VIA EPIA N10000 Nano-ITX Review

Posted on Feb 10, 2006

Go to: Introduction Luke CPU and South Bridge Full Specifications Box Contents and Heatsink Back Panel Connectors Connectors and Jumpers Temperature, Noise, Power Sandra Benchmarks AES Benchmarks Video Playback Tests HDTV and 6 Channel Audio Summary and Conclusion

Temperature, Noise Levels and
Power Consumption

These are the big 3 problems that EPIA boards tackle so well, and the entire computer industry is waking up to. Each works in mutual symbiosis with the other. If a component draws a lot of power, it will need to dissipate any wasted energy as heat, therefore getting hotter and requiring cooling, first with a heatsink and then with a spinning fan - creating noise, and drawing more power.

VIA try to produce low power components that create little heat, and therefore require passive (fanless) cooling. Intel turned around their entire product line to concentrate on fast, but low power consumption processors. AMD have known this for years, but certainly weren't going to tell Intel about it. We live in interesting times.

Temperature

We used a laser thermometer accurate to 1°C to measure the heatsink temperature of the EPIA N under load, on the surface of the heatsink, and pointing directly underneath the cooling fan. Then we disconnected the fan and tried again.

Results were extremely encouraging. The heatsink remained at room temperature throughout the first test (around 25°C), and gradually heated up slightly to around 35°C with the fan so recklessly disconnected. At idle with the fan spinning the heatsink was cold to the touch. Core surface temperatures as you would expect were higher, by around another 10°C on average (and depending exactly where you pointed the laser).

Sound Levels

The fan itself was also extremely quiet. Perhaps in an enclosure allowing for vibration there would be a subtle noise, but to all intents and purposes it was virtually silent. VIA measure this at 20dBA, which is about the same as whispering at 1m. Or a kitten kissing a butterfly's wings. Probably.

Of course this could change - small fans often get noisier over time, particularly if they suck in some dust. But for now we're impressed.

Power Consumption

While we did this we also measured power consumption using a plug-through Wattmeter (i.e. a household energy meter). We had a slimline optical drive and 2.5in HDD connected through a 120W 12V DC converter, powered by a 60W AC Adapter. We would expect the drives to consume about 5W each, and there to be perhaps 5-10% wastage at the PSU.

Our measured power consumption was between 25W at idle and 30W under load for the whole system. Subtracting the components, this works out at under 20W for the board, even under load. A similar Mini-ITX board draws about 10-15W more than this whilst performing the same tasks, so this is an impressive cut in power consumption.

Benchmarks (1) - Sisoft Sandra-->

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