Asus is launching a new mini-desktop with an Intel Trail processor, NVIDIA GeForce 820M graphics, 802.11ac WiFi, and support for up to 8GB of RAM.

The Eee Box EB1037 is the latest in a long line of small form-factor PCs from Asus, but it’s also one of the most impressive to date.

Update: This model was originally described as fanless… but it’s not.

Asus Eee Box EB1037

The little box features Intel’s Celeron J1900 Bay Trail 2 GHz quad-core processor with a TDP of 10 watts, up to 1TB of storage, and has Gigabit Ethernet, VGA and HDMI ports, a flash card reader, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, and Bluetooth 4.0.

The system has NVIDIA graphics with 512MB of dedicated memory, supports Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Pro, and will be available with 64GB or 128GB solid state drive or hard drives ranging from 320GB to 1TB.

Since the Celeron J1900 chip doesn’t generate a lot of heat, the EB1037 can use passive cooling. There’s no fan in the case.

The whole thing is powered by a 65W power adapter and the case measures just 8.6″ x 6.8″ x  1.15″ and weighs about 1.5 pounds.

via Fanless Tech 

 

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

29 replies on “Asus Eee Box EB1037 is a mini-desktop with Bay Trail power”

  1. 65W power adapter ? Thats a lot of juice. Tablets(which include a screen) and phones run and get charged on less than 10W. Is it the graphics card thats drinking up the juice?

    1. Mind that the power supply rating is only for what it’s maximum load is rated for but does not mean it would be using that much power all the time… But, yes, the video card would be using a good chunk of that power…

      I wouldn’t draw too many comparisons to the mobile tablet systems though as this is a higher range product intended for either laptops or desktop systems. The SoC, as Brad pointed out, is a 10W max TDP rated part and will generally provide more performance than the mobile version could…

      Mind that mobile devices have to limit themselves to prevent over heating and the desired run times needed for adequate mobile usages. So performance for mobile devices is always a bit throttled…

      Not to say this isn’t still a low powered system but it’s not meant to be as low powered as a mobile device…

      Desktop power supplies also tend to be rated a little higher than the system needs because you are more likely to connect extra devices to it than a mobile device… Like charging said mobile devices for example…

      1. Thanks for the nice reply, I currently have a mini itx atom and it uses standard ddr3 memory I can’t figure why they went the SO dim route. I currently have 16 GB since windows is so ram hungry.

  2. Yes. Finally. All I’m looking for is a decent and silent SFF to replace my 7 y.o noisy and large dual core AMD tower (I have modest needs). The NUCs so far are a little disappointing with the small fans, thermal problems and problematic BIOS and the bay trail version uses a rather weak cpu.

    3 things:

    1. Hopefully the J1900 is fast enough (~1500 cpu mark, equivalent to the celeron 1007u or better).

    2. Good linux support.

    3. Price.

    Do it right and you have my money, Asus.

    edit: VGA? Serial port??? come’on… they should’ve put a DVI or DP instead.

    1. This thing has VGA and HDMI, no serial port… Where did you get that from?!

  3. If it can dual boot to android, that will be a dream come true. I heard bay trail chips can run android.

  4. Good thing it has a 64 bit Bay Trail allowing for more memory. Can’t wait until we see 4GB+ in the BayTrail tablets. I wonder if you could make an HDMI stick?

    1. For tablets Bay Trail T maxes out at 4GB because that’s the limit right now for mobile LP-DDR3 RAM… So only expect up to 8GB for the laptop/desktop models that can use DDR3L RAM…

      I doubt they’d put Bay Trail into a HDMI stick, maybe the more mobile version called Merrifield as that’s a smaller dual core meant for smaller devices like Smart Phones but Bay Trail is meant for tablets and larger devices but Merrifield still uses a Imagination PowerVR GPU and it will only run Android as the downside…

      Rather, I’d say wait for the next update that’ll start coming out by the end of this year as Intel will be releasing the next 14nm update to the ATOM (it’s on a annual release schedule for faster than Moore’s Law advancement rate)…

      The direct replacement for Bay Trail T will be Cherry Trail T, which updates the GMA to Gen 8 Broadwell based GPU and they’ll increase the EU count from 4 to 16 for a big boost in graphical performance…

      Basically, Intel is still behind on graphical performance but they know that and are pushing hard to close the gap over the next 2-3 years… So we can expect multiple times improvement for the graphical performance for the next few updates…

      Cherry Trail is also suppose to up the max RAM support from 4GB to 8GB for the tablet range and the memory bandwidth is also being improved to help with performance boost…

      Though, the mobile market will likely continue to lag behind on offering high capacity for RAM but at least 4GB should finally become the norm by next year…

  5. Seems wasteful to put a 15w gpu in there when the Bay Trail igpu should be good enough for most people using a system like this (24p Haswell nuts aside).

    I’d expect a barebones version of this to retail for $200-$250, judging by the current selection on Newegg.

    1. Yeah, it sounds almost like a ploy to make sure that they can push for a higher price and profit margin. They should release a version with the standard Intel graphics for people who don’t require discrete graphics.

      1. Like Jon pointed out, they got a non-discrete GPU model as well…

        But I would point out that even with the older and far less powerful ATOMs the use of discrete graphics has always been a selling point…

        The Asus Eee PC’s with Nvidia Ion were basically their best sellers, despite the fact they faced some serious bottlenecks…

        Basically, the basic and minimalistic design of the ATOM means there’s only 4 PCI lanes available and the old Pine Trail ATOMs only had PCI 1.0 specification available and the Nvidia Ion only had 512MB of onboard memory…

        Meaning performance was much like the external PCI Express GPU solutions they experimented with a few years ago…

        So it was fairly often that the limited PCI bandwidth throttled performance whenever the GPU had to work with the rest of the system…

        Now, while Bay Trail is still limited to 4 PCI lanes, it supports PCI 2.0 specification for nearly double the bandwidth and the CPU performance is of course over double what Pine Trail could have offered…

        So the graphical performance will be better than the older ATOM nettops could have offered and will be better balanced with the improved CPU performance the newer Silvermont architecture provides now…

        Mind, graphical performance is still a area that Intel is lagging behind the rest of the industry… Even mobile ARM SoCs have GPUs that can now offer more performance and yet they also only offer the approximate same range in CPU performance…

        So think of it as just trying to fix the one remaining weak spot of Intel ATOM performance… Though, it may become redundant with the upcoming Cherry Trail but Bay Trail could still use a little help…

        Besides, discrete graphics means they can disable the embedded graphics and that means they can free up the shared memory the GMA would otherwise have used… making the system a bit more stable if nothing else and helps keep the system fan-less as the discrete GPU would have its own separate heat sink and won’t share the same space as the CPU cores and thus make it harder to over heat them…

        Mind, as a SoC that the CPU cores and embedded GPU are on the same chip and would otherwise have to share resources…

        1. CyberGusa, I would like to say thank you because I have learned a lot from reading your posts.

  6. I hope the price is decent. I’ve been looking to replace a 12-year-old Dell tower with Windows XP.
    If I can get one cheap, it’ll fit under the desk much better.

  7. What WiFi chip does this use? I want to check the Linux drivers for it. Thanks.

  8. Looks cool. I hope Ubuntu and Fedora can run on it with native Linux drivers for wifi and video. I hate hardware that isn’t compatible with Linux!

  9. Wow that’s a pretty cool device. I may get it for an HTPC/NAS/media server.

    Of course, as someone who is never satisfied, since they’re using an NVIDIA GPU, I wonder if they could use an 8-core Intel Avoton or Rangeley Atom chip and have multiple GigE ports.

  10. Now that is something I’d gladly use as a media centre or for a parent’s PC, assuming it isn’t too expensive.

      1. I personally think the EB1037 looks better and it’s dimensions are more convenient.

  11. These end up being a bit of a Frankenstein. Earlier in this product series NVIDIA graphics got shoved into the mix hoping to avoid the “burn factor” many suffered due to the GPUs Intel used on Atom SOCs. For example you can’t run Android-x86 on them well (no video acceleration due to NVIDIA’s intransigence). However at least driver support should be better for Windows OSs than those ill-fated Atom GPUs, which often left you only able to run 32-bit Windows 7 and nothing else unless you wanted to once more sacrifice video acceleration.

      1. So would that be the ideal model for an HTPC, or is there some reason beyond gaming to get the discrete graphics? Also, would the discrete graphics model have more heat problems? Also, as this is fanless will it need a fair amount of space around it for cooling. That could be an issue if you are trying to hide it behind your TV or on a media shelf,

        1. The main reason is better driver support for Windows and perhaps Linux. I have an older EB 1033 that they used an Atom D2550 & Nvidia GT610M in, and it doesn’t seem to overheat.

        2. Yea, I think gaming performance would be the main thing. It might also handle things like 4k video a little better, but that’s just a guess.

          The integrated graphics version is definitely lower power, and therefore lower heat: The power supply drops from 65 watts to 40, and the idle power drops from 10.7 watts to 6.7.

    1. I have a eeebox with atom and ION. 4 years old. Works well with Lubuntu 64bit and nouveau (default opensource drivers). 1080p works great except hi10p. Youtube is death unless you open with VLC.

    1. Or laptop guts in a better desktop form factor. It could be cheaper than a notebook with the same specs too. Also, this uses a Bay Trail D chip which won’t/not likely be in any notebooks.

Comments are closed.