The ECS LIVA Z5 Plus has impressed us quite a bit in terms of performance, operating silently even when higher load levels are implied. Not long ago we have tried out the Shuttle DC40U5 with the i5-1235U, while the LIVA Z5 Plus does incorporate the i5-1335U. The newer Raptor Lake-U SoC is more optimized but that is not all which explains the notable increased performance: ECS has configured their SKU with a package power of 20W in Full Load, with peaks of 39.1W, while on the Shuttle system we do see a maximum package power of 15W in Full Load, with peaks of just 17.8W, explaining the main difference in clocks, especially for the Performance cores.

Since the power limits are higher, the GPU clock is higher as well at maximum load (we noted about 150MHz performance), which also translates to better 3D scores. The complete view can be seen in the monitoring stats from HWiNFO64:

As noted before, the system succeeds to remain silent even during high loads; we have recorded 27.4 dBA in IDLE and about 28.1 dBA in Full Load, while ambient was set at 26.8 dBA.

Regarding power consumption, we have recorded about 13.5W in IDLE and 36.7W during sustained loads. The peak power consumption will exceed 51W during high clocks for the Performance cores, which will reach up to 4.6GHz!

In case you are interested, here are the performance numbers for the supplied NVMe SSD:

ECS has equipped the LIVA Z5 Plus with quite a bit of interfaces, including USB 4.0 Gen 2x2 and dual Intel 2.5Gbps LAN. It is not offering so many expansion slots internally as the Shuttle XPC nano NC40U5 though, so we might need to rely mostly on external storage if we do not install a high-capacity NVMe SSD internally right away, which might add to the cable clutter.

We do not have a MSRP for the LIVA Z5 Plus, but we were quite impressed with its performance and low noise levels!

The product can be purchased for about 586 Euros including taxes, via the Europ-Computer Online store. You will also get a 2-year warranty!

ECS LIVA Z5 Plus Mini-PC is Recommended for:

We would like to thank again to ECS for making this review possible!