ECS announced that it will produce a mini-STX system as part of its Liva mini-PC product line.
Until now, ECS’s line of Liva mini-PCs has been comprised of SFF devices containing embedded processing hardware. With the new mini-STX design, that changes, as it uses a socketed LGA1151 motherboard.
The motherboard is branded as the H110S-2P, and it fits inside off a 1.3 L case. Ideally, it would work with any mini-STX case, but given the arrangements on both the front and back of the board, it isn’t clear yet if it will be. It also isn’t clear if Asrock’s mini-STX motherboard will work in this ECS chassis, for the same reasons.
The motherboard itself features less internal connectivity than Asrock’s, which featured two SATA-III and two M.2 slots. ECS’s H110S-2P has just one of each (as well as an mSATA slot). Around the edge of the motherboard are a number of output connectors including an HDMI port, one DisplayPort, one USB 3.0 Type-C port and a handful of USB Type-A ports.
Any desktop Skylake motherboard should work on this board, but higher-end models may have some cooling issues due to the compact form factor. The system uses laptop DDR4 SO-DIMM memory to save space, so if you buy one later, be sure you don’t mistakenly buy desktop DDR4.
ECS didn’t say if it plans to sell this system as a barebones kit or as a complete PC, but we will likely see both. There is currently no word on pricing or availability.
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