The Israeli PC manufacturer, CompuLab Ltd., has announced three lines of small, fanless systems. They will be smaller than the NUC and run AMD APUs, from the E1 to the A4, which CompuLab claims are more powerful than NUCs of comparable prices. They can be configured with either Windows (7, 8, or 10) or Linux Mint. They are officially classified as Industrial PCs, and the 5-year warranty reinforces that association, but others might also be interested.
CompuLab Fitlet-b
Let's start in the middle with the Fitlet-i. With a TDP of 4.5W, it is powered by an AMD A4-6400T APU at 1.0 GHz (1.6 GHz boost). It can be configured with up to 8GB of DDR3 memory.
The other features of the Fitlet-i are:
- Two 3.5mm stereo audio jacks (one in, one out)
- One S/PDIF port
- Four USB 2.0 ports
- Two USB 3.0 ports
- Two HDMI 1.4 ports
- Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
- 802.11ac (clarified Jan 17th: built in, with external antennas I believe)
- One microSD card slot
- One eSATA port, rated at 6Gbps
- One serial port (because industrial)
- One mSATA socket (low profile)
- One mini-PCIe socket (high profile, half or full size)
The Fitlet-X is similar to the above, except that it has four Gigabit Ethernet ports (instead of two), but it loses one USB 2.0 port (three total), has its Wireless downgraded to a USB 802.11n dongle, and it has no eSATA port. The extra pair of Gigabit Ethernet adapters is not the only perk though, as it has their “FACET card” interface, which provides 3 lanes of PCIe (if you want to take a risk on the interface).
CompuLab Fitlet-i
That leaves us with the Fitlet-b, which is the base model. Its TDP is slightly lower, 3.95W, and is powered by an AMD E1-6200T APU at 1.0 GHz (1.4 GHz boost). It has just one Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, the USB 802.11n dongle, and just a full-size mSATA (low profile) expansion for storage. It does have both HDMI 1.4a outputs though.
CompuLab Fitlet-X
The Fitlet will be available in February, starting at $129 for the Fitlet-b barebone, via Amazon for North America and Europe. It will also be available directly from CompuLab and resellers for the rest of the world.
Neat :).
Neat :).
Those 3 Ethernet ports on the
Those 3 Ethernet ports on the Fitlet-X are on the FACET card, and are plugged into the mini PCI slot, that could very well be the facet card with USB ports, or any other PCI FACET based card. FACET is fully open, enabling third parties to design custom Fitlet expansion cards.
the company will be publishing a detailed FACET electrical and mechanical design guide, as well as a complete reference design.
I’d love to see a FACET based discrete GPU from AMD, others.
Think about what you’ve just
Think about what you’ve just said. A discrete gpu? Are you retarded?
They might have meant a
They might have meant a discrete mobile GPU.
That said, with a ~3 to 5W TDP, that's not going to happen.
The way both Nvidia, and AMD
The way both Nvidia, and AMD are getting lots of power into a little area, with process node shrinks, a mobile discrete GPU is not out of the question, maybe not in this device exactly, but That FACET card is a great Idea, and its could be designed to have its own cooling solution, go and look at how much HP crams into their mini desktop, they even have a socketed motherboard, and Intel is showing off a small form factor socketed motherboard also, though I’ll be more inclined to go with an AMD APU, if they can get a more powerful SKU, with even more GPU resources, fan noise does not bother me. This little Fitlet system in on my purchase list, just to plug into my laptop, and augment the laptops quad-core 8 thread processor, 4 extra cores can cut some time off of my graphics workloads/rendering tasks, and my software will happily share graphics workloads across networked computers, even if they are connected ad hoc, Ethernet port to Ethernet port.
P.S. the PCI-SIG people have an external PCI express cable standard, so maybe there can be a FACET card that just extends the PCI slot to the edge of the case, and a cable could attach the Fitlet to an external PCI enclosure. The FACET card is a great idea, maybe the technological possibilities of this little system, is too much for you to stretch what little brainpower/IQ you have around, so you must show your anger at any possibilities.
There are more images of the FACET card, and the FACET open specification, from the Fitlet’s maker, so other will be offering FACET based modules for all sorts of uses.
The three lanes of PCI, is it
The three lanes of PCI, is it 2.0, or 3.0? this seriously needs to be reviewed, and benchmarked. That FACET card could host one or more USB 3.1 ports, and other high speed video ports. Hopefully that FACET standard will catch on.
Damn it. It doesn’t have a
Damn it. It doesn’t have a firewire port, no thanks.
The Fitlet-X model could have
The Fitlet-X model could have any interchangeable FACET card for any port in future, and it’s Apple, and WINTEL free, running Linux Mint, you won’t get that with a MAC MINI, or any of that contra revenue based stuff!
what about the new firewire(Thunderbolt) not many takers, and even Apple is looking towards USB 3.1.
Sorry, gonna need that
Sorry, gonna need that firewire.
Sorry, gonna need that
Sorry, gonna need that firewire.
USB3…. but firewire, thats
USB3…. but firewire, thats the deal breaker LOL
An excellent line of mini PCs
An excellent line of mini PCs with more ports than anyone could expect in so tiny sizes. I would love to see a review.
This is a very nice cheap PC.
This is a very nice cheap PC. I would really a “consumer” barebones unit with the following specifications…..
AMD A10-Series A10 Micro-6700T
One Gigabit Ethernet port
One HDMI 1.4a port
802.11ac
One microSD card slot
One mSATA/M.2 SSD slot
3.5mm stereo audio jacks
Two USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports each
One or Two SO-DIMM DDR3L slot
2 Years warranty
Call it the fitlet-c and $125 sounds about right to me for one of these.
Wouldn’t mind the above
Wouldn’t mind the above configuration in a device that looks like the ECS LIVA X Mini PC. That is one pretty machine. One SO-DIMM slot is enough for the price. A Display Port would be a good option too.
An M.2 Type 2280 128GB SSD costs about $100. An 8GB SODIMM is about $70. A fully functional Linux PC (with decent performance) for ~$250-$275 is an excellent proposition.
Something is special about
Something is special about these devices, maybe its the density, something, they are nice.
It’s simple actually. we have
It’s simple actually. we have seen lots of these mini-pcs from everywhere and everyone and they have all left us saying we wanted something more, something to make it a good alternative to a full sized system, and here it is. Seems to me that all those other products were trying to create new markets while not threatening their shares in existing markets.
How-many people settled for a mITX system when what they actually wanted was a NUC with a extra Ethernet port, or more usb ports, or better graphics, ect ect. And I’m sure that if these take off, and if there is demand there will be a FACET card with thunderbolt, or firewire, or whatever else.
I know it’s pretty hard considering passive cooling, but if they could make one of these with a A10 level apu, something that could just-just handle gaming, then these would sell faster than they could make them. I mean cummon, what’s not to love!
This could make for an
This could make for an interesting pfsense box considering if the hardware is supported.
I was thinking the same
I was thinking the same thing.
Near perfection
Near perfection
Shut up and take my Money 😉
Shut up and take my Money 😉