Project: V | The power at its core

Development Project: V | Development
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cpubannerv2

Hey community,

Project: V is coming along nicely, and we expect to bring you a major update about the industrial design soon, as well as some other cool news! But in the meantime let’s talk about something that everyone’s been asking about, and haven’t yet covered…

A lake of tigers

Let’s cut right to it:

We are using Intel 11th generation Tiger Lake CPUs!

The Tiger Lake processors in the new V will be energy-efficient quad-core models with intel’s upcoming Xe graphics, which will give our new device quite a leg up on its predecessor in terms of performance. Of course they also feature Thunderbolt, so if the integrated graphics don’t suit your workload eGPU can be used.

One thing to note, is that the CPU we’re using will require more cooling than a passive heatsink can provide. As such, our engineers have already been hard at work to design and test an active cooling solution. Our aim is to get the benefits of the fan when your V’s hard at work, and to keep the fan quiet or even turned off when the extra cooling performance isn’t required.

Intel provided the core of Eve’s first crowd-developed product, so we have worked with them in the past. We look forward to doing so again, and are convinced that Intel’s 11th Gen Core i5s and i7s will make the new V the best 2-in-1 it can be!

What about Team Red?

We are aware that AMD has been kicking up dust in the CPU world recently. And if we had somehow missed it, your comments here in the community would have left no doubt that we would be remiss if we didn’t contact them. So we did, and they’ve been very helpful! We’ve reviewed their offerings for viability, from as early as before the project was announced, all the way to mere weeks ago. Though we were not able to find a processor that fits with our project this time around, AMD is constantly developing new platforms, and it’s always possible that a third-gen V might play for the red team!

Awesome stuff to come

As hinted before, we’ve got big things in store for Project: V, and we’re excited to tell you all about them… soonTM. Until then, be sure to let us know what you think about Tiger Lake chips in the new V!

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Pretty tasty single-thread performance. Me likey.

Naturally, heat concerns me, but most of my intensive work will still be done at a desk and I’m not ashamed to admit that I am comfortable using a cooling pad. Say what you will.
(You got a problem with that then just look for the guy in my profile avatar. That is really me. :no_mouth: :lying_face:)

Also, team-eGPU! Yea-uh!

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Considering Tiger Lake is going to be released in September, it’s nice to know we might be ahead of the curve in terms of Intel generation this time! :slight_smile:

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The integrated graphics in Tiger Lake represent a gigantic step forward and are the first of a new generation so are likely to be supported with good drivers for a long time. But there is a concern that the integrated thunderbolt allows direct memory access unless blocked off in a custom bios. Please bear that in mind.

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Fair enough. My counterpoints to the Thunderbolt issue would be as follows:

  1. This vulnerability requires direct physical access to the device. This makes it a low concern issue for the average consumer who doesn’t let a device like this out of their sight. This is a bigger problem for enterprise or government level users where espionage and sabotage are a possibility.
  2. If the new V meets Thunderbolt 4 specifications, which this CPU family will support, then the system will have DMA (Direct Memory Access) Protection enabled which guards against this issue.
  3. We could probably get away with just using USB 4.0 if everyone felt too strongly about it.
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Well, the first generation took quite a lot longer than planned :see_no_evil:

Back to the topic: I’m a fanless fan… And I don’t need power in a tablet. So, this update leads to mixed feelings for me. It would be nice to have a low power silent mode with the new V for silent and fanless use in the UEFI. Being fanless was the main reason for me to buy the original.

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Wow, the performance gain from Intel 11th gen Tiger lake cpu is huge. According to Laptopmag.com we’ll see a 100% improvement in the new core i5 CPU compared to Ice Lake, and an even bigger improvement from the Core i5-7Y54 in the V.

The Xe integrated graphics will be much better than the Intel Graphics 515, good enough (in the i7 model) to play Battlefield V at 1080p with high settings at over 30 fps. If we use the fan design from the Surface Pro and have a thermal dissipation pattern, it will run cool, silent and have a lot more power. Looking forward to the new Eve V!

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Making the V actively cooled is one more reason to make the device easy to open: CLEANING. All my laptops ended up eventually clogged with dust and underperforming. As this isn’t a nicely closed device anymore, stuff will get in there.

I also agree with other people here: Having more power sounds nice but for 90% of the time I’d prefer a fanless device. A “silent mode” would be important. And not in the “it will only kick in when needed” but in the “it will never kick in and just throttle if necessary” way. I don’t want to be at a quiet meeting or library and have a fan suddenly go crazy because I started some taxing task.

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The increased power is great and I was really hoping for that but I also love the silence of passive cooling. I’m glad that Eve is trying to find ways to provide for a quiet fan and keep it turned off when not needed. That would be a good compromise. I agree with @eldelacajita that this makes having a user-accessibile device even more desirable.

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Isn’t TB4 integrated into usb4?

AMD is better in the same laptop at most things than intel by a good margin, except in some ST cases.
I hope this video can shed some light on the current situation for some people.

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A Laptop isn’t the same form factor as a tablet or even 2-in-1 though. I trust that the Eve team considered all the options since they should have a better insight into the offerings of AMD (likely even under NDA) and their requirements for the promised features (power budget, low power modes, always-on features, etc.). Was secretly hoping for AMD too but would probably have had less support for the promised Thunderbolt feature then (even in a PC form factor TB is rare to see on an AMD platform).

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No, other way around. Thunderbolt 4 must fully support usb4.

Intel has provided the entire TB3 spec royalty free to be implemented in usb4, but it is an optional alt mode not a required feature in usb4

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Ah, so it’s the same like right now with tb3 and usb 3 type c

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Agreed. It would have to be a toss-up between paying for custom bios or paying the TB4 licence fee (only TB3 is free). I guess Eve know their customer base now and can decide the issue of device security based on who they will be selling to.

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I’m a car guy… I love engines. Just a crazy thought, but if we’re going to go with an active cooling fan based design then is it possible to put a small removable air filter on the intake port? Much like the air intake filter in your car, this could block a significant amount of dust and debris from entering the chassis. With a simple removable design it could be taken out washed and replaced in a mater of minutes. The guys at K&N have experience with making custom solutions for different applications and they have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to reusable air filter media. I’d really like to see a K&N lifetime air filter on my next V.

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Thunderbolt 4 sounds fantastic. For those who use EGPUs the extra bandwidth will help a great deal with higher end cards.

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I switched to AMD since ZEN 1 and I love it! Only thing I’m missing it’s Thunderbolt. (Filmmaker and photographer, need top data transfer and export speeds!)

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This cpu certainly appears to facilitate the “workhorse” use case that won out, second to none. My understanding is that active cooling was always a strong possibility with the workhorse, just not a foregone conclusion. Now it’s looking like, indeed, it will need more than passive cooling to give this V the muscle to power through whatever I throw at it . . . like a workhorse.

Still, some form of silent-mode, throttled-down options sound like a terrific idea that I love (and would absolutely use myself when doing tablet-ey sort of things).
So, as much as I’d love (and wish for) passive cooling to work, it would feel to me like using any discomfort with cooling requirements as a reason to weenie out now on this cpu kind of defeats the purpose of giving the community a vote in the first place, which makes me doubt that the idea of a weaker cpu is going to get much traction - at least I hope it doesn’t.

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On the TB front, I fully intend to use an eGPU. I’m no engineer; so I can’t really have an opinion on the finer points of TB3, vs 4, vs USB, or whatever, except that whatever is chosen should darn well not only integrate with an eGPU, but make it fly, sing, smoke, or whatever metaphor makes the most sense. (a fly that sings after smoking too much??? :thinking:)

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As much as I love the silent cooling implementation on the original V, I too feel that a well designed active cooling would give V2 an edge in versatility and performance. Personally I would want to see 2 options:

  1. The active cooling mode to be activated only when V is set into “Best Performance” mode
    image
    That way one would either have a quite V2 or a powerful V2, using built in Windows functionality.
  2. Another option, is maybe have fanless passive cooling in battery mode, and active cooling engaged when V2 is plugged into a charger.

P.S.
Doing what MS did with Surface Pro line could also be an option - i5 Passive cooling and i7 Active cooling. Not the best solution, as the i5 throttles quite a bit, but I guess it works for those who do not mind loss in performance. Let me know what you think

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Heads up Caboose, K&N filters have very low filtration at the small scale. I don’t see a lot of accurate information on them out there in the public eye. They let a ton of finer particles into your engine, especially when compared to high quality standard filters such as WIX or OEM. They also don’t get “clogged”; which means once they’re full, they let more dust through. There’s a lot of info on this online, such as on BobIsTheOilGuy, YouTube, and other sites.

You want synthetic media filters, ideally. Donaldson makes them, but not for many vehicles. Amsoil used to resell many, but don’t anymore (they’re not made for many vehicles by many OEMs).

K&N offer more airflow, far less filtration.
OEM offer great filtration, slightly less airflow.
Synthetic media offers the best filtration by far, and more airflow at the same time. They also last for an extremely long time.

As for the V: I’d by far prefer a fan solution over fanless. I see no benefit in having no fan if you can use a ‘fanless’ mode, and if noise is the main reason to not have a fan then that’s very poor reasoning IMO. Having a quiet fan kick on low volume in a library isn’t an issue. My old Surface Pro 4’s fan is barely audible, and that’s quite old at this point. The tech is so much more efficient now.

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