Aleutia Relia Industrial PC Review: Ivy Bridge & Q77 in a Fanless Chassis
by Ganesh T S on December 4, 2012 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Industrial PC
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
- Aleutia
Unboxing and Setup Impressions:
Aleutia doesn't bundle input accessories (keyboard / mouse / IR remote etc.) with the system. We also don't find any detailed operating manuals. The package is pretty barebones as it can be. This is perfectly acceptable given the target market. There is a single welcome note which lists the package contents and also provides the initial login details for systems with pre-installed operating systems.
The contents of the package include:
- 90W AC adapter (with country-specific power plug)
- Driver and software CD from Intel for the DQ77KB motherboard
- OEM Windows 7 Home Premium installation DVD
- HDMI to DVI adapter
- Two TP-Link 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n compatible antennae
- Main unit
One of the most interesting aspects of the package is the main unit itself. The chassis is solidly built and meant to act as a giant heat sink. The industrial design is extremely pleasing to the eye. The rounded corners and the curved heat sink base on either side add to the aesthetics.
We would have liked the rubber feet at the bottom of the unit to be thicker in order to give more clearance to the ventilation slots at the bottom. A number of screw slots for mounts of varying sizes is also provided. The rear panel of the unit has the DC-in jack, four USB 3.0 ports, a full-size Display Port output as well as HDMI, two GbE LAN ports, analog audio out and microphone jacks and a Kensington lock slot. On the top side of the rear panel, we have ventilation slots interrupted in two places by Wi-Fi antenna holders.
The front panel is relatively bare, with a single power button and an LED indicator (which lights up blue when the system is powered up) on one side and two USB 2.0 ports on the other.
The top cover has ventilation slots running on either side close to the heat sink base. All the ventilation slots are covered by a thin gauzelike layer underneath which provides a certain degree of protection against internal dust build up.
Our review unit came with a pre-installed copy of Windows 7 Home Premium x64. Fortunately, there was no bloatware to uninstall. All our benchmarking programs were installed fresh. LAV Filters 0.52 and madVR 0.81 were used to test out the HTPC aspects in conjunction with MPC-HC v1.6.4.6052. Since the system has no in-built optical drive, we didn't have to worry about Blu-ray playback software.
We conclude this section with a summary of the data and A/V connectivity options for the Aleutia Relia review unit.
| Option | Status |
|---|---|
| HDMI | Yes [v1.4a] |
| Display Port | Yes |
| Component | No |
| Composite | No |
| VGA | Yes |
| SPDIF | Yes [Optical] |
| Stereo | Yes |
| Option | Status |
|---|---|
| Optical Disk Drive | No (DVD Slimline Drive Optional) |
| USB | Yes [4 x v3.0, 2 x v2.0] |
| eSATA | No |
| LAN | Yes [ 2 x 1000 Mbps GbE ] |
| Internal HDD | Yes [ 2 x 500 GB ] |
| Internal SSD | Yes [ 128 GB mSATA ] |
| WiFi | Yes [ 300 Mbps 1T2R 802.11b/g/n (Single band)] |
| Bluetooth | No |
| Card Reader | No |
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jcm722 - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 - link
Unlike the Mac mini, getting to the HDDs looks really easy. Same goes for the RAM. I can't find the mSATA for sure. Is it under the RAM sockets?Guspaz - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Similar fanless cases seem to go for about $100. What's so special about this one that makes the case cost $600 instead?8steve8 - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 - link
I was under the impression that this motherboard/chipset doesn't do dhcp over hdmi/dp... making its use as an HTCP a bit questionable.am i wrong here?
ganeshts - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 - link
It does support HDCP over HDMI. Quite OK as a HTPChardwickj - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
I hope you are right Ganesh :) I'm contemplating ordering the mobo in this thing for my long overdue HTPC update. Or I may go for the slightly more practical Intel DH77DF.http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Desktop-Motherboard-LG...
Guspaz - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
A minor correction:DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Used by networks to auto-assign IP addresses and other information. It's how your laptop knows what IP, gateway, DNS to use when it connects to a wifi network, for example.
HDCP: High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. DRM for your AV signal. Tries (and fails) to prevent anybody from intercepting the digital signal for recording purposes.
If one of these were obscure, the confusion wouldn't be important. But both are ubiquitous technologies that are very likely operating in your home right now.
DerPuppy - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 - link
seeing as your reviewed this as an HTPC...I don't see why anand doesn't have an MPC-HC setup guide or a link for review methodology or just general knowledge purposes.ForeverAlone - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 - link
Awesome stuff. Pretty cheap too, in the scheme of things.Bullwinkle J Moose - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 - link
I just played CounterStrike for a 2 hours from a 500GB USB 2.0 5400RPM Windows to Go Boot DriveIt peaked at 55 watts loading maps
gamerate was fine
audio fine
Internet Fine
Graphics Fine
All booting from an external USB 2 drive with Windows 8 - Windows to Go Installed
VERY Fast O.S. from a slow portable Hard Drive
Idles at 25 - 26 watts at desktop
35 watt core i3 / 2.66Ghz
4GB Crucial1.35 Volt DDR1600
Gigabyte H61N-USB3
60 watt Pico Power Supply
Mini-Box M350 Case
DLink Wireless N Dongle
Total Cost Less than $350 and FAST ENOUGH for portable Windows (2 Go)
dishayu - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - link
"A passively cooled solution with no moving parts meant that we had a virtually silent PC"Why virtually silent? Shouldn't it literally be silent? Like 0 dB?