the system as well as the temperatures within the unit are presented below. In the first graph, we can see the small spike to 2 GHz for the core clocks very early on in the evaluation routine. The cores drop down to 1 GHz, but later on move to 1.5 GHz for a while before settling down around 1.2 GHz. However, introduction of additional GPU load forces the cores to operate between 600 and 800 MHz, while the GPU staus at 300 MHz. Removal of the CPU load allows the GPU to go up to 350 MHz under sustained loading conditions.

According to the official specifications, the junction temperature of the Core M 5Y10c is 95 C. The maximum core temperature recorded in the course of our thermal evaluation routine was only around 80 C - indicating that the thermal solution is good enough for the platform.

Another important aspect to keep note of while evaluating fanless PCs is the chassis temperature. Using the Android version of the FLIR One thermal imager, we observed the chassis temperature after the CPU package temperature reached the steady state value in the above graph.

We have additional thermal images in the gallery below.

A chassis temperature of around 68 C is definitely a bit too hot to handle, but, thankfully, it is not as bad as the 75 C we saw in the LIVA X2. The metal base at the bottom as well as the substantially better heat sink on top of the SoC manage to keep the temperature of the system under better limits. However, the chassis design could definitely do with some improvements to make this aspect better.

Final Words

The ECS LIVA Core provided us with the opportunity to evaluate Core M in a desktop PC configuration. Compact fanless PCs that can be VESA-mounted on the back of a display are understandably popular, and the LIVA class of products from ECS caters to this market segment as an alternative to the standard NUCs. With the addition of the LIVA Core, ECS has two different performance levels for customers to choose from. Within the same power envelop, we have the LIVA Core providing with tangible performance improvements compared to the LIVA X2. Obviously, there is a price premium associated with this performance increase. The presence of two HDMI outputs can also lead to some interesting use-cases.

In terms of scope for improvement, ECS could have gone for DRAM with better timings. For example, in our Zotac ZBOX CI540 nano review, we used DDR3L memory with 9-9-9-24 timing. The soldered memory in the LIVA Core is rated for 11-11-11-28. This definitely leaves some performance on the table (as we saw the CI540 nano perform as good or even better than the LIVA Core in a few benchmarks). On the I/O front, the microSD slot should definitely be replaced with a full-sized SDHC slot (one should note that microSD cards can be used in those with a passive adapter, but the reverse situation is not possible). Given the premium nature of the system, it would have been nice to have an Intel LAN chipset instead of the currently integrated Realtek LAN. We are also not very enthusiastic about the SandForce-based SSD choice. Consumers wishing to upgrade the SSD need to note that only M.2 2280 SSDs are supported. The thermal solution for the SSD also needs to be kept in mind, given its proximity to the WLAN component.

The thermal solution seems fine at first glance. It should allow for more than acceptable performance under normal client workloads. However, we believe the chassis design could be altered for better airflow and convective cooling. A design similar to that of the Zotac C-series nano units (with perforations all around, including the top) could help with this aspect.

ECS has plans for two SKUs in the NA market. The configuration we reviewed comes in at $453. Another SKU with the same hardware configuration, but a licensed pre-installed version of Windows 10 Home will come in at $553.

Coming to the business end of the review, it can be said that the ECS LIVA Core comes in a slick package with acceptable trade-offs. However, the premium pricing of the unit may be considered as a deterrent by many prospective customers. That said, one should note that passively cooled PCs with similar or better performance carry a larger premium. For example, the Haswell-Y-based Zotac ZBOX CI540 nano configuration that was used as a comparison point in many of the benchmarks comes in at $520.

Core M is a great fit for fanless 2-in-1s. However, in a desktop form factor, we believe consumers might be more attracted to the cheaper Braswell-based fanless PCs or opt to sacrifice the looks and form factor a bit, pay a premium and go for the fanless NUCs. It will be interesting to see the market reception for Core M-based fanless desktop PCs such as the ECS LIVA Core that occupy a price point in the middle.