At CES 2017, ECS showcased a number of ultra-compact form-factor PCs. basically building upon their previous LIVA family releases, the new LIVA feature either Intel's Apollo Lake SoCs (with Celeron Processors N3350 / N3450 / N4200 and 6 W TDP) on the Z and ZE, or Intel's Kaby Lake-U processors (Intel Core i3-7100U / i5-7200U / i7-7500U and 15W TDP) on the Z Plus.

The Z Plus is obviously the most powerful of the lot, supporting DDR4 memory (the Z and ZE support only DDR3), having better integrated graphics (Intel's HD 620 versus the Intel HD 500/500 on the Z and ZE models), and having an expected extra energy consumption (an external 65 W adapter on the Z Plus versus a 40 W external adapter on the other two models).

ECS is giving final touches to a the new Liva Z mini-PC featuring Intel "Apollo Lake" Pentium and Celeron SoCs. The desktop could come with Pentium J4205, Celeron J3455, and Celeron J3355 options. The J4205 and J3455 feature quad-core "Goldmont" CPUs running at 1.50 GHz, but differ with integrated GPUs and Turbo Boost frequencies. The J4205 features 18 execution units (EUs), maximum iGPU clocks of 800 MHz, and 2.60 GHz maximum CPU Turbo Boost; while the J3455 features 12 EUs, 750 MHz maximum iGPU clock, and 2.30 GHz maximum CPU Turbo Boost frequency. The J3355 features a dual-core "Goldmont" CPU running at 2.00 GHz with 2.50 GHz Turbo Boost, and an iGPU with 12 EUs, with 700 MHz maximum clocks.

The upcoming ECS Liva Z "Apollo Lake" also comes with two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 8 GB of memory, integrated eMMC storage options of 32 GB and 64 GB (for the OS), and an M.2-2280 slot for internal storage expansion. Display outputs include mini-DisplayPort and HDMI. Network connectivity includes two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and a WLAN controller with 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 support. The rest of its connectivity includes three USB 3.1 type-A ports, and one USB 3.1 type-C port. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability.

Today FinalWire released a new stable update to the desktop editions of its popular system information software. AIDA64 v5.80 supports the latest Windows 10 builds and the most recent hardware components, including the AMD RX 400 series and NVIDIA's GTX 1050 GPUs.

As a new feature, it now allows users to define global hotkeys with which they can enable or disable the AIDA64 hardware monitoring panels or switch between multiple hardware information pages on external displays, even when AIDA64 is running in the background. Using these customized key combinations, PC enthusiasts can also start and stop saving temperature, voltage and power measurements as well as fan RPM readouts to a CSV or HTML log file. The developers have made AIDA64 v5.80 DPI aware so that all elements of its graphical user interface scale properly when the DPI zoom is active in Windows. In practice, this means that users will see no more blurry or incorrectly sized graphics or text on high-resolution screens as AIDA64 now looks crisp even on 4K and 8K LCD and OLED displays.DOWNLOAD: FinalWire AIDA64 v5.80 Installer | FinalWire AIDA64 v5.80 ZIP Package

ASRock introduced a trio of low-cost embedded motherboards for entry-level desktops based on Intel's newest 14 nm "Apollo Lake" Pentium/Celeron SoCs. These include J3455-ITX and J3455M based on the Celeron J3455 quad-core SoC; and the J4205-ITX, based on the Pentium J4205 quad-core SoC. The J3455-ITX and J4205-ITX are based on a common board design, differing only with the SoC, while the J3455M features a narrow, 3-slot micro-ATX design.

The J4205-ITX and J3455-ITX take in power from a 24-pin ATX connector. The SoC is wired to two DDR3L SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to DDR3-1866 MHz spec. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express x1, and an M.2 (PCIe x2 electrical) connector. Besides this M.2, storage connectivity includes four SATA 6 Gb/s ports. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and four USB 3.0 ports complete its connectivity. The J3455M features a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x1) besides two other PCIe x1 slots, and features two standard DDR3 DIMM slots instead of SO-DIMM; and features 6-channel HD audio instead of 8-channel. The rest of its connectivity is the same as its ITX siblings.