Jasper Lake Fanless Showdown: ECS LIVA Z3 and ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano UCFF PCs Review

Setup Notes and Platform Analysis

Upon completion of the hardware configuration of the review samples, we took some time to look into the BIOS interface of both systems. The videos below present the entire gamut of available options for both systems.

ECS has opted for a vanilla keyboard-only BIOS for the Z3. Available options include power management for resumption of the system by LAN / USB etc., control of resumption behavior after power loss, etc. These are key aspects for commercial deployments.

The ZBOX BIOS is comparatively more modern. The control of C-states, for example, is a lot more fine-grained compared to the LIVA Z3's.

AIDA64's system report provides insights into the platform for both systems. While the USB ports on the systems come directly off the PCH, it is still interesting to figure out the high-speed I/O distribution.

On the ECS LIVA Z3, the PCIe Gen 3 lanes are budgeted as below:

• PCIe 3.0 x1 port #4: In Use @ x1 (Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 AC HMC WiFi Adapter)
• PCIe 3.0 x2 port #5: In Use @ x2 (Crucial/Micron DM0182 NVMe SSD Controller)
• PCIe 3.0 x1 port #7: In Use @ x1 (Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Adapter)

The PCIe Gen 3 lanes in the ZBOX CI331 nano are used primarily for the LAN controllers, with the Wireless-AC 9462 connecting through the CNVi interface:

• PCIe 3.0 x1 port #5: In Use @ x1 (Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Adapter)
• PCIe 3.0 x1 port #6: In Use @ x1 (Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Adapter)

In today's review, we compare the ECS LIVA Z3 and the ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano with a host of other systems based on processors using the Atom microarchitectures. The systems do not target the same market segments, but a few key aspects lie in common, making the comparisons relevant.

The ECS JSLM-MINI is included to prove that the Z3's chassis design is solely responsible for performance loss under sustained realistic workloads. The ECS LIVA Z2 is included to obtain an idea of the generation-to-generation improvements, while the June Canyon NUC7PJYH is included to determine if the newer generation's fanless systems can compete well against the previous-generation's actively cooled flagship in the Atom-based product category. The next few sections will deal with comparative benchmarks for the above systems.