ECS LIVA Z5 PLUS mini-PC Review: A Different Take on Raptor Lake

The trend towards miniaturization of desktop systems was kickstarted by the Intel NUCs in the early 2010s. The increasing popularity of compact PCs also led to the introduction of a variety of slightly larger form-factors. Custom boards falling in size between the NUC’s 4″ x 4″ ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) and industrial-applications oriented 3.5″ SBC have also gained traction. The ECS LIVA Z5 PLUS is one such system, designed and marketed towards business and industrial use-cases.

Intel’s Raptor Lake series of products was introduced in early 2023. It came in both P and U versions for notebooks and ultraportables, in addition to the usual H(X) ones for high-performance gaming notebooks. Most mini-PCs and NUCs opted for the P varieties in their systems. The ECS LIVA Z5 PLUS represents a different take, with a U series processor operating with a slight increase in the configurable TDP (cTDP) over Intel’s suggested 15W operating point. Read on for a comprehensive look at the performance and features of the ECS LIVA Z5 PLUS, including some comments on the benefits enabled by the slightly larger form-factor.

Source: Recent News