motherboard News - Page 2 of 14 - CNX Software

August 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Avalue EMX-TWLP – A Twin Lake mini-ITX motherboard for industrial applications

Fanless thin Twin Lake Mini-ITX motherboard for industrial applications

Last week, we wrote about the Jetway MTX-TWL1 industrial-grade Intel N150/N250 mini-ITX motherboard, but there’s another Twin Lake mini-ITX option: the Avalue EMX-TWLP equipped with Intel N150, N250, or Core 3 N355 processor, and also designed for industrial applications. The thin mini-ITX motherboard takes up to 16GB DDR5 according to Avalue, supports M.2 NVMe/SATA SSD and SATA drives for storage, features two 2.5GbE ports and two M.2 Key-E/M sockets for WiFi and cellular connectivity, one HDMI port, two DP connectors, and eDP or LVDS, a PCIe Gen3 x1 slot, and more. Avalue EMX-TWLP specifications: Twin Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Processor N150 quad-core processor @ up to 3.6 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD graphics @ 1.0 GHz; TDP: 6W Intel Processor N250 quad-core processor @ up to 3.8 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 32EU Intel UHD graphics @ 1.25 GHz; TDP: 6W Intel Core 3 N355 […]

August 14, 2025August 20, 2025 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

Jetway MTX-TWL1 – An Industrial-grade, fanless Intel Processor N250 or N150 Mini-ITX motherboard

Jetway MTX TWL1 industrial, fanless Mini ITX motherboard

Jetway’s MTX-TWL1 is a fanless industrial Mini-ITX motherboard built around the Intel Processor N250 or N150 Twin Lake processor designed for embedded and IoT applications. It supports up to 32GB DDR5 memory, triple 4K display, dual 2.5GbE, SATA, and M.2 slots for NVMe, wireless, or 4G LTE/5G cellular connectivity. Additionally, it features six COM ports, USB 3.2, Type-C with DP Alt Mode, GPIOs, and a wide power and temperature range, making it suitable for In one of our last posts, we wrote about the Jetway JMTX-ADN8, which shares the same Mini-ITX form factor but is powered by Alder Lake-N processors instead. The boards have quite a different layout, but they both use DDR5 SO-DIMM memory, M.2 slots, SATA port, and a wide operating temperature range from -20°C to 60°C for industrial applications. Jetway MTX-TWL1 specifications: Twin Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Processor N150 quad-core processor @ up to 3.6 […]

July 13, 2025September 21, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Review of GL.iNet Comet (GL-RM1) KVM-over-IP solution and ATX power control board

GL-RM1 Comet KVM review ATX power control board

GL.iNet sent me a Comet (GL-RM1) remote KVM box for review, along with a GL-ATXPC ATX Power Control Board. I’ll start this review with an unboxing and a teardown, then I’ll use the GL.iNet Comet with a Raspberry Pi 4 SBC to control it from a web browser in the LAN and the GLKVM app from the Internet. Finally, I’ll connect the GL-ATXPC and GL-RM1 to an Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard to test ATX power control. GL.iNet Comet (GL-RM1) unboxing I received a parcel with two retail boxes: one for the GL-ATXPC ATX power control board and the other for the GL-RM1 Comet Remote KVM. The GL-RM1 ships with an HDMI cable, an Ethernet cable, a USB-A to USB-C cable for keyboard/mouse emulation, and a USB-C to USB-C cable for power, as well as a card with a QR code to connect with GL.iNet, and a getting started guide in […]

June 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Topton N18 NAS mini-ITX motherboard ships with Intel N150 or Core i3-N305 SoC, offers 6x SATA, 10GbE, 2x 2.5GbE

Topton N18 is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by either an Intel Processor N150 Twin Lake CPU or a Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N SoC, and suitable for NAS and networking applications with six SATA ports, a 10GbE RJ45 port, and two 2.5GbE jacks. The motherboard also features a DDR5 SO-DIMM socket for up to 64GB memory, two M.2 PCIe sockets for NVMe SSD storage, HDMI and DisplayPort video output, and up to eight USB ports via ports and internal headers. Topton N18 specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Processor N150 quad-core Twin Lake processor @ up to 3.6 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD graphics @ 1.0 GHz; TDP: 6W Intel Core i3-N305 octa-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.8 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 32EU Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.25 GHz; TDP: 15W System Memory – Single-channel DDR5 SO-DIMM slot fitted with up to 32GB RAM; upgradeable to 64GB […]

April 16, 2025April 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Axelera Metis Compute Board pairs Rockchip RK3588 SoC with 214 TOPS Metis AI accelerator

Axelera Metis Computer Board is a Rockchip RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard equipped with a Metis AIPU (AI Processing Unit) capable of delivering up to 214 TOPS, 16GB LPDDR4 memory for the CPU, and 4GB LPDDR4x RAM for the AI accelerator. I first came across the Axelera Metis AIPU in M.2 and PCIe card in 2023, and I was rather impressed with the advertised 214 TOPS of AI performance promised in this form factor and relatively affordable $149 price tag considering the price-to-performance ratio. At the time, it was still hard to source the chip and module due to limited quantities, and in 2024, it became easier to evaluate the solution with the Axelera Metis PCIe Arm AI evaluation kit based on a Fireﬂy ITX-3588J mini-ITX motherboard equipped with a 214 TOPS Metis AIPU PCIe card. The new Metis Compute Board is similar, but in a more compact form factor since the […]

March 30, 2025March 31, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Radxa Orion O6 Preview – Part 2: Debian 12 – What works, what doesn’t

I went through an unboxing and Debian 12 installation on the Radxa Orion O6 at the end of January, but decided to work on other reviews since software support still needed to be worked on. Since then, there’s been some work done, but no new image released. After waiting for almost two months, I’ve decided to carry on with the review by testing the Debian 12 image in a way similar to the Rock 5B SBC preview I did with Debian 11 in 2022 to check what works and what doesn’t on the Orion O6 at the time of the review. That will involve testing all ports, including 5GbE networking and the PCIe slot with an (old) NVIDIA graphics card, running some benchmarks, and also trying the Debian 12 image with a self-built Linux 6.13 kernel using ACPI instead of UEFI for the default image. Orion O6 SBC benchmarks on […]

March 21, 2025March 21, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Axiomtek GMB850 Raptor Lake Refresh mini-ITX motherboard GMB850 is made for casino gaming machines

Intel Raptor Lake mini-ITX motherboard casino gaming

Axiomtek GMB850 is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by up to 14th Gen Intel Raptor Lake-Refresh processors and designed for casino gaming machines requiring advanced features like gaming analytics, real-time player interaction systems, and dynamic content management. While mini-ITX motherboards may serve multiple markets, there’s a specific market for casino and arcade gaming often using AMD processors. We’ve previously covered such boards in the past with the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000-powered Sapphire FS-FP6 or the AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000/R1000-based Axiomtek GMB140. Axiomtek Gaming’s GMB850 is a more powerful update with Intel Raptor Lake Refresh processors supporting up to four independent displays with up to 4K resolution and gaming I/O modules making it suitable for casino slot machines, electronic table games, and video walls. Axiomtek GMB850 specifications: SoC – LGA1700 socket for 12th/13th/14th Gen. Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3/Pentium/Celeron “Alder Lake-S” or “Raptor Lake-S” processor System Memory – Up to 64GB DDR5 4800 MHz […]

March 11, 2025March 12, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Sapphire Edge+ VPR-5050 “AMD Embedded+” mini-ITX motherboard combines AMD Ryzen V2748 CPU and Versal AI Edge VE2302 SoC FPGA

Right in time for Embedded World 2025, Sapphire Technology has introduced the Edge+ VPR-5050 “AMD Embedded+” mini-ITX motherboard with AMD Ryzen V2748 octa-core CPU, and AMD Versal AI Edge VE2302 adaptive SoC that combines Cortex-A72 hard core with FPGA fabric. It’s an update to last year’s VPR-4616-MB mini-ITX motherboard with the same Versal VE2302 adaptive SoC, but a lower end AMD Ryzen R2314 quad-core processor. Two versions of the Edge+ VPR-5050 are available: the VPR-5050-MB and VPR-5050A-MB with the only obvious difference from the specifications being a 64GB eMMC flash on the “A” model, and the different RAM capacities (2x 4GB LPDDR4 vs 2x 8GB LPDDR4). Sapphire Edge+ VPR-5050 specifications: AMD Embedded+ Architecture Adaptive SoC Subsystem Main IC – AMD Versal AI Edge VE2302 with dual Arm Cortex-A72 core processor @ up to 1.6 GHz, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F, 23 TOPS AI engine, FPGA fabric, etc… System Memory VPR-5050-MB – 2x […]