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Intel’s new “Twin Lake” processors are low-cost, low-power chips designed for entry-level computers. The first PCs powered by the chips started to arrive late last year, including systems made for use as firewalls, routers, or other networking appliances.
Up until recently most of those systems were powered by a 6-watt, quad-core Intel N150 processor. Now we’re starting to see systems with up to a 15-watt, octa-core Intel Core N355 chip. For example there’s a new “Firewall mini PC” from SJRG available from Amazon with a choice of Intel N150 or Core 3 N355 chips. Prices for barebones configurations start at $233 an $390, respectively.
This little PC is a fanless computer with four 2.5 GbE LAN ports featuring Intel i226-V Ethernet controllers, support for up to two M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe SSDs and support for multiple displays thanks to a set of ports that includes:
- 2 x HDMI 2.1
- 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
- 1 x USB Type-C
- 2 x USB 3.0 Type-A
- 4 x USB 2.0 Type-A
The computer also has a microSD card reader and two connectors for optional SATA SSDs and HDDs, and support for up to 32GB of DDR5-4800 single-channel memory.
Intel’s Twin Lake chips are basically just a modest update to the Alder Lake-N platform that’s been around since 2023. The new chips are basically what you get if you take a 12th-gen Intel Alder Lake processor and use only Efficiency cores rather than a mix of Performance and Efficiency cores. But the CPU and graphics frequencies for the new processors are a little higher, which should bring a small boost in single-core, multi-core, and graphics performance.
But prices haven’t changed much at all, so an SJRG micro firewall mini PC with an Intel N150 processor actually has a lower starting price than one with a previous-gen Intel N100 chip with slightly slower CPU and GPU speeds (although the Core 3 N355 model is a little more expensive than one with an older Core i3-N305 chip).
via FanlessTech