In 2004, a group of leading computer makers introduced PCIe, also called PCI Express, as a faster replacement for PCI and a number of other standards. Unlike PCI which used just one connector format, PCIe connectors come in various lengths, depending on how many "lanes" the peripheral card has. PCI Express connectors can be ×1, ×4, ×8, ×12, ×16 or ×32, signifying the number of "lanes" available for various application and throughput requirements.

To cover as many potential applications as possible, Advantech actually offers two versions of the ARK-3500:

• The ARK-3500P has two PCI connectors and can accommodate two half-length, full-height PCI expansion cards, which means cards up to 180 mm long and up to 110 mm tall.

• The ARK-3500F has two PCIe connector, one of them a PCI4 x 1 and the other a PCIe x 4. Here again, the actual cards cannot be larger than 180 x 110 mm.

Wide range of processor options

Available ARK-3500 CPUs	Intel Core i7	Intel Core i5	Intel Core i3	Intel Celeron
Model	3610QE	3610ME	3120ME	1020E
Cores/Threads	4/8	2/4	2/4	2/2
Base Clock Speed	2.30 GHz	2.70 GHz	2.40 GHz	2.20 GHz
Turbo Speed	3.30 GHz	3.30 GHz	No turbo	No turbo
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	45 watts	35 watts	35 watts	35 watts
Smart Cache	6MB	3MB	3MB	2MB
Integrated graphics	HD Graphics 4000	HD Graphics 4000	HD Graphics 4000	HD Graphics
Graphics base speed	650 MHz	650 MHz	650 MHz	650 MHz
Graphics max speed	1,000 MHz	950 MHz	900 MHz	1,000 MHz
PCI Express Rev	3.0	3.0	2.0	2.0
Intel Virtualization	Yes	Yes	No	No
AES New Instructions	Yes	Yes	No	No
Intel Trusted Execution	Yes	Yes	No	No
Intel vPro	Yes	Yes	No	No

For the past several years, Intel has generally taken the approach that of its available Core processors, i3 means good, i5 means better, and i7 means best. That's vastly over-simplifying matters, especially since there's often significant overlap between these processor categories. What's true is that, by and large, i7 chips have more of the good stuff than i5 chips, and those have more than i3 processors. To further complicate matters, there are also still Pentium and Celeron branded chips, and those can be either part of the Core architecture family or the much lower-end Atom processor family.

Anyway, for the ARK-3500, Advantech chose a quartet of Intel "Ivy Bridge" 3rd generation Core processors, starting with the comparatively lowly dual-core Celeron 1020E and the Core i3-3120ME that's also dual core design and also lacks turbo boost, but uses four threads. A major difference here is that the Celeron uses the older Intel HD Graphics whereas the i3 chip has the more powerful HD Graphics 4000 with 16 instead of just six execution units.

What's instantly obvious, of course, is the large number of standard size ports. Superior wired connectivity has long been a hallmark of industrial PCS, as has been their ability to support both contemporary and legacy interface technologies. Our review ARK-3500 was configured to offer the following external ports:

• 4 x USB 3.0
• 2 x USB 2.0
• 4 x Serial RS232
• 4 x Serial RS232/422/485 with auto flow control
• 2 x RJ-45 gigabit LAN
• 1 x Digital I/O
• Power (9 to 34 Volt DC)
• 1 x DVI-I video with VGA support
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x DisplayPort
• Audio microphone-in, line-in and line-out

Disassembly and reassembly are very easy: the steel bottom plate is held in place with four small Philips head screws, the two aluminum side heat spreaders with four hex bolts each. Note that this bottom-access design has the potentially considerable advantage of discouraging component or storage device theft, as secure mounting of the ARK device makes getting into the device virtually impossible for thieves.

The ARK-3500 can accommodate one or two 2.5-inch hard disks or solid state disks of the same format up to 9.5 mm thick. The SATA II, Gen 3 interface supports a maximum data transfer rate of 500 MB/s, and with two disks or SSDs present, users can set them up in RAID 0 ("striping" — spreading data over both disks for extra speed) or RAID 1 ("mirroring" — writing the same content on both disks, so as to have a backup) arrangement.

Advantech Intel-based IPC Benchmarks and Comparisons

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PERFORMANCE COMPARISON	Advantech	Advantech	Advantech	Advantech
Model	ARK-3500	ARK-2150L	AIIS-1240	ITA-1610
Model (click pic for review)
Year tested	2015	2013	2014	2014
Intel processor	Celeron 1020E	Core i7-3517UE	Core i7-3770	Atom D525
CPU Speed	2.2 GHz	1.7/2.8 GHz	3.4/3.9 GHz	1.8 GHz
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	35 watts	17 watts	77 watts	13 watts
CPU Mark	2,198.0	3,164.8	8,820.9	556.8
2D Graphics Mark	415.0	475.8	696.5	182.7
Memory Mark	923.3	826.7	1,420.5	266.2
Disk Mark	733.0	1,322.0	519.5	101.8
3D Graphics Mark	233.0	253.1	476.4	106.8
Overall PassMark	974.9	1,382.1	2,895.9	257.0
CM ALU	25,977	41,554	84,049	12,214
CM FPU	20,351	39,544	68,910	10,276
CM MEM	27,444	23,799	47,498	8,649
CM HDD	11,377	34,772	8,325	5,381
CM GDI	12,202	11,924	17,856	2,798
CM D2D	1,991	1,713	8,411	3,481
CM OGL	5,010	6,318	10,417	787
Overall CrystalMark	104,074	159,902	245,466	43,586

Note that unlike many of RuggedPCReview's benchmark comparisons, this one is not meant to show how competitors compare, but what different types of processors can do in Advantech industrial PCs. And again, our test results show the benchmark numbers of an ARK-3500 equipped with the least powerful processor option. The high-end i7-3610QE chip available would at least double the numbers.

That said, note that any Intel Core processor equipped systems will outscore anything with older Intel Atom chips by a very wide margin. I say "older" Intel Atom chips as certain Intel "Bay Trail" processors, which are based on the latest Atom architecture but also sold at the high end under the Celeron and even Pentium brands, considerably close the gap between high-end Atom and low-end Core CPUs.

Also note that TDP (thermal design power) is usually, but not always, a good indicator of overall processor performance. In our comparison here, for example, the 77 watt quad-core i7-3770 uses in its AIIS-1240 optical inspection system trounces everything else. But although the Celeron 1020E used in our test ARK-3500 has a TDP of 35 watts, it's easily outscored by the ultra-low voltage 17 watt Core i7-3517UE used in the ARK-2150L. The primary difference here is that the i7 has turbo boost and four threads whereas the two-thread Celeron doesn't.

Note other differences as well. Depending on system use, the type of mass storage can make a huge difference. Conventional hard disks are much slower than almost any type of solid state disk, and among SSDs types there are vast performance differences as well.

What all this means is that customers should view available processor and memory/storage options not as pesky extra-cost items, but as important parts of the decisionmaking process when configuring a project. The wrong choice can have far-reaching consequences in terms of performance, customer satisfaction, and TOC.

Advantech ARK-3500 Fanless Box PC Specs: