Switched On Tech Design

Category: Review

  • Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite Review: Part 1

     

    The EdgeRouter Lite is Ubiquiti’s latest router with some pretty high-end features at an entry-level price. The tagline is “The world’s first sub-$100, one million-packets-per-second router” – US dollars, of course. It retails for around $140 Australian.

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite

     

    The first part of the review is going to focus on the actual unit itself, the second on the software and performance. The box itself is reasonably innocuous – matte black plastic with ventilation holes top and bottom. It is quite light in the hand – under 300 grams – and around 20x9x3cm. One interesting thing on the box is the testing date is clearly marked on the top:

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-box

     

    Having the engineer’s name is a nice marketing touch – giving the impression that someone has personally tested this unit. This might be the case with every other product out there but few draw attention to it. Inside the box itself is the unit itself, a charge cable, a quick setup guide, some wall-mount screws and… that’s it. While there is a console port on the back Ubiquiti don’t provide you with a cable with which to access it – not surprising given the price point. Looking at the unit itself again:

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-front

     

    On the left there is a clearly marked console port, followed by the ethernet ports 0, 1 and 2. It’s nice that they’re clearly labelled, and the speed indicator colours are also quite clearly marked. On the far right hand side we see the reset button:

     

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-info-and-reset-button

     

    Looking at the other side we’re greeted by, well, not much. Some faux ventilation holes, the power connector and a ground screw.

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-rear

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-power-and-ground

     

    Speaking of power, the power brick is a mere 1A and is reasonably small:

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-power-brick

     

    The brick uses a cloverleaf connector.

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-base

     

    On the underside we have the wall mounting holes, four rubber feet and some ventilation holes. The feet give the chassis a few mm of breathing space:

     

    ubiquiti-edge-router-lite-feet

     

    That’s it for the outside of the box – stay tuned for Part 2, where we look at the OS and what this little box can do!

  • Intel i5-3470 vs i5-3570

     

     

    The above two CPUs are often shortlisted for entry/midrange gaming builds that aren’t overclocked; so how do they compare?

     

    Both are quad-core CPUs without hyperthreading, so they offer 4 cores and 4 threads. The i5-3470 is clocked at 3.2GHz while the i5-3570 is 200MHz faster at 3.4GHz, and both CPUs feature Intel’s Turbo Boost v.2.0, reaching peak speeds of 3.6 and 3.8GHz respectively. This equates to ~6-7% performance difference if you’re running both CPUs at max. Both feature Intel’s HD2500 graphics – according to Intel’s ARK the i5-3570’s graphics are clocked fractionally faster – 1.15GHz as opposed to 1.10GHz, which is a negligible difference.

     

    The i5-3570 is about 10% more expensive than the i5-3470 – 10% more cost for 6-7% more CPU performance isn’t bad, though you can’t really go too far wrong either way – if you’re $20 off a better graphics card you’re probably better off going that way and getting the i5-3470, whereas if you could do with a touch more CPU grunt it’s likely worth your $20 to grab the i5-3570.

  • Intel E3-1245 V2 vs. Intel E3-1275 V2

    We were asked to spec a customer build the other day who was torn between the above two processors. Here’s our thoughts on them.

     

    E3-1245V2: Quad core, 8-thread, 3.4GHz -> 3.8GHz Turbo

    E3-1275V2: Quad core, 8-thread, 3.5GHz -> 3.9GHz Turbo

     

    All other specifications are equal apart from the 100MHz clockspeed difference. At this level 100MHz is a mere ~3% increase – not something that is going to be visible for most real-world applications. However, if there’s not much price difference it may be worth that extra bit of cash if you really do need every ounce of performance you can get (or just want the bragging rights). So what do they both cost (AU, our prices)?

     

    E3-1245V2: $299

    E3-1275V2: $389

     

    $90 difference – or around a 30% premium above the E3-1245V2 for a 3% clockspeed increase.

     

    If you have to have the utmost performance from a S1155 server chip with onboard graphics, there’s no other option. For most workstation users, however, the 3% is probably not going to be noticed – whereas the $90 could go towards a 128GB SSD or something similar where you’ll get a tangible speed boost. We would recommend taking a long hard look at the price difference – if you need it it’s $90 well spent but we’re pretty sure that most people will go with the E3-1245V2 at the end of the day and spend their $90 elsewhere.

  • Intel X520-T2 Visual Overview

    There’s not a great deal to say about these cards apart from that they allow you some crazy network speeds, if you have the disk speed to keep up. They can certainly alleviate network bottlenecks if gigabit is holding you back!

    This particular card has a fan to keep the chipset cool; it’s not going to be heard in a server room but if your workstation is quiet the high-pitched whine is probably going to be audible.

    The card does get reasonably hot, particularly if you’re making good use of it’s capabilities – make sure you have enough airflow in the chassis to keep the card cool. Keep in mind it’s assumed that these cards will be used in an environment where there’s at least 200 linear feet per minute of airflow passing over them.

    10-gigabit cards are coming down in price quite significantly, though switches are still out of reach of most enthusiasts/small businesses. Watch this space, however, as 10GBe connections are making their way into high-end server boards more regularly and that will slowly filter down to the consumer level. SSD arrays becoming more commonplace will only help with that, as will the new 12gb/s cards from LSI – it’s hard to make use of all that bandwidth if you’re piping it over gigabit!

  • Silverstone FT-03 Mini Overview or Mini Review

    With the massive increase in how useful mini-ITX boards are has come a corresponding increase in chassis to fit them, all of which are challenged by dissipating a full-sized-desktop CPU worth of heat in a small space. Add in a GPU and other components and you have quite a difficult proposition – getting the right balance of size, aesthetics, noise, cooling and price. One of the more recent contenders is Silverstone’s FT-03 Mini:


    At 19cm wide, 40cm high and 23.5cm deep it’s an unusual shape for a computer case – a tiny tower with one slot for a CD/DVD. The motherboard inside is rotated 90 degrees, so that what’s normally the rear with the I/O is facing upwards; it also means that the airflow is drawn in from underneath and exhausted out the top, hence the sides unmarred by fan holes.

     


     Given that the case may be sitting on carpet Silverstone have thoughtfully provided reasonably deep cutouts on each of the four sides at the base for air to flow in. As for the exhaust, the top is a plastic clip-on plate with many holes;

     

     

    The white is tasteful and matches up with the silver nicely. There’s a power and reset button in the center:

     

    …along with two USB 3.0 ports and the usual two audio ports on top.

     

     

    The top plastic piece is held in with clips and lifts off without too much difficulty. The sides are also held in with clips:

     

    They’re particularly solid sides – though they do scratch easily. The aluminium is several mm thick:

     




     

    There’s enough room in the  chassis for a SFX PSU and even a self-contained watercooling unit if you’re feeling adventurous – it’s a reasonably flexible chassis, too, so if you don’t need a CD/DVD/Bluray drive you can leave that mounting bracket out, which gives you a little more leeway in installing other components.




     

    We haven’t built one that isn’t cooled with a Corsair H80 yet and we’ve also avoided using SFX PSUs in exchange for smaller units to give more internal space. There’s a dust filter on the base, too, which is handy as it catches a reasonable amount of dust being so close to the floor.

     




    If we do a more “standard” build with one of these we’ll write up a full review – as it stands, though, the mini-workstation builds are quite popular and perform well while keeping within a fairly small power envelope, so there’s not much temptation to go with a SFX PSU and air cooling! All of our customers have been very happy with the case’s performance, and the understated aesthetic is almost Apple-esque, which is in no way a bad thing. It’s hard not to draw some comparisons there when Apple is using so much unbroken aluminium in it’s products these days. If you’re after a specific answer regarding this chassis drop us a line and we’ll be happy to answer with measurements etc. 🙂

  • Fractal Design Define R4 Review – Part Two

    As promised, here’s part two of our review! We’re building one of our standard test systems using this chassis and the following components:

     

    Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard

    Intel i7-3770K CPU @ 4.5GHz

    8GB G-skill Ares 2133MHz RAM (2x4GB)

    Corsair H100 self-contained liquid cooling

    Crucial M4 SSDs

    Seasonic X-560 PSU

    AMD HD6450

     

    Click through to see how the build went!

     

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  • Fractal Design Define R4 Review – Part One

     

     

    If you’re in the market for an understated, quiet case that performs well and leaves plenty of room for expansion the Fractal Design Define series is quite likely to be on your list of cases to investigate. The latest revision of the case is R4, which draws upon user feedback on the R3 and features a host of minor changes. So how does it fare?

     

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  • Asus Z9PE-D16 review: Part One

    Up for review today we have one of Asus’ dual-socket-2011 server motherboards – the Z9PE-D16. Hit the break to find out what it’s all about and why you might care about it even if you don’t need to run two CPUs…

     

     

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  • Noctua NM-I2011 mounting kits

     

    One of the better tower coolers which fits inside a 4U server chassis is the Noctua NH-U12P SE2, but by default they only ship with Socket 775/1155/1156/1366 and AM2/2+/3 mounting gear – leaving anyone who wants to use the baby Noctua cooler with their Socket 2011-based server out in the cold. Fortunately, Noctua have a Socket 2011 mounting kit available as an extra: the NM-I2011.

     

     

    If you can provide Noctua with a receipt of the cooler purchase (and please note that this applies to a number of Noctua coolers, not just the 92mm variants) and a S2011 CPU or motherboard receipt they will ship one to you for free. Most of our customers report that they receive them within 2 weeks of submitting the request; for those who can’t wait we stock the mounting kits for $5. Inside you get everything you need except thermal paste:

     

     

    The instructions are easy to follow and the kit completely replaces any existing mounting hardware attached to the  cooler, providing a very firm and secure mount.

     

    Kudos to Noctua for providing these for free for those who aren’t in a hurry – their customer service is excellent and their products come highly recommended from the team at Switched On Tech Design. You can find more info on their coolers at:

     

    www.noctua.at

     

    and the NM-I2011 Mounting Kit Order Form at:

     

    http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=nm_i2011_upgrade_order&setlng=en

     

     

  • Western Digital Red Drive Performance Numbers: Sequential Read/Write

     

    As a follow-up to our review (found here), we’ve finally finished testing the new Red drives and compared them to the equivalent Green drives.

     

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