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Fun with SBCs

Solaris17

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Aug 16, 2005
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27,458 (3.84/day)
Location
Alabama
System Name RogueOne
Processor Xeon W9-3495x
Motherboard ASUS w790E Sage SE
Cooling SilverStone XE360-4677
Memory 128gb Gskill Zeta R5 DDR5 RDIMMs
Video Card(s) MSI SUPRIM Liquid X 4090
Storage 1x 2TB WD SN850X | 2x 8TB GAMMIX S70
Display(s) 49" Philips Evnia OLED (49M2C8900)
Case Thermaltake Core P3 Pro Snow
Audio Device(s) Moondrop S8's on schitt Gunnr
Power Supply Seasonic Prime TX-1600
Mouse Razer Viper mini signature edition (mercury white)
Keyboard Monsgeek M3 Lavender, Moondrop Luna lights
VR HMD Quest 3
Software Windows 11 Pro Workstation
Benchmark Scores I dont have time for that.
Hey all. Decided to make a short project post on one of my SBC experiences. I have several projects usually going at one time. With my server doing more compute focused work and donating my AMD dev machine I needed a way to handle battlemage testing without pulling GPUs out of my machine every 10min.

Enter my Latte Panda Sigma.


Robust as SBCs go and certainly not a pi or other popular ARM and RISC based SBCs but one all the same. I picked one of these up after seeing a news thread here regarding there release. Its original task was running 3D scans while hooked up to my scanner and then subsequently running my printer for prototyping.

That all got packed away during a move and I have since found other ways of doing what I want.

I recently needed to start a project involving redhat and intel GPU acceleration. So my 7900XTX was pulled out of my server (LM research) and set aside. At around the same time I got a new IP KVM from kickstarter of all places and wanted a way to test without interrupting what I was doing. So I dug out my Latte Panda and found my old eGPU enclosure a Razer Core X Chroma.

Well now here I am. I decided I could kill two birds by testing the KVM before sending it to my colocation and sate my curiosity about just how feasible it is to use an SBC on the daily. After all the Latte Panda sitting on an eGPU enclosure is small and quiet. So I installed and updated Windows 11 and got to testing.

Here are some specs. When I went to purchase one the 32GB ram model was not available but given my needs at the time that didnt matter so instead of waiting I settled on the 16gb ram model.

1741552665623.png


In CPU-Z that looks like this.



An I5 13th gen CPU with 4p cores with HT and 8e cores.

For drives I specifically use:

120gb Intel optane drive for the OS
500gb WD SN770

There isn't much more to say other than that. It has thunderbolt as mentioned, wifi and all the bits and bobs you can expect from any modern laptop or even desktop as of a few years ago. This CPU has a max boost clock of 4.6ghz on the P cores.

Moving on I installed windows 11 24H2. No modifications were done to the OS or tuning. It was installed as any normal consumer would.

After installing the 7900XTX and hooking it all up I am happy to say the KVM worked yay. GPU-Z looks like this. What makes this interesting is for those that use them or otherwise keep up with eGPUs and generational thunderbolt limitations, this card is restricted to PCIe 3.0 at x4 link rate.

1741553098028.png


With all the drivers installed and the machine now idle and waiting it was time to start pushing buttons. Here is what we managed to get. Its important to note I have the KVM resolution currently set to 1080p and I didnt modify any test settings. I didnt run any of the extreme, ultimate benchmarks instead opting for the original renditions. I can run them if you want though.

First the 3D mark runs:

Speed Way:

Steel Nomad:

Port Royal:

Solar Bay:

Time Spy:

Fire Strike:

That was all pretty cool, but I wanted to see what some of the popular review games could do. In these cases all the settings were whatever the game picked as default.

Cyberpunk:



Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail



Shadow of the tomb raider:



Overall I am super impressed with the performance given its restrictions and small size. Temperatures were actually pretty great though I admit when I got it I disassembled and repasted with some TG. I imagine the performance is pretty restricted given the resolution but I am hoping someday I will use the EDID library to do some tests in 2 and 4k if the kvm supports anything higher in its custom EDID section; but Im lazy and havent dug into more then 2 or 3 of them.


I suppose I could plugin my portable 4k monitor a little later if all else fails.

If you have something you want me to test that has an automated benchmark let me know and we can have fun with it. I'm just not going to to hook a KB and mouse upto it and install a bunch of logging software, maybe someday.
 
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