ECS Elitegroup LIVA Z7, Core Ultra 5 125H

The ECS LIVA Z7 Plus doesn't quite have the power to win any benchmark competitions, with the performance being mid-tier overall. However, that doesn't mean it won't perform well. With power consumption ranging from 8 to 85 watts (idle to peak) and averaging around 20–40 watts under typical loads, the system is well-suited for office use or as a home theater PC. Intel's Turbo Boost means the system pulled 85 watts at the wall maximum, but after a few minutes this drops to 48–54 watts under extended heavy load. Overall noise levels remain quite low thanks to the extra fan along with the CPU heatsink. They peak at 47 dBA at 6"/15 cm but under all normal loads the system remains exceptionally quiet in the low to mid 40 dBA range and if mounted behind a monitor via the VESA mount it will be even quieter. I will also note that I did see thermal throttling on occasion, but it was always at the very end of the Turbo boost time limit, usually in the last 5–10 seconds and only under extreme loads at which point the system would drop to its normal TDP limit and thermal throttling would no longer be a problem. Temperatures overall are average at best, with peaks of 100°C. However, the unit typically stayed between 40-45°C at idle, 60-75°C during moderate to heavy loads, and 80-100°C in extreme loads where the TDP limit would come into effect dropping temperatures to the low 80°C range.

The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H based on the Meteor Lake architecture does come with quite a unique core architecture, with 4 Redwood P-Cores, 8 Crestmont E-Cores and 2 LP E-Cores for a total of 18 total threads (P-Cores feature HT), does integrate a dedicated NPU for supporting the latest AI platforms, while the GPU is based on Intel Arc Graphics with 7 Xe cores supporting the latest technologies including Ray Tracing. As we have noted from the test results the ECS LIVA 7 Plus is topping our charts in terms of performance and one of the main reasons would be the lack of aggressive power capping other models do employ to accommodate less elaborated cooling systems. Read more: http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/article/1001526/#ixzz8pvyhSrLF