Aleutia Relia Industrial PC Review: Ivy Bridge & Q77 in a Fanless Chassis
by Ganesh T S on December 4, 2012 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Industrial PC
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
- Aleutia
Unboxing and Setup Impressions:
Aleutia doesn't bundle input accessories (keyboard / mouse / IR remote etc.) with the system. We also don't find any detailed operating manuals. The package is pretty barebones as it can be. This is perfectly acceptable given the target market. There is a single welcome note which lists the package contents and also provides the initial login details for systems with pre-installed operating systems.
The contents of the package include:
- 90W AC adapter (with country-specific power plug)
- Driver and software CD from Intel for the DQ77KB motherboard
- OEM Windows 7 Home Premium installation DVD
- HDMI to DVI adapter
- Two TP-Link 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n compatible antennae
- Main unit
One of the most interesting aspects of the package is the main unit itself. The chassis is solidly built and meant to act as a giant heat sink. The industrial design is extremely pleasing to the eye. The rounded corners and the curved heat sink base on either side add to the aesthetics.
We would have liked the rubber feet at the bottom of the unit to be thicker in order to give more clearance to the ventilation slots at the bottom. A number of screw slots for mounts of varying sizes is also provided. The rear panel of the unit has the DC-in jack, four USB 3.0 ports, a full-size Display Port output as well as HDMI, two GbE LAN ports, analog audio out and microphone jacks and a Kensington lock slot. On the top side of the rear panel, we have ventilation slots interrupted in two places by Wi-Fi antenna holders.
The front panel is relatively bare, with a single power button and an LED indicator (which lights up blue when the system is powered up) on one side and two USB 2.0 ports on the other.
The top cover has ventilation slots running on either side close to the heat sink base. All the ventilation slots are covered by a thin gauzelike layer underneath which provides a certain degree of protection against internal dust build up.
Our review unit came with a pre-installed copy of Windows 7 Home Premium x64. Fortunately, there was no bloatware to uninstall. All our benchmarking programs were installed fresh. LAV Filters 0.52 and madVR 0.81 were used to test out the HTPC aspects in conjunction with MPC-HC v1.6.4.6052. Since the system has no in-built optical drive, we didn't have to worry about Blu-ray playback software.
We conclude this section with a summary of the data and A/V connectivity options for the Aleutia Relia review unit.
| Option | Status |
|---|---|
| HDMI | Yes [v1.4a] |
| Display Port | Yes |
| Component | No |
| Composite | No |
| VGA | Yes |
| SPDIF | Yes [Optical] |
| Stereo | Yes |
| Option | Status |
|---|---|
| Optical Disk Drive | No (DVD Slimline Drive Optional) |
| USB | Yes [4 x v3.0, 2 x v2.0] |
| eSATA | No |
| LAN | Yes [ 2 x 1000 Mbps GbE ] |
| Internal HDD | Yes [ 2 x 500 GB ] |
| Internal SSD | Yes [ 128 GB mSATA ] |
| WiFi | Yes [ 300 Mbps 1T2R 802.11b/g/n (Single band)] |
| Bluetooth | No |
| Card Reader | No |
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Sikku - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
http://www.mini-box.com/DC-DCganeshts - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
The DQ77KB mITX board has a DC input (mentioned in the review). So, only a AC - DC adapter is needed and no explicit PSU.We have the Streacom Nano150 in-house for use in our upcoming HTPC testbed. It looks very similar to the pico PSU that you have linked below.
Sikku - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
Ok.. Waiting for that review.. :)Hood6558 - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I don't get it, what's the point of buying a fast CPU installed in a case that takes it to max temp in 3 minutes under any kind of load, and then throttles it back to a lousy 900 MHz? This is "industrial" design? I wonder how long the CPU actually survives under that kind of stress. My guess is a lot of heat-related failures are in the near future of anyone foolish enough to buy one of these somewhat expensive doorstops.ganeshts - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
It really depends on the workloads. I doubt users purchasing this unit are going to run Prime 95 + Furmark as their daily workload 24 x 7.Rollo Thomasi - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
But then what is the point of an i7 if you are not going to use it?Why not go for a cheaper cooler running CPU?
The only point would be if you have a need to do a lot of short intensive bursts Wright? Then the CPU could work at top speed without throtteling.
Notmyusualid - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
And I shall buy one to make a bad-ass wifi AP & caching server (when I get the time).Lowest-end i3, an old SSD,and Squid running on some linux distro, and that should do the trick I reckon. I also have a 3x3 MIMO Card lying around so would likely install a 3rd antenna.
With my ISP now 100M/10M, I've been reluctant to try this without dual GigE ports, and a completely passive cooling solution, AND without looking like an eye sore in the living room.
But the price man...