At first we would like to thank ECS for sending out a sample of their LIVA Q3D Mini-PC for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About ECS:

 

“Founded in 1987, ECS, the Elitegroup Computer Systems, is a top-notch manufacturer and supplier of several families of computer products in the industry. With almost 30 years of experience, ECS not only produces high-quality products such as motherboards, desktops, notebook computers, graphics cards and other mobile products, but also provides customized computer programming and hardware/ software design service for a wide variety of customers.

More than two decades, ECS has overcome a great deal of obstacles encountering new businesses and has experienced the joy of significant growth and development. ECS is strongly committed to develop cutting-edge technology in order to generate innovative products under environmental friendly designs. ECS comprehensive system of quality control provides our clients with reassurance and fosters long term cooperation.”

 

Product Features:

 

HDMI 2.0 up to 4K Resolution

LIVA Q3 Series featured 4K resolution with HDMI 2.0 video output, the much more vivid and clear visuals at a glance, to provide the best 4K visual experience.

 

Pocket-sized Design

The Tiny size, you can just pick it up on hand or put it in your pocket. In addition, occupying no space to compute everywhere, even hiding in the back with your display.

 

HDMI CEC Function

You can control the device display connection or turn the system on/off via HDMI CEC functionby using the remote of the display (TV).

 

Micro SD Slot to Extend Storage

LIVA Q3 Series offers the best C/P Micro SD extended storage solution, it keeps storage for your files, photos, and movies.

 

Support VESA Mount

With VESA standard design, it's easily transformed into a display in any workplace to increase the flexibility for any application of yours.

 

Product Specifications:

 

PLATFORM: Intel® Jasper Lake SoC (Pentium® Silver N6000 & Celeron® N5100 / N4500 processors)

EXPANSION SLOT: 1 x Micro SD slot (Max:128GB)

MEMORY: 4GB LPDDR4X

STORAGE: 128GB

NETWORKING: 1 x GbE LAN

USB:

2 x USB 3.2 Gen1x1 (FRONT I/O)

1 x USB 2.0 Port

VIDEO OUTPUT:

1 x HDMI Port

1 x DisplayPort

WIRELESS: 802.11 ac/b/g/n

POWER: Input: AC 100-240V,Output: DC 12V / 3A

VESA MOUNT: Supports 75mm / 100mm

WEIGHT: 174g

DIMENSIONS (MM): 74mm * 74mm * 34.6mm

OS SUPPORT: Windows 11 64bit

ACCESSORY:

6 x VESA Mount Screws

Quick Guide

1 x VESA Bracket

1 x Power adapter

 

In this article we will check out another interesting product from the LIVA Mini PC series, which sports a quad-core Intel Pentium Silver N6000 SoC, an entry-level SKU announced in early 2021 that includes four Tremont CPU cores that can clock between 1.1GHz and 3.3GHz (single-core Burst) and does not come with HT capabilities. The SoC comes with 1.5MB of L2 cache and 4MB of L3 cache, while the manufacturing process is on 10nm. In terms of graphics, it incorporates a 32 EU Intel UHD iGPU with clocks varying from 350 to 850MHz and the memory controller supports the on-board 2x2GB LPDDR4 configuration with an operating frequency of 2933MHz.

 

The LIVA Q3D Mini PC is not called for nothing “Pocket-sized”, as it is mentioned on the top area of the box:

 

 

 

On the side, we will note a sticker with some serial numbers and some details on the SKU specifications; even if it is written on the sticker that our sample comes with 64GB of eMMC internal storage, the correct value is 128GB:

 

 

 

The full list of specifications is also included nearby:

 

 

 

After unsealing the box, we will note the small PC sitting in the middle, surrounded by cardboard material, so it won’t move during transit:

 

 

 

Besides the LIVA Q3D, we will receive the power adapter, the VESA mount but also the necessary mounting screws:

 

 

 

The power supply comes with three different adapters in order to fit the area we are in:

 

 

 

A closer look does reveal that on the output we have 12V at 3A, for a maximum of 36W:

 

 

 

The other end of the cable includes a jack plug:

 

 

 

The Mini PC is only 74 x 74 x 34.6 mm so very, very small and on the outside, we will note the stylish case with piano black elements on top:

 

 

 

In the frontal area, we will note two USB 3.2 Gen1x1 and one USB 2.0 Type-A ports, but also the Power button, along with the Power LED:

 

 

 

On the side, we will note a ventilation grill, a Kensington lock port but also a HDMI logo:

 

 

 

The opposite side does also feature a ventilation grill, along with a microSDHC/SDXC card reader for additional storage:

 

 

 

The back area comes with the DC-In port, a HDMI 2.0 port, a DisplayPort port but also a Gigabit LAN port. A ventilation grill can be noted in the top area as well:

 

 

 

The bottom area of the LIVA Q3D comes with a small central sticker with the power rating, date of manufacture but also the product serial number. The screws in the corners are also doubling as rubber feet:

 

 

 

After unscrewing the fixing screws, we can easily remove the bottom area of the Mini PC:

 

 

 

The whole assembly consists of a two-PCB sandwich and on the bottom part we can clearly note the fan cable, but also the LAN card with the two WiFi antennas attached:

 

 

 

The ITE IT66318FN chip allows the LIVA Q3D to output HDMI 2.1 4K 60Hz:

 

 

 

A loon on the side does reveal the existence of a small heatsink to cool the Intel SoC, but also a small fan:

 

 

 

 

The other sides do reveal the connectors between the two sandwiched PCBs:

 

 

 

 

The UEFI BIOS is not enabled with the mouse interaction interface, but sports the simple, legacy Aptio appearance; the Main section allows the user to change the UI language, but also adjust the system date and time:

 

 

 

From the Advanced area we can access a lot of sub-sections:

 

 

 

LAN Configuration menu allows turning the interface on or off:

 

 

 

From the PC Health Status menu, we can check the real-time SoC temperature, system temperature, fan speed, the CPU core voltage, the soldered RAM voltage, 3.3V voltage measurement but also the TCC activation temp:

 

 

 

The usual PM options are next:

 

 

 

 

From the CPU Configuration area, we can work with different processor-specific options:

 

 

 

USB ports can be enabled or disabled via the dedicated menu:

 

 

 

The SuperIO Configuration is the area to for configuring HDMI CEC:

 

 

 

 

The eMMC controller can be enabled or disabled; by disabling it, the storage part won’t be accessible anymore:

 

 

 

WiFi and Bluetooth functions can be disabled manually as well:

 

 

 

TPM 2.0 is enabled to allow installation of the latest Windows operating system:

 

 

 

The Chipset area allows working with three more sub-sections:

 

 

 

The SA Configuration area allows the user to configure the amount of memory available to the iGPU:

 

 

 

PCH Configuration also takes care of enabling or disabling the audio interface via HDMI:

 

 

 

ME Control can be enabled or disabled:

 

 

 

From the Tweak tab, we can enable EIST and Turbo Boost:

 

 

 

The Security tab allows the user to turn the Secure Boot off, but also adjust the Administrator Password:

 

 

 

Boot menu can be checked out next:

 

 

 

Finally, we have the Exit menu, where we can save, discard or load factory defaults; here we also have a save slot, “save as user defaults” or we can perform Boot Override:

 

 

 

With the help of AIDA64 reporting tool, we have extracted some more details on the test system:

 

CPU

Motherboard

IMC

SB

Network Adapters

iGPU

Audio Devices

eMMC

 

AIDA64

 

Cinebench R15

 

 

 

Blender Ryzen Render

 

 

PCMark 7

 

 

PCMark 8

 

 

SuperPI XS [2M]

 

X265 Benchmark 1080P 64-bit Normal

 

 

GeekBench 4

 

 

3DMark Vantage

 

 

3DMark 2013

 

 

Tomb Raider

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

 

Hitman: Absolution

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

 

Sleeping Dogs

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

AIDA64

 

Cinebench R15

 

 

 

Blender Ryzen Render

 

 

PCMark 7

 

 

PCMark 8

 

 

SuperPI XS [2M]

 

X265 Benchmark 1080P 64-bit Normal

 

 

GeekBench 4

 

 

3DMark Vantage

 

 

3DMark 2013

 

 

Tomb Raider

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

 

Hitman: Absolution

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

 

Sleeping Dogs

Andrenaline Action Benchmark Presets

The LIVA Q3D is a very interesting offering in a small package, allowing decent 4K media playback, browsing capabilities and office work, while using the latest Windows OS from Microsoft (W11 22H2). The 128GB of eMMC offers transfer rates like entry-level SATA SSDs but one problem could be the inclusion of only 4GB RAM which in some cases causes slowdowns as soon it gets filled and swapping occurs to the included storage. The use of lightweight versions of Windows 11 may be recommended more here, such as Tiny11, because these were designed to run on systems with as low as 2GB of RAM.

 

In terms of recorded temperatures and overclocking, we noted the package power spiking to over 15W in low load situations, which causes the SoC to overheat to its maximum allowed temperature; this causes immediate throttling, but the processor will continue to run at its maximum speed while in low loads, even after throttling occurs. We did double-check the contact between the SoC and the integrated cooling system and there was no issue there because the small heatsink does really become hot to the touch after a couple of minutes, so heat is transferred fine, but we think that the cooling surface is probably not large enough or the CPU voltages are too high when the speed bursts occur. In our stress tests, we loaded all cores and noted a speed decrease from 3.3GHz (max burst speed) on a single core to about 2.24GHz all-core, while the voltage went down from 1.24V (burst) to about 0.85V. This allows the CPU to handle such loads and with temps under the throttling limit (which is 105 degrees Celsius). The stock BIOS come with a PL1 power limit to 10W and after discussing with ECS, the engineers have also supplied a PL1 power limit of 6W BIOS to test; as you have noted from the separate charts, the performance drop with this particular setting is rather high and we do not really recommend it, even if the temperatures are lower in that case.

 

 

We have also performed storage testing via ATTO, to reflect the eMMC performance:

 

 

In terms of power consumption, this Mini PC is very efficient! We recorded about 7W in IDLE and about 23.5W (max recorded spike) in Full Load, while performing the AIDA64 stress testing. Regarding noise, the LIVA Q3D is virtually silent in IDLE (noted about 28.6 dBA), but the high-RPM can be heard a bit during medium and high loads, when we recorded about 32.2 dBA, which is quite manageable.

 

The recommended pricing for the tested LIVA Q3D is 199.9 Euros (with VAT), so quite affordable as well!

ECS LIVA Q3D Mini-PC Review is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to ECS for making this review possible!