A Sum of Its Parts

Part of what makes the ECS LIVA One a decent offering are the parts that come together to make it what it really is. First of all, there's the 80 GB M.2 main drive, and then there's the decent audio provided by the Realtek ALC662 CODEC.


The default SO-DIMM runs at 1600 MHz and has C11 timings. Removing the SO-DIMM showed the board to be a "H110-SF100" model.


There's the built-in Wi-Fi and a VRM capable of pushing the 35W this Intel Core i3-6100T CPU needs.


The heatsink features a huge heatpipe that goes over the CPU die and curves around to a set of fins that sit in front of the fan's exhaust on the other end. There was a decent amount of paste on the chip, which I cleaned off to a nice smooth, flat contact surface. The heatsink works fairly well and manages to do so with fairly little noise. The case design does do a great job of making sure the heatsink's fan always has fresh air to use to keep the ECS LIVA One cool.


The thermal paste made a decent imprint on the CPU, which I cleaned off to reveal the 35W retail Core I3-6100T. There are more powerful 35W Skylake CPUs you could potentially use here, but the included Core i3-6100T is pretty good as is considering the top-dog Core i7-6700T costs about three times as much as the i3-6100T. Having a possible upgrade path (including a larger M.2 drive, perhaps) with more RAM, more cores, and more storage, which could quickly become expensive, makes things even more intriguing.