Interesting new fanless Windows11 MiniPC...

[Chr1]

Z100-0dB Fanless Mini PC

Meet the Z100-0dB, the ultimate fanless mini PC boasting the Intel Alder Lake-N Quad-Core N100 Processor. Enjoy silent operation, powerful performance, and advanced connectivity for all your browsing and office needs. Upgrade to a seamless computing experience today!

www.minix.com.hk

Been using Minix Android media boxes for several years and reckon they are very good re both hardware and software, so I may well be looking at one of these if I decide I want/need Win11.
Looks good.

 

[somebodyelse]

I've no idea how it's meant to be 'pioneering' - it looks like a host of other passively cooled SFF units. Other than that it doesn't look too bad, but I'd prefer to see a 'without OS' option - I have no use for Windows.

 

[Chr1]

I think that some fanless MiniPCs have to restrict/throttle back the CPU to avoid overheating. This one doesn't. I particularly like alloy cased ones myself, and like that the RAM is upgradable. Not always the case. Also, I have good experience with Minix products and Beelink (another favourite brand of mine), does not have one with upgradable RAM as yet. Will probably opt for one of these if Beelink does not come out with something competitive and similar.

 

[somebodyelse]

Maybe I'm just used to seeing the ones aimed at industrial use - proper heatsinking tends to go with the territory.

 

[Saponetto]

I'm fond of these miniPCs.
Currently using a fanless pc N5100-based running a barebone-stripped edition of W10, 16GB RAM, 2TB NVME OS disk and another 2TB internal SATA disk as mass storage.
Perfect fit for a network-based streaming machine, just had to extirpate W11 due its excessive resources consumption.
Runs now Qobuz and Tidal plus Jriver as a player for local files without any hassle, happily running at 12-15% processor use.
Max. processor temp 65 °C, both disks landing at 45 °C.
Good experience!

 

[Ron Texas]

It's not necessary to use a fanless mini pc so long as the bios allows for fan control, it's not sitting too close to you or you can keep it quiet with a fan control program. The now discontinued Intel NUC series had bios fan control. Audio playback does not create high CPU loads.

 

[Timcognito]

FYI

Archimago's Musings

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

 

[HoweSound]

I chose to build my own fanless pc using a mini-itx board because I wanted one with spdif and toslink outputs and they don't seem to exist as pre-packaged versions.

 

[DTTOM37]

double post

 

[DTTOM37]

Z100-0dB Fanless Mini PC

Meet the Z100-0dB, the ultimate fanless mini PC boasting the Intel Alder Lake-N Quad-Core N100 Processor. Enjoy silent operation, powerful performance, and advanced connectivity for all your browsing and office needs. Upgrade to a seamless computing experience today!

www.minix.com.hk

Been using Minix Android media boxes for several years and reckon they are very good re both hardware and software, so I may well be looking at one of these if I decide I want/need Win11.
Looks good.

your link shows:
"Memory Slot
1 x 260-pin DDR4 3200MHz SO-DIMM 4/8/16GB, upgradeable to 32GB Max"
The Alder Lake N series , however, (from Intel specs) is limited to 16GB single channel RAM.
I have seen a couple of offers for Alder Lake N with 32GB like this

 

[Fahzz]

Rookie question: I can just run the output from one of these (using LMS) to a DAC? No need to worry about sound card quality or anything else as far as the internals of the computer? Thanks.

 

[ZolaIII]

For builder's in a not that mini enclosure this is very interesting:

You can have BluRay or DVD - CD drive, you can plug in sound card in PCI-E X1 slot and have full comprehensive AV and DSP system with right software for not so much money.
While N100 is interesting and good enough i3 with two big cores is optimal.
You do need not noisy PSU and it can be passive cooled as this doesn't need much power.

 

[Apesbrain]

Rookie question: I can just run the output from one of these (using LMS) to a DAC? No need to worry about sound card quality or anything else as far as the internals of the computer? Thanks.

Yes, using USB.

While N100 is interesting and good enough i3 with two big cores is optimal.

Agreed, particularly if you have a large local library to scan.

 

[ZolaIII]

@Apesbrain I whose thinking more on real workloads like app startup, web browsing and such.

 

[Fahzz]

FYI

Archimago's Musings

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

One on the way. At the current price it's a no brainer.

 

[jhaider]

Would something like this be suitable as an audio processing software box to be stuck somewhere and used headlessly, controlled exclusively on a Mac using Microsoft Remote Desktop? Would it be at least as fast as a 7th gen i7 laptop (HP elitebook x360)? That one can’t run 11 (maybe it can with some hacks, but I’m not interested enough to do that).

My non-Mac needs consist of VituixCAD, Harman Audio Architect, BSS London Architect, Powersoft Amonia +…and I think that’s it.

 

[mjgraves]

I've had a fanless, silent PC _workstation_ for about 7 years. It's an Airtop-PC from Compulab in Israel. Mine is a first gen model, so a bit vintage now. But still, i7-5775C, nvidia GTX GPU, many SSDs inside, and lots of connectivity. The entire case is a metal array of heat pipes capable of passively dissipating 300 watts. The newer 3rd generation supports newer, but not the very latest Intel CPUs. http://fitpc.com/