CompuLab Intense-PC2: An Excellent, Fanless, Mini PC Powered By Intel's i7 Haswell

In benchmarking the CompuLab Intense-PC2 for more than the past month, I've tried out Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Fedora 20, Fedora 21 Alpha, and other Linux distributions. Given that it's standard Intel Haswell hardware inside, as long as you're running a modern Linux distribution this system should run fine.

The configuration of the Intel Core i7 4600U, 8GB of DDR3L, 120GB Micron SATA3 SSD, and Haswell HD Graphics was terrific for this low-power, well-built, fan-less system.

For those curious to see how the Intense-PC2 compares to the original Intense-PC plus the original Intense-PC, an Intel Bay Trail NUC, and also an old Atom 330 NetTop for kicks, I uploaded a majority of our performance benchmark results earlier this week and are found in From The Atom 330 To Haswell ULT: Intel Linux Performance Benchmarks.

For the Intense-PC, Intense-PC2, and Bay Trail NUC I also did some CPU thermal monitoring and system power consumption monitoring. The AC system power consumption was measured by the Phoronix Test Suite using a USB-based WattsUp Pro power meter. These results are on the following pages while using the same Ubuntu 14.10 development snapshot during testing across the three Intel platforms.