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CWWK has updated its line of "soft router" "or firewall appliance" mini PCs with new models powered by Intel Raptor Lake processors that come with a lot of high-speed networking ports.
There's a model with an Intel U300E processor and eight 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports, as well another model that has six LAN ports: four 2.5 GbE ports, and two SFP cages with 10 Gigabit speeds. At time of publication, barebones versions of these systems are available from the CWWK website for $424 and $443, respectively.
Intel's U300E processor isn't exactly a speed demon – it's an 15-watt chip released in early 2023 for embedded applications. The processor supports CPU frequencies up to 4.3 GHz, but it's only a 5-core, 6-thread chip with a single Performance core and four Efficiency cores.
That said, it's a step up from the Intel Alder Lake-N and Twin Lake processors that are used in many other mini PCs in this space in a few ways. Those chips have no Performance cores, lack support for dual-channel memory and Thunderbolt, have lower-performance graphics, and only 9 lanes of PCIe 3.0.
The U300E, by comparison, supports Thunderbolt, up to 96GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 (non-ECC) memory, and up to 20 lanes of PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 3.0.
According to CWWK's spec sheet, there may be higher-performance versions of these network appliance mini PCs in the future with Intel Core i3-1315U, Core i5-1335U, or Core i7-1355U chips. Those would each bring a significant boost in CPU and graphics performance.
Each version of the littler computer has a single M.2 slot for PCIe 4.0 x4 storage, plus two SATA connectors for hard dries or SSDs. There's also an M.2 E-Key for an optional WiFi and Bluetooth card and a PCIe x8 socket on the mainboard (although it's limited to a 4-lane signal), two SODIMM slots for storage, and a set of ports that includes:
The computer has an aluminum case that measures 145.4 x 131.7 x 60mm and features a copper heat sink and fan for active cooling.
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