Intel says we can expect the first computers powered by its new 10nm Ice Lake chips with Gen11 graphics in time for the 2019 holiday season. But we’ll probably have to wait a little while to find out what most of those PCs will look like.
Aside from the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 laptop that was unveiled last week, PC makers were pretty shy about announcing Ice Lake systems during this year’s Computex show.
But ECS did heavily imply that it’s got an Ice Lake mini PC on the way.
Update: Or maybe not. Apparently this compact desktop PC will ship with an upcoming Intel Comet Lake chip.
When ECS announced it would be showcasing its latest mini PCs at Computex, I glanced at the press release and didn’t spot anything the company hadn’t already showed off at CES in January.
But the company sent a follow-up email today that included some photos of the ECS booth at Computex, and one thing caught my eye — the ECS Liva Z3 Plus with an “Intel next-generation Core i SoC.”
Next-gen in this case almost certainly means Ice Lake, since we’re looking at a small form factor similar to Intel’s NUC line of computers, which tend to be powered by 15 to 28 watt U-series chips.
Update: As indicated above, the ECS Liva Z3 Plus is expected to ship with an Intel Comet Lake chip rather than Ice Lake. That means it’ll have a next-gen 14nm processor that’s expected to be a follow-up to today’s Coffee Lake chips.
Intel hasn’t officially acknowledged Comet Lake yet, so it’s unclear what kind of performance we can expect.
Thanks for the tip, @FanlessTech!
According to a spec sheet, the system measures 128mm x 117mm x 32mm (5″ x 4.6″ x 1.3″), but there appear to be two versions: a larger model which should have room for a 2.5 inch HDD or SSD as well as M.2 storage, and a smaller version with just an M.2 2280 SSD slot.
Both versions feature Mini DisplayPort and HDMI 2.0 ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, a USB 3.0 Type-C port, three USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a headset jack, 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2.
The little computer has two SODIMM slots that support DDR4-2400 memory.
Pricing details likely won’t be available until closer to the release date, which is probably at least a few months away.