We see a lot of small systems with big processors these days. (opens in new tab) We weren’t too surprised as it seems Ion EPIC-TGH7 SBC (opens in new tab) reported on the page of CNX software (opens in new tab)This 4 inch (165 x 115mm) board has a list of compatible processors starting with the Intel Celeron 6600HE but going through the i-numbers to the mighty Xeon W 11865MRE.
None of these processors make the list of the best CPUs for gaming. It promises workstation-class power on a small motherboard.
The TGH7 appears to come with a Tiger Lake H CPU + GPU combo soldered onto the board. Only the i3 and i7 models are listed on his Aaeon site, neither of which are in stock at the time of writing. But in theory you could get one with a Xeon W installed and run his ECC memory on it. This seems to be the workstation chip’s only advantage, and is identical to the i7 11850HE in all other respects.
These two hot chips (with temperature ratings up to 100°C or 212°F) both run at 8 cores and 16 threads, with a maximum boost speed of 4.7 GHz, two memory channels, and identical integrated graphics is. Both draw the same 45W and although holes for CPU fans are visible on the board, they don’t seem to come with a cooling solution.
Elsewhere on the board, there are many ports packed into a small space. 2 DisplayPort and 1 HDMI ports, 4 USB 3.2 Type-A sockets, 1 pair of Ethernet ports (1 Gigabit, 1 2.5Gb), 1 pair of SATA ports, PCIe 4.0 delivering up to 25W It has an x8 slot, and two ports. M.2 slot. One can use NVMe storage and the other is for optional modules such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, or a cellular modem.
There is a single “peripheral” driver for Ubuntu 20.04.2, although drivers are available for Windows 10 and are expected to work on Windows 11 as well.
Assuming availability goes up a bit, you should be able to get the board directly from Aaeon’s eshop. i3 ($812) (opens in new tab) When i7 ($1,167) (opens in new tab) board.
