I've purchased two CWWK Pentium Gold 8505 mini-PCs with six 2.5G ethernet ports each and I will be building a Proxmox cluster to replace my current N100 based Proxmox host that has 5 2.5G ethernet ports. This post is a mini-review of this Pentium Gold 8505 mini-PC.
I'm upgrading to the 8505 because the 8505 has 20 PCIe lanes while the N100 only has 9. So, for example, my N100 has 5 Ethernet ports, 2 NVME M.2s (one lane each), and a few USBs but no USB-3 or USB-C because it ran out of lanes. In contrast, the 8505 mini-PC has 6 Ethernet ports, one NVME M.2 with PCIe by four, a second NVME M.2 with PCEe by one, and multiple USB-3 and USB-C ports. The 8505 also provides one Alder Lake performance core (with 2 threads) in addition to 4 E-Cores.
The CWWK page for the 8505 is pitifully lacking in details about this mini-PC so here are a few observations and corrections:
(oh well, I couldn't get this site to upload my picture even when it was only 220K long)
CPU performance, measured by Geekbench 6, of the Pentium 8505 is roughly double that of the N100 for both single and multi-core tests. Here links to the test results for the 8505 and the N100 for full details. Note, the test environments for the chips were slightly different:
I checked USB speeds with an NVME drive contained in a NVME to USB adapter. The red USB-A ports run at 10 Gbps, the blue USB-A ports run at 5 Gbps, and the USB-C port runs at 10 Gbps based on disk speeds measured at about 930 GB/sec, 460 GB/sec, and 930 GB/sec, respectively.
Overall, I'm happy with these mini-PCs. They were about $275 with no memory or SSD as compared to the $225 I paid for the N100. The extra $50 provides 6 (vs 5) 2.5G Ethernet ports, double the CPU performance, 2 memory slots instead of 1, and 5 various USB ports that are 10 to 20 times faster than the crappy USB-2 ports available on my current N100 box.
Note, there are many mini-PCs with N100s that have plenty of high speed USB ports. But, they then don't have many network ports. The N100 doesn't have enough lanes for both. The CWWK Pentium Gold 8505 does and so it provides plenty of network and USB ports.
I'm upgrading to the 8505 because the 8505 has 20 PCIe lanes while the N100 only has 9. So, for example, my N100 has 5 Ethernet ports, 2 NVME M.2s (one lane each), and a few USBs but no USB-3 or USB-C because it ran out of lanes. In contrast, the 8505 mini-PC has 6 Ethernet ports, one NVME M.2 with PCIe by four, a second NVME M.2 with PCEe by one, and multiple USB-3 and USB-C ports. The 8505 also provides one Alder Lake performance core (with 2 threads) in addition to 4 E-Cores.
The CWWK page for the 8505 is pitifully lacking in details about this mini-PC so here are a few observations and corrections:
- The unit does include a 75mm low profile fan (despite being described as fanless). The fan is basically silent and it helps cool the RAM and SSDs.
- There are two NVME M.2 slots (I expected one). One has 4 Gen-3 lanes and the other has 1 Gen-3 lane.
- The unit appears to have a WIFI slot (under one of the NVMEs) but I didn't test it.
- There are two SATA-3 ports and the kit includes two cables to connect the tiny motherboard connector to the SATA drive. The connector and cable provide data and power to the drive. Don't expect to power a 3.5" hard drive from this connector. FWIW, the connector and cable are small, and seem fragile, but the cable and connector fit together tightly so it too some force to unplug the cable.
(oh well, I couldn't get this site to upload my picture even when it was only 220K long)
CPU performance, measured by Geekbench 6, of the Pentium 8505 is roughly double that of the N100 for both single and multi-core tests. Here links to the test results for the 8505 and the N100 for full details. Note, the test environments for the chips were slightly different:
- The 8505 was tested under the latest MX Linux (live USB) running Linux 6.6.
- The N100 was tested on my Proxmox 8.0 host while it was idle. (I.e. the test was not run in a VM). The OS was Linux 6.2-pve.
I checked USB speeds with an NVME drive contained in a NVME to USB adapter. The red USB-A ports run at 10 Gbps, the blue USB-A ports run at 5 Gbps, and the USB-C port runs at 10 Gbps based on disk speeds measured at about 930 GB/sec, 460 GB/sec, and 930 GB/sec, respectively.
Overall, I'm happy with these mini-PCs. They were about $275 with no memory or SSD as compared to the $225 I paid for the N100. The extra $50 provides 6 (vs 5) 2.5G Ethernet ports, double the CPU performance, 2 memory slots instead of 1, and 5 various USB ports that are 10 to 20 times faster than the crappy USB-2 ports available on my current N100 box.
Note, there are many mini-PCs with N100s that have plenty of high speed USB ports. But, they then don't have many network ports. The N100 doesn't have enough lanes for both. The CWWK Pentium Gold 8505 does and so it provides plenty of network and USB ports.
