Jasper Lake Fanless Showdown: ECS LIVA Z3 and ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano UCFF PCs Review

Intel's Jasper Lake series of products based on the Tremont microarchitecture was launched in early 2021. Since then, we have seen a steady stream of notebooks and motherboards / mini-PCs based on those processors getting introduced in the market.

Ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines based on the Atom series offer attractive entry-level options in the NUC domain. Their low-power nature also lends itself to passively cooled designs. Today, we are looking at two different fanless Jasper Lake UCFF PCs - the ECS LIVA Z3 and the ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano.

Our investigation into the performance and behavior of the two PCs revealed some interesting insights into fanless system designs. Read on for a detailed look at what 6W Jasper Lake SKUs can deliver for traditional PC workloads, along with some guidelines on what to look for in passively cooled systems.