ACEPC AK1 or another PC

Another review, another computer, another one based on Intel. This time it's a somewhat unusual but interesting computer, with a few shortcomings, but still a perfectly viable option.
I'll inspect it, take it apart, test it, make a few modifications, and test it some more.

First, I should probably mention that this computer isn't built around the widely used Z8xxx system-on-chip (SoC). Instead, it uses an Intel Celeron J3455 based on the Apollo Lake core. This processor is certainly no spring chicken either, and it's also very much a budget chip, but it's definitely better than the option mentioned above, thanks at least to its higher performance and SATA support.
Incidentally, the Vorke V1 Plus I reviewed recently was built around this same processor. Back then, I complained about severe overheating (though it was fixable), so I'm curious to see how this one handles it.

Specifications
Operating system: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Celeron “Apollo Lake” J3455, 1.5 GHz (2.3 GHz in turbo mode)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 500
Memory: 4 GB
Built-in storage: 32 GB eMMC
SATA — 1 x SATA 3 Gbit/s + 1 x mSATA
LAN — Gigabit LAN
Wi-Fi — 2.4/5 GHz
Bluetooth 4.0
Display: HDMI 1.4
External interfaces: 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, 1x USB Type-C, microSD
Audio output — 3.5 mm jack
Dimensions: 128 x 128 x 37
Weight: 957 g

The computer comes in a fairly large box, with a brief list of specifications printed on it.


No complaints about the packaging; everything is packed very neatly. The accessories are arranged in two cardboard boxes, and the computer itself is additionally wrapped in foam.


The package contents are perfectly reasonable, too.
1. ACEPC AK1 computer
2. Power adapter
3. HDMI cable
4. VESA mount
5. Manual

The main difference in the package is the VESA bracket, which lets you mount the computer behind a monitor (if it has a compatible mount and that mount isn't already in use).


The manual is entirely in English, but it has so many pictures that I think even a complete beginner will be able to figure things out.
The HDMI cable is a standard one. Since the computer can be mounted to a monitor, they could have included a second, shorter cable as well.


The power adapter is rated at 12 V, 2.5 A and has a detachable plug, but only one plug is included—the one you selected when ordering. In any case, that's better than using adapters. It barely gets warm during operation, even when the computer is under maximum load.
The bracket is designed to be screwed onto the monitor first, with the computer then hung on it.


My first thought when I saw this computer was that it looked suspiciously large—or, to be more precise, rather “thick.”


And sure enough, the computer is about 53 mm tall overall, not 36 mm as stated in the specifications.


1. The front has only the company name and model name.
2. On the right are the power button, memory card slot, two USB 3.0 ports, and one USB 2.0 port.
3. On the back are the power connector, USB 2.0, USB Type-C, HDMI, Ethernet, and analog audio output.
4. There's nothing on the left.


On the bottom, besides the four rubber feet, there's a compartment for installing a SATA drive, a pair of latches, and holes for attaching the VESA bracket.


The secret behind the device's considerable thickness is that it's made of two parts. The bottom section is a module for installing a hard drive, with the computer itself sitting on top. It's an unusual arrangement, but it lets you reduce the overall size if you don't use a hard drive. Though in my opinion, this design only adds to the price, even if it does reduce the heat from the installed drive reaching the computer's internals.


The upper part of the case—the computer itself—has its own rubber feet and mounting holes for the bracket.


The electrical connection is made through a connector that looks a little like USB Type-C, but is actually a makeshift SATA connector. I'll take the additional module apart later in the review, but for now I'll stick to an external inspection.


The case has blue lighting around its perimeter. It doesn't shine very brightly; I even had to take the photo without flash to make it visible.


As usual, I took it apart after testing, but I'll show the teardown before the tests, also as usual, for convenience.
The device is fairly easy to take apart: four feet, four screws, a few not-too-stubborn clips, and that's it.


The case illumination LED is attached to the top cover. Fortunately, the design is modular, so I disconnected it right away to keep it out of the way.


The first thing worth mentioning is the fairly well-thought-out cooling system. Active cooling takes up a substantial part of the case, but the design has several smart features:
1. The fan can shut off completely.
2. The case is large enough to leave a gap between the cover and the fan, which improves airflow.
3. The case has plenty of ventilation holes, in fact, they're located all around the perimeter.
4. The cooling system is designed to expel most of the hot air outside the case.


Two WiFi antennas are glued to the left side of the case, but they use detachable connectors, so they caused no problems during disassembly either.


Disconnect the antenna connectors and remove the board from the case.


Near the back of the case there's an mSATA connector for an SSD. It's a little odd to see mSATA, an older standard, in a new computer instead of the now-standard M.2. Still, it's better than nothing.


There's almost nothing on the bottom.


Apart from the SATA connector, battery, and EEPROM chip, that is. In addition to its fairly thick pins, the SATA connector is secured with something like epoxy.


As I mentioned, the cooling system is designed to vent some of the hot air out of the case through the top vents. To make this possible, the right side of the shroud is slightly curved outward.


A small fan is installed on the opposite side. You can hear it running at full speed, but I wouldn't call it particularly noisy. During normal use, it's either off or running at its lowest speed most of the time.
Interestingly, the connectors are also covered with something like cloth electrical tape.


There is probably an "expanded" version of this computer, since there's space for a VGA connector on the side, but it isn't soldered onto this one.


Remove the three screws and take off the heatsink. Underneath are two fairly thick thermal pads, about 2.2 mm thick. One transfers heat away from the processor; the other acts more as a cushion than as a means of improving heat transfer.


The board in its "bare" state looks fairly neat. The only thing that spoils the picture is the residue from the thermal pads; they made the heatsink quite reluctant to come off.


1. Celeron J3455 processor (SoC)
2. Two 2 GB RAM chips. The memory is made by SK Hynix.
3. Samsung eMMC chip. I'll test its speed later, but this brand's memory is usually quite fast.
4. Flash memory for storing the BIOS firmware.
5. ITE8987E Super I/O chip
6. Realtek RTS5170 card reader controller.


1. Intel WiFi module—it's a small detail, but a nice one :)
2. EJ898. This is the first time I've come across this chip. It's a PD 2.0 (Power Delivery) controller; you can read more here. As far as I can tell, USB Type-C power goes through it.
Below is the EEPROM chip, and above and to the right is the chip responsible for Gigabit Ethernet.
3. Multichannel power controller.
4. Some small MOSFETs near the power button.


1. C-Media HS-100B, analog audio output. Below it is an unpopulated footprint for another chip: a DisplayPort-to-VGA converter. So you can't get a VGA output just by installing the connector.
2. P13USB, which, as far as I can tell, is a USB hub.
3. Another power converter near the RAM chips.
4. Flash memory on the underside of the board.


They also cut costs on the HDMI and USB protection components—not all of them are populated.


Another photo of the board. On the right, you can see a connector near the power button. Its purpose is unknown; I assume it connects to the front panel.


The computer's BIOS is stripped down almost completely. It only has settings for choosing the boot device. Unfortunately, they also "cut" the option to automatically power on when power is connected.


The desktop is practically empty out of the box. For some reason, the resolution was set to 1024x768, so I had to change it manually.


Windows activated automatically as soon as I connected to the internet.


The biggest drawback of this device is its mere 32 GB of flash storage, with only about 19 GB free. That's "not much to work with." It's enough for the OS, but installing additional software—especially anything "heavy"—will be a problem. Before long, you'll keep running out of space. One option is to install a hard drive or SSD and either move some folders to it or install the OS there altogether, leaving the eMMC as auxiliary storage.


Information from CPU-Z. There's nothing new here, since the processor is far from new.


I decided to start testing by checking performance with different drives and interfaces. But first, a few words about the hard drive mounting module.
As mentioned above, the computer's case essentially consists of two parts. The lower section has a bay for a hard drive or any 2.5-inch SATA drive.


You can get inside in exactly the same way as when taking the computer apart: remove the four feet and undo the four self-tapping screws.


I have to admit, after my initial inspection I mistakenly thought the manufacturer had routed USB to the outside and installed a USB-to-SATA converter inside the module. But it turned out to be much simpler and more basic: inside, there are just wires and a board with no radio components at all. The design is simple and neat, and raises no further questions. The connectors fit together perfectly, especially considering they have no play and are firmly seated. Though I probably wouldn't have done it that way.


In one of my Vorke computer reviews, I complained that my 9.5 mm-thick test drive barely fit, with a bit of a squeeze. That's not a problem here. Once installed, it's held in place by the cover, which has two pieces of rubber glued to it. It fits perfectly.


First, the CrystalDiskMark version 5 tests.
1. The built-in eMMC has a decent read speed, but average write speed.
2. The external hard drive connected via USB 3.0 performs great, both in terms of speed and overall operation.
3. The card reader, on the other hand, is quite slow. I tested a fairly fast memory card, and I'm a little surprised that modern "Atoms" run two to three times faster even without a separate chip than this setup.
4. Connecting a hard drive via SATA also raised no issues. The speed is slightly lower than over USB 3.0, but in fact it's more realistic for this particular hard drive.


In addition to the test above, I run an extra test of the eMMC drive using CrystalDiskMark version 3.x. The thing is, I started collecting statistics a long time ago, so now I have to use an older version of the program, since the results from the old and new versions differ somewhat.
The computer under review and a couple of the latest models I've tested, in this case from Beelink.
Write speeds are roughly the same, but the computer under review is way ahead in read speed.


And for comparison, here's a screenshot of all the computers tested:
Voyo Vbook V2
Beelink AP42
Voyo V1 (eMMC)
CHUWI HiBox
Beelink BT7
Pipo X10
Pipo X9
Pipo X7
Pipo X7S
MeeGoPad T02
Pocket P1
Vensmile W10
Teclast X98 Pro
MeeGoPad T03
Wintel Pro CX-W8



The Cinebench test didn't show anything new. Actually, no—it did. I usually run this test twice: before and after updating the graphics card driver. Most of the time, the update improves performance, but in this case nothing changed. It even seemed to get worse, so I’ve included the first test results, using versions 11 and 15.


PassMark showed lower performance than the same Vorke, but most of the score difference was due to the eMMC storage here, while the Vorke has an SSD.


In the 3DMark 2006 test, however, performance was actually a little higher: 4000 versus 3758 for the Vorke. There was no overheating.


After running the new version of 3DMark, the results were confirmed: 396 versus 372 for the Vorke. The difference is tiny, of course, but it’s in the right direction.


In the comments, people asked me to run an additional test with Cinebench. It’s no trouble, so from now on I’ll include this test in all my mini PC reviews.


The computer has two ways to connect to a local network: a gigabit wired interface and dual-band WiFi. The wired connection uses a Realtek chip, while the wireless connection uses an Intel WiFi module.


WiFi sensitivity isn’t very good: the program found only 23 access points. The Vorke, with the same module and in the same spot, saw 32.


On the 2.4 GHz band, speeds are practically unchanged anywhere in the room, whether the computer is in the far corner from the router or just a meter away: around 25–30 Mbit.
The 5 GHz band is noticeably faster. At about 2–3 m from the router, with an obstacle in the way, it reached around 125–150 Mbit.


With a wired connection, speeds fluctuate between 400 and 700 Mbit, which isn’t much for a 1 Gbit interface.



Since this processor is already well known, the tests above usually produce the same results. That’s why I’m more interested in checking for overheating: most computers like this have cooling problems.
First, I ran the OCCT power supply test (math and 3D). After 55 minutes, the maximum temperature reached 82 degrees, and the processor didn’t throttle its frequency.


In the LinX test, the temperature reached 91 degrees. But since performance didn’t drop, there was no throttling. To be fair, though, the temperature did approach the upper limit.


As an experiment, I decided to make a small modification and see how much work it would take.
As I mentioned above, the thermal pad is about 2.2 mm thick, so I first tried using a thin (0.5 mm) pad and an aluminum plate (about 1.8 mm). Unfortunately, the plate was slightly warped and the pad didn’t compress much, so the heatsink ended up tilted. I didn’t dare install it without the pad, again because the plate wasn’t quite flat, and I didn’t have a suitable flat one :(


In the end, I broke off a 0.9 mm-thick piece of an improvised heatsink from some power supply, added a piece of good-quality 1 mm thermal pad, and decided to use that combination, with thermal paste between the plate and the heatsink.


Thermal pad on the processor, aluminum plate on top, then thermal paste. It’s an awkward little sandwich, of course, but I think it’ll do for an experiment.
A much better result would come from a plate about 1.5–1.6 mm thick and thermal paste alone.


Now for the repeat tests.
The temperature in OCCT dropped by 6 degrees.


In LinX, it dropped by 7 degrees. But since there was no overheating before, performance stayed the same.


As one more experiment, I ran the OCCT CPU test. It turned out that these processors run hotter in this mode than in the combined CPU+GPU test, whereas previously it was the other way around. Looks like I’ll have to run both tests to determine the maximum temperature accurately. In this mode, the temperature reached 90 degrees. Taking the modification into account, the original temperature in this test would have been around 96–97 degrees.
A reminder: OCCT and LinX are extreme stress tests; in real life, a computer rarely has to handle this kind of load.

After the modification, the fan started switching on even less often and stays off most of the time.


Because video decoding is handled in hardware, CPU usage is around 10% when playing a 4K file at a bitrate of 100 Mbps. The file was played from a flash drive connected through a USB 3.0 card reader.


There’s hardly any need to mention Full HD: CPU usage is just over two percent.


As an extra, I decided to measure the overall power consumption in different modes.
1. Off.
2. Desktop
3. Playing 4K video.
4. Maximum load in the OCCT test.
In the last case, power consumption can rise to 15 W when the fan runs at full speed. Installing a hard drive will increase consumption by another 1–2 W, depending on its operating mode.


Most of the test results are in one table. On average, performance is roughly on par with the Vorke V1 Plus I mentioned during the review. That’s not surprising, since they’re built on the same hardware, so I wasn’t expecting any breakthrough. But I think it’s fair to say that, unlike the Vorke, the cooling system here works noticeably better.


I accidentally put it through a “crash test.” To be more precise, I didn’t even realize at what point during testing it happened.
The bottom panel is held in place by four latches, which are released using sliders on the underside of the case. At some point, I noticed that the bottom panel wasn’t staying in place as well as before. It turned out I’d broken three of the four latches. Most likely, this happened while testing the hard drive, when I was removing the top half from the “base” and putting it back on. This shows that the latches aren’t very sturdy and can break if you try to separate the halves while the case is closed.


Now for the verdict.
On the plus side, I liked the fairly good performance, the lack of overheating during normal use, the option to install mSATA and SATA drives, good speed on the 5 GHz band, stable operation, and the preinstalled operating system. It also has not just four USB ports, but a USB Type-C port as well.
Also, since the hard drive is installed in what is essentially a separate enclosure, it will definitely run cooler than in the Vorke, where it sits against the motherboard.
The included VESA mount is a nice bonus.

Now for the downsides. The lack of an option to add RAM is disappointing right away, since 4 GB is the maximum. And 32 GB of flash storage isn’t much either; 64 GB would be preferable, but that would raise the overall price, so it’s a bit of a trade-off. It’s probably easier to add an SSD and install the system on it.
The 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi was stable, but its speed in the tests wasn’t very high.
Installing the hard drive in an external enclosure helped keep its temperature down, but the detachable design turned out to be mechanically weak. I think the manufacturer should have used wider latches.

Overall, this computer is aimed at light tasks: browsing, office applications, older games, music, video, Skype, Photoshop, and so on. Given its low power consumption, it could be a perfectly decent option for running around the clock.


That’s all for now. As usual, I’m looking forward to your questions and comments, and I hope you found the review useful.

There’s a coupon, GBAK11, that brings the price down to 129.99. I checked, and it works. No idea how long it’ll be valid, though. In my opinion, it’s an excellent deal at that price.