As many of you are no doubt aware, Intel has done away with the Celeron CPU designation. I believe that holds true for the Pentium CPUs as well, but not 100% certain on that point. The latest gen of low power CPUs carrying on from those CPUs are the "N" series of CPUs.
A friend of mine just got a Mini PC based on the new N95 CPU. This is an interesting little CPU. It's only a 15W part that has 4 cores with no hyperthreading. One of the really interesting things is that these cores are all 12th gen efficiency cores. Unlike the i5, i7, etc. there are no performance cores.
My friend tasked me with the initial setup of this machine, and I have to say that I'm impressed.
For $219 (US) he got a system with these specs:
The N95 CPU
16 GB DDR4 RAM
512 GB SATA M.2 SSD
4 x USB 2 Ports
2 x USB 3 Ports
1 x USB-C Port
1 x HDMI
1 x DVI
WiFi 5 with Bluetooth
2 x Gigabit Ethernet
1 x Headphone Jack
1 x Audio Out Jack
VESA Mounting Bracket
Has a 2.5" drive bay to accommodate an additional 2.5" HDD or SSD
Comes with Win 11 Pro preinstalled (the factory image has 22H2 with updates through Dec 13, 2022 installed, build 22621.963)
In this case, the model is an ACE Magician AD03, but other companies are shipping N95 based mini PCs as well.
For even less ($166) you can get the same thing but with 8 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD.
This little box seems to be surprisingly responsive. This seems to be a nice bump up from the Celeron based systems I have played with. I have a laptop with a 7th gen Intel i7 and this cheap little box mops the floor with it. I guess that those efficiency cores are actually pretty capable compared to the older tech.
I just thought that I would mention this for anyone looking for cheap systems for day-to-day activities. Seems like a pretty amazing value with very passable performance in my opinion.
A friend of mine just got a Mini PC based on the new N95 CPU. This is an interesting little CPU. It's only a 15W part that has 4 cores with no hyperthreading. One of the really interesting things is that these cores are all 12th gen efficiency cores. Unlike the i5, i7, etc. there are no performance cores.
My friend tasked me with the initial setup of this machine, and I have to say that I'm impressed.
For $219 (US) he got a system with these specs:
The N95 CPU
16 GB DDR4 RAM
512 GB SATA M.2 SSD
4 x USB 2 Ports
2 x USB 3 Ports
1 x USB-C Port
1 x HDMI
1 x DVI
WiFi 5 with Bluetooth
2 x Gigabit Ethernet
1 x Headphone Jack
1 x Audio Out Jack
VESA Mounting Bracket
Has a 2.5" drive bay to accommodate an additional 2.5" HDD or SSD
Comes with Win 11 Pro preinstalled (the factory image has 22H2 with updates through Dec 13, 2022 installed, build 22621.963)
In this case, the model is an ACE Magician AD03, but other companies are shipping N95 based mini PCs as well.
For even less ($166) you can get the same thing but with 8 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD.
This little box seems to be surprisingly responsive. This seems to be a nice bump up from the Celeron based systems I have played with. I have a laptop with a 7th gen Intel i7 and this cheap little box mops the floor with it. I guess that those efficiency cores are actually pretty capable compared to the older tech.
I just thought that I would mention this for anyone looking for cheap systems for day-to-day activities. Seems like a pretty amazing value with very passable performance in my opinion.
My Computers
System One System Two
-
- OS
- Win11 Pro 24H2
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Self-built
- CPU
- Intel i7 11700K
- Motherboard
- ASUS Prime Z590-A MB
- Memory
- 64GB (Waiting for warranty replacement of another 64GB for 128GB total)
- Graphics Card(s)
- No GPU - Built-in Intel Graphics
- Sound Card
- Integrated
- Monitor(s) Displays
- HP Envy 32
- Screen Resolution
- 2560 x 1440
- Hard Drives
- 1 x 1TB NVMe SSD
1 x 2TB NVMe SSD
1 x 4TB NVMe SSD
3 x 512GB 2.5" SSD
1 x 4TB 2.5" SSD
5 x 8TB Seagate Barracuda HDD
- PSU
- Corsair HX850i
- Case
- Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case
- Cooling
- Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Home Computer Specifications, Configuration, and Usage Notes General Specifications ASUS Prime Z590-A motherboard, serial number M1M0KC222467ARP Intel Core i7-11700K CPU (11th Gen Rocket Lake / LGA 1200 Socket) 128GB Crucial Ballistix RGB DDR4 3200 MHz DRAM (4 x 32GB) Corsair iCUE RGB 5000X mid tower case Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black CPU cooler Noctua NF-S12A chromax.black.swap case fans (Qty. 7) & Corsair LL-120 RGB Fans (Qty. 3)
- Keyboard
- Corsair K70 Max RGB Magnetic Keyboard
- Mouse
- Logitech MX Master 3
- Internet Speed
- 1Gb Up / 1 Gb Down
- Browser
- Edge
- Antivirus
- Windows Defender
- Other Info
- The five 8TB drives and three 512GB SSDs are part of a DrivePool using StableBit DrivePool software. The three SSDs are devoted purely to caching for the 8TB drives. All of the important data is stored in triplicate so that I can withstand simultaneous failure of 2 disks.
Networking: 2.5Gbps Ethernet and WiFi 6e
-
- Operating System
- Win11 Pro 23H2
- Computer type
- Laptop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 2
- CPU
- Intel i7-1255U
- Memory
- 16 GB
- Graphics card(s)
- Intel Iris Xe Graphics
- Sound Card
- Realtek® ALC3306-CG codec
- Monitor(s) Displays
- 13.3-inch IPS Display
- Screen Resolution
- WQXGA (2560 x 1600)
- Hard Drives
- 2 TB 4 x 4 NVMe SSD
- PSU
- USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 Power / Charging
- Mouse
- Buttonless Glass Precision Touchpad
- Keyboard
- Backlit, spill resistant keyboard
- Internet Speed
- 1Gb Up / 1Gb Down
- Browser
- Edge
- Antivirus
- Windows Defender
- Other Info
- WiFi 6e / Bluetooth 5.1 / Facial Recognition / Fingerprint Sensor / ToF (Time of Flight) Human Presence Sensor
