Strange AliExpress Motherboards with Built-in CPUs: Erying Skyline & Polestar

Sponsor: Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste (on Amazon - geni.us/JMVNtOE ) & Hydronaut for water cooling (Amazon - geni.us/Fsray )
The Erying Skyline and Polar Star (sometimes "polestar") motherboards offer a unique combination of a laptop CPU with pseudo-DIY motherboards, potentially offering a good value short of going full DIY. You could build cheaper than 13400 and board combo with this - but it comes with some oddities (and some bizarrely honest marketing). The mini-ITX board in particular is a fairly high-power laptop 12th Gen 12700H CPU with a custom-made "IHS," with the CPU directly soldered to the board. We also bought one with an 11980HK - -but we got malware flags on the driver downloads.
Watch our review of another strange product - the flat tower Jiushark CPU cooler! • Weird $40 CPU Cooler: ...
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Curious Mini-ITX Motherboard
01:29 - Directly Soldering the CPUs
03:36 - Cultural Background on 'Weird' Products
05:45 - Features & Tearing it Down
10:19 - The Backplate & 'IHS'
12:04 - Impressive Honesty
13:43 - BIOS... Creativity
15:50 - Benchmark Disclaimers
17:29 - Gaming & Production Benchmarks
20:54 - Malware Concerns - Maybe
22:56 - Interesting & Unique
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Host, Tear-Down: Steve Burke
Testing, Writing: Jeremy Clayton
Video: Vitalii Makhnovets
Video: Mike Gaglione

[@GamersNexus]

This one was fun. It's nice to look at something 'weird' and unique occasionally -- a nice break from the serious deep-dives we've been doing. Lots of fun to mess around with, and always interesting to look into the culture of why a 'weird' product was made for its market! Hope you enjoyed this one! Check out our review of the strange Jiushark Flat-Tower cooler next! kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqGTg3t6iatjjMU Support GN's reviews, in-depth reporting, and of course, purchases of weird hardware by visiting our store! store.gamersnexus.net/ (our limited 15-year anniversary foil shirt is available -- but not for much longer!) or our Patreon page! www.patreon.com/gamersnexus

[@Scottyg8050]

Neat

[@nelin5970]

@techyescity recently made a video on the 11th gen version from Erying and found that the VRM ran a bit too hot. still neat for saving a buck on a budget gaming pc.

[@ADR69]

TBF, no one's perfact

[@cmdrclassified]

Maybe do a follow up video on this, by reaching out to Erying about the trojan you found in their software. Would be interesting to hear their side, and could be like some of your previous "customer service" videos. Great work Steve and GN Team! Have a great day! o7

[@kapler8550]

@@nelin5970 brian either got a dud or didnt test properly (im leaning towards improper testing). If you have any real airflow going over the vrm heatsinks the temps are fine. I tested mine after that video with a downdraft cooler and the hottet spot i saw ( tested with both an IR temp gun an ktype thermocouple) was 81c on the caps with the ir temp gun under a 95w load in cinibench r23.

[@royboysoyboy]

When ASUS screws you so hard, you turn to the depths of AliExpress for a decent deal

[@Kingvoakahustla]

Lol stupid how does Asus screw up? It was a combination of the AMD CPU and now it's fix with Bios. I never have an issue with Asus MB only dummies does. Lol

[@duke605]

ASSUS

[@latlanticcityphil]

That's bad!😂😂😂😂😂

[@googletoldme2666]

ASSUS translates to Roasted 😂

[@AlfaPro1337]

There's an Among Us reference in the title. It's SUS.

[@TheMhannah100]

Just the fact that they are going through the trouble to translate into how many languages, and being very upfront about issues, I have to give them props.

[@Go-ah-oold]

Ali is however a shitty company in so many other ways that it does not really matter, on top of that also in the grasps of the CCP.

[@Teixas666]

when we see established brand names being intentionally obscure its suprising to see a product like this being sold with such candor. "look you get this as is, we assure you it works but its gonna be akward ot fit, we did what we could ot make the process of using it as seamsless as possible, but there will be some issues, hopefully you can sort it out".

[@Belznis]

Yes, very cool that there are cheaper alternatives. Also the multiple sceens could help a lot of people looking for something like that.

[@hotdogsarepropaganda]

I also wonder if they see this and look and find that someone is installing malware in their drivers and they fire them. this company is upfront about the hardware issues, that's enough to track with me

[@surft]

It's clear that aside from money the creators of this device made it because they genuinely liked experimenting and they know their audience are the same.

[@penteractgaming]

It is shocking how transparent this company was about possible problems. A refreshing change

[@Lodinn]

It's just that the West expects everything to be shrinkwrapped to perfection. Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Taiwan etc. all have a way stronger DIY/part salvaging culture. Things don't need a shiny façade if they work. On a flip side, these companies can never really thrive on the western markets (and struggle with non-local markets on the whole).

[@lIIl_lIl_lIIl]

still chinese garbage. quit supporting the enemy.

[@ErikS-]

"was" should be "is" Those guys are still around and I hope we'll see way more of them!

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@ErikS- actually I agree. It's always nice to see an honest seller/company. Knowing about potential or actual problems beforehand helps a lot.

[@robertkelly5391]

Erying FTW

[@Pwnr145]

I bet they're thrilled seeing their benchmark as compared to top brands in a controlled environment. Such a "we did it guys" moment for a proof of concept. This is awesome.

[@GigaVids]

honestly your probably right

[@giZm]

Those item descriptions are adorably honest. Back-alley chop/solder shops coming up with their own hacked products like this is the kinda cyberpunk future I've always imagined, and it's somewhat eco friendly on top of that. It'd be cool if GN could cover more stuff like this in the future.

[@lietus4192]

Yeah that company is being honest atleast , id buy that kind of product if i wanted to.

[@jamesgodfrey1322]

cyberpunk yes this was what I was thinking good call I do like your comment it made me smile

[@ssplayer]

Reminds me a little of Steve Wozniak building motherboards in a garage.

[@K31TH3R]

Say what you will about the quality of Chinese homegrown products and materials, but I believe the Chinese people are among the best on the planet at improvisation and innovation. I really find it hard not to admire a culture of motivated builders and designers that don't care how corporations intend them to use their products and are entirely unburdened with intellectual property and copyright laws. And yes, as you said, it is very cyberpunk, and I am all for it.

[@lsh19930713]

I see these hacked products and their manufacturers as the fresh blood to the market! For sure you can buy 12700k and z690 itx with less headache or better warranty with more cost ofc. But I feel the diy market is just way too boring in that way…

[@Cory_]

I always appreciate how you don't immediately write off things as garbage and give them just as fair of a shot as any other product.

[@RandomEsports1]

because theyre reviewers =)

[@noway9880]

x2

[@tejay9416]

@@RandomEsports1 Some reviewers aren't good at their job =)

[@styleisaweapon]

laptop cpus in small desktops isnt a bad idea - its the execution here, lacking things like a proper socket - the primary goal is significantly reducing power supply and cooling needs - maybe not something for a typical gamer but certainly not a bad idea in general - the underclockers are not bad people

[@DustinRodriguez1_0]

It's like treasure hunting!

[@Frendh]

I am impressed by Erying's company morals. They are being upfront with a lot of sketchy things, maybe even upfront with everything they are aware of.

[@blabla-rg7ky]

probably because they're nobody. Wait until they get into top 3 manufacturers and see how their morals change. Power and money corrupts the weak people, and most people are weak...

[@cmd8086]

It became very famous in Brazil last year. Many people bought it to build their gaming rig based on that mutant solution because it was cheaper than a desktop regular version. Good to see Steve reviewing it!

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

Mutant would be a really good name for a board like this

[@JohnMilionis]

3600 performance with a motherboard? You need probably around 100$ to buy a 3600 alone. Its amazing!

[@gugajedi]

popular amongst those who shouldn't have a computer right, because I would NEVER buy this crappy shitty mobo... This is a big waste of money, even if cheaper, but won't last, won't upgrade, eWaste at best... CHINA SUCKS!!!!

[@sneugler]

I fully support them harvesting otherwise trashed silicon and breathing new life into them. These are a super cool concept, I hope they expand upon them in the future with 13th gen and beyond. It’d be even cooler if they start putting their own twist on them by adding cool features otherwise missing from other mobos. Please make some more content about stuff like this, it’s great :)

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

It seems the big problem is BIOS development. For safety reasons the BIOS code has been locked down using encryption and digital keys. Without the keys you can't compile a new working BIOS no matter what your resources are, and if Intel refuses to provide the keys to manufacturers like this they will be having a very hard time just getting a working BIOS for their motherboard.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

Well the thought just hit me that now that the MSI keys have been leaked we might see motherboards like these that uses those leaked keys from MSI for the BIOS. Some one correct me if that's not possible for some reason other than that it would be infringing on IP rights. Really wondering just what the ramifications of that leak will end up being. Also some years back there were work being done on open source BIOS and firmware for motherboards. But as I remember it that was before they started encrypting those. Are any of these still in development or did locking down the BIOS totally kill off those projects?

[@thesteelrodent1796]

@@blahorgaslisk7763 China is famously not overly concerned about IP rights, especially since they consider foreign copyright to be invalid in China

[@oggilein1]

Regarding the bios, i could imagine if coreboot support for 12th and 13tg gen was better (currently only one 12th gen motherboard is supported, the msi Z-690a) then they could use coreboot as its open source and therefore much easier to work with from a development standpoint

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@blahorgaslisk7763 basically it can be sold out of china, but you better not be caught reselling them as a source yourself. That's pretty much how it'll play out. Soulja Boy is pretty much a prime example of this.

[@xxtimo_titanxx7189]

that's honestly super cool and so interesting, crazy how much stuff is not covered because of mainstream brands.

[@volvo09]

Yeah, I like the AliExpress stuff being reviewed.

[@DrakkarCalethiel]

@@volvo09 Me too, because the most interesting products come from china (aliexpress, alibaba, taobao etc.) All the major brands are just the same except when it comes to their design language.

[@linglin92]

It's like the product would be reviewed by Linustechtips if they knew but GamerNexus reviewed it.Most time I thought Steve may not going to review this for some reason.

[@fonsui]

the disclaimers and explanations are, in my experience, entirely or nearly entirely unique in this market. very impressed and pleased with this choice that the manufacturer made - i always say that people arent mad because they dont get what they want, people are mad because they got what they didnt expect. directness and forthright communication like this manufacturer has shown should be encouraged and acknowledged. thanks to the GN crew for bringing this content piece to us!

[@nonyabizz9390]

For about $250, I bought the Erying 11th gen i9 engineering sample motherboard, with 32gb (16x2) ddr4 3200 Erying brand ram. I used it to upgrade my father's ancient gaming setup. The Erying ram worked at 3200 right away without going into the bios, and I have been absolutely tickled how well the system has worked and how stable it is. I think these are such cool boards they've made, and it was fun using something so unique to build my old man an upgraded system.

[@JakeSulinjr]

Nice! Erying has a promotion going on with code Mom20. I was able to save an extra $20, plus the i5-12500H 12 Core ITX version was on sale. After tax and everything, I got it for just a little over $200! I'm still rocking a custom water cooled 2970wx & 3090Ti. So, I haven't had a chance to play with Intel's new efficiency cores. I've got an NZXT Manta ITX case collecting dust, so this will be a perfect living room PC to stream from my other systems.

[@SvcGlobal]

I got one Erying too, exactly the same CPU i9-11980HK mobo running @ 5GHz flawlessly since January and 32GB 3200 also using Erying brand ram. Initially with Windows 10 and after few days of use got the free upgrade from Microsoft to Windows 11. Absolutely zero problems doing heavy video processing. Graphics card Powercolor XT 6600

[@nonyabizz9390]

@Sergio Valente I went fully aliexpress for my old man, and got him one of those RX580 2046 cards, because it was only 60 bucks. Still a huge upgrade from his 1050ti. But seeing what the processor can handle, I want to upgrade his GPU again in a few months, especially if the 6600-6900 get better prices. Really loving the Erying boards though. Impressive hardware.

[@user-nu2rn7uk1k]

@@SvcGlobal Is it safe going on with this parts? Recently i lost like $300 for defective motherboard and broken board of Ryzen chip in AliExpress, now I'm nervous about anything.

[@rpm10k.]

​@@user-nu2rn7uk1kbuy with a credit card, do a charge back if they don't take care of you

[@RafitoOoO]

I have one of those. Bought because I needed a new budget pc on the side and thought it'd be fun. Honestly once I managed to stable the OC I never had ANY issue. It's legit insane the value you get from this little board+cpu combo.

[@Glitch-Vids]

Which model did you get? I’ve been running the i9-11900H ES as a low power high performance server. Got it for $270 Canadian which is super cheap. Slightly undervolted to reduce power consumption even more than stock and boost clocks can hold for 2 minutes without downclocking

[@RafitoOoO]

@@Glitch-Vids I have the same model, I just removed the power limits and managed to get it to clock a little bit higher per core. Mine is doing x50 on 2 cores, then x49 on 3, x48 on 4, etc. Really fun to tweak with such part. My issue is the memory because it only displays like 3 profiles from the xmp but my kit has like 4 different jedec besides the xmp and it doesn't show, so I managed to tweak all the primary timings but the sub timings are running in the jedec spec. I don't think I'm losing too much performance though since Intel is way less sensitive to memory than AMD.

[@dalzy25]

@@RafitoOoO I got a shitty bin and can only get 4.8GHz all core@1.3v(can’t even run 5ghz on even one core), kinda envious of you. What speeds did you get on memory though?

[@RafitoOoO]

@@dalzy25 I mean, mine can't run 4.8ghz all core at all. Memory is 3200mhz CL16, nothing too crazy but it's working well.

[@dat_21]

I don't think it's a good idea to OC and remove powet limits on such a weak board. Run a prime95 for a 24 hours and enjoy a firework.

[@scoophaines]

This is low key kinda awesome . I love the idea of repurposing ewaste into something usable . Wouldn't mind seeing them do a mini PC ,

[@carnsoaks1]

The problem is that e-waste is a term designed to make us repulsed by anything recycled. We live in a sucky world in some ways.

[@joshuaford4460]

​@@carnsoaks1 e waste is a term to make us repulsed by the idea of NOT reducing/reusing/recycling, at least in my eyes. maybe focused mostly on the reducing aspect, since it usually applies to stuff that has little use, but it also applies in the reusing/recycling phase when people throw away stuff that could still work in a different usecase

[@uclajd]

This is a euphemism for "fraud" unless it is disclosed before sale.

[@FerralVideo]

Steve scrolled past a mini by the company at 5:37.

[@noth606]

They do make mini PC's too, looking at their listings now, I'd be very tempted by their i9's but they are a bit pricey for what is a shot in the dark with no warranty... 11th gen i9+16Gb ram+512gb SSD is like 321euro... Cheap but it's a no-warranty no-support gamble. I'm sure they would try to support etc, but it's not the same as a locally bought known brand would be. Also, import taxes come on top of course so in the end it'll be closer to 500euro. Tempting but not cheap enough to directly pull the trigger on. But I do love the concept, and it would be something quite unique almost, and I've been into hacking weird stuff together for a long time so I might take a stab at it.

[@nemtudom5074]

13:50 Honestly, the fact that they figured out on their own, how to engineer a bios, is just impressive as heck Kudos to them

[@orangeActiondotcom]

they didn't

[@telumatramenti7250]

It's from an embedded component network device product. The work and complexity that went into the board/CPU combo is still impressive, just not for that reason.

[@Blitterbug]

Well it was mainly nicked from AMI if you look, but yeah I'm on board for this.

[@budgetking2591]

They didnt fully engineer it, there are programs where you can load in bios and then modify them.

[@dra6o0n]

They didn't make their own bios, its not hard to reverse engineer bios files from another company to figure out how that works... If there is one thing China doesn't lack its brute force labor.

[@HackThemDown]

Their honesty was a breath of fresh air and also the options in the BIOS was nice to see, we'd have to spend a fortune for a motherboard with all those options from the big manufacturers!

[@Akselmoi]

I think it's brilliant to recycle laptop CPU's like this. We should do this over here too, there's tons of really viable laptop parts but discarded as broken because something else broke.

[@volvo09]

I have a feeling some company would jump in and try to put a stop to it, you know, for "safety reasons" as they always say. From reading some comments it appears like Intel does not like this idea of harvesting parts and does not give the needed bios code to manufacturers doing such things... So it has to be gained through leaks and whatnot.

[@DigitalJedi]

@@volvo09 You're correct that the official Intel stance is that these are invalid products, but they also don't care enough to do anything about it if they could. Nobody will spin one up in the west, but I've been trying to use what little push I have on products as an engineer to start talking to vendors about m-ITX or even slightly smaller 13900H and 1370P boards. We already make NUCs, why not just use some of those extra PCIE lanes for a slot (there are 28 lanes on the 13900H) and make the holes happen to line up?

[@AscalonFI77]

GN dropping a Freak Show special after putting Asus in the oven. Love it

[@carbon_no6]

The fact that the company provided so much information and the fact that they were so open about about limitations and possible shortcomings, is very rare these days. Getting the money for products is prioritized so much more than being upfront or taking longer to ensure a quality product is developed and sold. There’s inconceivable amounts of variables, but when companies release products that they legitimately have the opportunity to actually fix any quirks and they choose not to, that becomes a telling sign of the core.

[@telumatramenti7250]

The complexity that went into DIY-ing something like this is simply astounding. And I worked on many similar Mini ITX format setups from the more known manufacturers who have better resources and funding, so seeing smalltime technical teams Frankenstein something like this from components pulled from other products, and without formal support from the parent companies is quite inspiring.

[@ThePhil2801]

When a relatively obscure Chinese Company is, or at least appears to be, more honest than a lot of big established household Names, what fun times these are. Always fun to see the more unknown items up for reviews, would definitely like to see more of them.

[@CuriousKey]

I would argue that the big western companies have never been reliably more honest than obscure chinese tech companies. The difference is that the big western names put more resources into their PR for western audiences. Given the opportunity, *all* the big companies would swindle everyone they could, and they frequently do. It's just that when you're a big company, you have to be a little more careful, so the sort of scams you pull tend to be different (like Nvidia renaming skews to imply their products are better than they are, for example).

[@uclajd]

Selling used parts as new is far from honest, and may constitute fraud, or at least a breach of duty of good faith under the UCC.

[@Very_Questionable]

@@uclajd It's not really 'new' or 'used', really, it's more like refurbished.

[@uclajd]

@@Very_Questionable Fine if they say that on their website and on the box! Otherwise a plethora of federal and state regs shattered. 💥

[@AyoKeito]

@@uclajd that's why they exist. Because they can ignore all those regs.

[@EmblemParade]

Thank you as usual for avoiding the common bias. The narrative of dismissing "cheap Chinese garbage" and mockery of AliExpress/Wish is tired. These might not be components for you, personally, but there is a lot of professionalism behind their production and pride in providing a good product for a specific consumer niche. Much respect to Erying and GN.

[@dat_21]

Try using this monster and see if it lives for at least 5 years. People have been buying "recycled" chinese stuff and it's not sunshine and rainbows. Usually this stuff has really high failure rates and various problems down the line.

[@lIIl_lIl_lIIl]

it *_IS_* cheap chinese garbage. quit supporting the enemy

[@DarkAttack14]

It's not like it's an incorrect bias, nor is mockery of Ali misplaced lol. 99.9% of products like this are literal Chinese trash. This is a "diamond in the rough"

[@MastersPipe]

From an engineering perspective, these guys are awesome. It's like Anakin assembling a racing pod with scrapped components, not letting a single gem go to waste.

[@trajectoryunown]

This company is increasingly sounding great. I'll bookmark them for later reference. I can think of a lot of different uses for something like this.

[@brenomedeiros8460]

I have seen some youtubers here in Brazil recommending those boards with i7 and i9's as budget options, I would never have the courage to daily drive such a sketchy computer, but I've also made some questionable choices back when I built my first computer and didn't have a lot of money so I can understand why a lot of people love those.

[@gustavrsh]

I'd totally buy this to use as a home server, mobile chips are very efficient.

[@DW_25]

@@gustavrsh if you grab one of the cheaper ones with dual NIC it can be a pretty cheap opensense router

[@thesteelrodent1796]

@@DW_25 also makes sense since it clearly has a router-esque BIOS already ;)

[@Ariane-Bouchard]

Honestly, I'd be very tempted to give them a try if they started making non-janky boards. They seem honest. I mean, sure, they haven't earned my trust, but they also haven't earned my mistrust, which already puts them in a better position than other motherboard manufacturers.

[@Sabrinahuskydog]

Man.. it's a sad time when just the fact of a motherboard company not doing something shitty means they are partially trust-worthy from the start. :/

[@Ariane-Bouchard]

@@Sabrinahuskydog I won't deny it. :(

[@Mavendow]

I love the cool lighting on all those Gigabyte boards I've owned, though. I know "fire" isn't an LED flavor, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@Sabrinahuskydog that's why many of the companies disappeared from the market in the first place. Now we're left with these ones.

[@m4yd1e86]

I'm glad someone covers this obscure tech. These things are super cool.

[@lIIl_lIl_lIIl]

obscure tech _is_ cool. chinese garbage is _not_

[@SuperDanielHUN]

I love this product, honestly, I can see tons of use cases for work or even home. Most people are fine with whatever hardware for browsing and office and the whole idea of re-using older scrap components is admirable.

[@DevanSingh]

I've never clicked so fast in my life. Been thinking about a bunch of these for an esports oriented LAN setup for friends visiting in groups. The size/price/performance-per-watt is very appealing.

[@GamersNexus]

That's awesome! Which models were you looking into?

[@DevanSingh]

@@GamersNexus I have Erying's store page bookmarked and have been eagerly awaiting the 12th gen models to start trickling in. Not really set on one single variation, however I will probably go with a small form factor NON-ES variation for peace of mind. My only real concern has been how well these boards will work with increasingly strict anti-cheat solutions. Reassuring to see that many of these seem to have a TPM header, when games like Valorant require either an embedded or standalone TPM 2.0 device with secure boot enabled to play on Windows 11.

[@erkinalp]

@@DevanSingh They actually work better than many boards, as they are essentially desktop motherboards with laptop or embedded server CPUs.

[@reallifecartoon3878]

Definitely planning to look into this! I currently run a self-built Mini-ITX router using OPNSense at home and this would be a perfect upgrade for that! Not only would the laptop CPU be more efficient than my current setup (Ryzen 2200G), I would also be able to remove the 4x 1Gb PCIe add-in card and instead utilize the 2x 2.5Gb ports on the motherboard.

[@MisterWoes]

I have been seeing these around a lot lately and debated picking some up to play with. Then y'all post this video! If it is allowed to continue, it would be fascinating to see if and how the bios will mature on these sort of setups. I mean, this seems like such a fun and cool alternative for old parts instead of just dumping them in some landfill. Hope we get to see more people doing stuff like this. Just imagine the implications (minus the potential malware)

[@philtkaswahl2124]

I've seen other tech KZbinrs cover these boards already and have been eagerly awaiting GN taking a look at them.

[@hillppari]

craft computing did a nice build on one of these

[@Tomcat115]

Tech Yes City did a review on one of these as well. If I recall correctly though, the VRMs got dangerously hot during his tests and there were some pretty sketchy Chinese drivers involved too.

[@cts006]

@@Tomcat115 I believe Tech Yes City tested without the bulkier VRM heatsinks Steve was talking about in this review. Also the VRM probably only sucks by standards of an overbuilt VRM from modern socket boards by the big vendors. A lot of VRM components are designed to be able to operate fine in the 125-150C range. I wish he would have tried to find a datasheet on the mosfets to see if they were operating in spec. Sketchy drivers on the other hand gives me more pause.

[@thetaxikab604]

@@Tomcat115 he had no idea what he was talking about in his video, he just wanted the contrarian clickbait since other youtubers were giving them praises.

[@QuiteLunacy]

I've always loved unique PC items like this. We need more stuff like it.

[@FrenziedManbeast]

Thank you for consistently putting out content that you genuinely seem interested in - it comes across in the finished product much better than Clickbait or more homogenized video content. I recently backed the Patreon for a year and received my Silicone mat and T-shirt after seeing you guys do the PC repair/replace for the viewer who went through a fire. Really well done!

[@MoldyStir-Fry]

I love that you use the word "harvesters" instead of the more common things like scrappers or pickers. It really gives a new perspective on recycling functional tech in a useful way.

[@mikeoleksa]

Most manipulated exe installer package files, or files associated with them will get flagged as viruses. It's likely that the manufacturer of these motherboards did something within the file to make it work with their hardware. It is a pretty unusual motherboard setup and the driver package probably had to be extracted, modified, and repackaged for it to install properly, especially if they do not have support from Intel directly.

[@memitim171]

True but it flagging as a particular piece of malware is very sketchy. Given they hack these together, by their own admission, I'm a little surprised they don't all flag up as at least suspicious but I suppose that isn't difficult when you have the ability to get a functional BIOS together in this fashion.

[@fuckjonnyquest]

@@memitim171 the !ml at the end of the flag means its detected from machine learning, and the fact its identified as "wacatac" is 99.9999% of the time a false positive from defender. When it doesnt know what something is, and that something has the capability to potentially give full access to the machine (like a driver, or any software that requires running as administrator to properly function), itll throw that result nearly every time. All hits get sent to microsoft for analysis, so likely if you were to open the same file today, nearly a year later, it doesnt hit anymore because its a false positive.

[@Psychx_]

There seems to be a slot for adding a Wifi/Bluetooth combo module between the analog sound outputs and the USB/NIC connections, so having these options in the UEFI does make sense - usually, they're hidden and set by the OEM to match not only the wifi chip and antennas, but also the target market's regulations.

[@user-cr4sc1ht9t]

BIOS with independent Specific Absorption Rate adjustment for USA and for EU, that's new for sure!

[@TheOpacus]

These products seem so nice for a small, low energy HTPC for light gaming and media use. Can't wait to see how these guys fare in today's market. Love the products, and the transparancy/disclaimers. Thank you for this review Steve/GN!

[@averagedev7768]

Please do more of these strange hardware episodes. I do really like how this board looks like. I could see myself using it on a daily basis

[@nooneisback]

Would have been interesting to see power results for these. They're definitely not as powerful as desktop chips, but I imagine they'd put up quite a fight in an HTPC build with limited power and cooling available.

[@Jasontvnd9]

A 12700H is pretty fast even by desktop standards.

[@silvershines]

Laptop cpus will have a much lower idle power and performance/watt ratio than desktop counterparts. Won't be much of a fight. The unfortunate thing about these boards is their VRMs are completely underpowered and runs extremely hot. TechYesCity had a content piece on this as he hooked up FLIR camera; anyone running these boards best have a fan strapped onto the VRM. The value proposition for these builds doesn't make sense anymore too ever since the youtube influencers noticed these boards a few months ago. Erying priced themselves out of the market. If you want to go the Aliexpress route, you might as well just get a cheap aliexpress B550M or B660M board and set up a more normal system. Doing so you'll only relinquish your motherboard warranty while still maintaining warranty for the CPU. This product is even more niche now. Also it's likely that the price proposition won't get any better as the engineering sample 12th gens are gimped compared to the 11th gen ES -- you're restricted to a PCIe4x4. The experimental 11th gen Erying boards used to be better value proposition (before the price hikes).

[@Dakkidaze]

With ADL-N CPUs those are going to be the best for HTPC This one would be best for a cheap living room gaming PC connected to TV if you prefer PC over consoles.

[@TheBackyardChemist]

See you on Auraxis, matey!

[@SY-bt3us]

But will anyone be "back" on Auraxis ?

[@marebello1210]

More random aliexpress content like this please!

[@GamersNexus]

Love making these videos! Always fun to work with something different and new.

[@satibel]

@@GamersNexus one that's interesting imo is the pc I have, it's a nuc-like with an 8709G (e.g. hades canyon nuc clone), and with the amernime zone drivers it's still up to date. they are available for ~500 bucks, so fairly inexpensive, though going with an A750 tier gpu with like a 5600/B450 combo will land only slightly more expensive if you have a pc to salvage a psu and case from. but it's also tiny and could be put on a vesa bracket, so that's a factor.

[@benbarclay3872]

I've seen a few channels do reviews of these that came to very similar conclusions, but, for some reason this is the first one that made me realize that this would be a CPU power upgrade from my 3800X (although I'd lose other features, due to the mobile nature of the platform). That really reiterates that, if legit and virus-free, this is a hell of a deal. Thank you guys for the hard work on the content! The recent quality improvements are EXTREMELY evident; Not to say that the older videos were anything to scoff at, but since the move, it's been homerun after homerun! Keep it up guys, all the hard work really shows!

[@urgay1992]

Well the 12700H is two and a half years newer than your CPU and also a high end laptop chip so that's not super surprising. I think the 12700H will actually even draw more power than a stock 3800X if it is allowed to boost continuously.

[@Big_Red1]

Depending on what MOBO you have already, you might be able to upgrade to a Ryzen 5000 cpu for around the same price as this or less. Ive see 5900x's around $325 on sale fairly regularly, 5800x's around $215.

[@benbarclay3872]

@Forrest Edgar Yeah I'm on X570 so it's crossed my mind but I'm just saving up for a full platform upgrade instead. I was just surprised that this mobile cpu does so good

[@Big_Red1]

@@benbarclay3872 Ah gotcha. Ya its a pretty cool product.

[@DigitalJedi]

@@benbarclay3872 12th and 13th gen mobile really raised the bar. If you really want to see the Ryzen comparisons, look for benchmarks of the Ryzen 9 6980HX laptops. Zen3+ and 5.0ghz on mobile. I think it's been rebadged as the Ryzen 7 7835H as well. See the 7840H for Zen4 performance. All of these are 8c/16T just like your CPU.

[@ThineHolyBacon]

Craft Computing actually did a piece about the 11th gen board with the sketchy driver as a great use for a homelab. Turns out they work well under Proxmox, so are amazing starters for a homelab scenario if other used components aren't available.

[@mistakek]

I bought 2 of these for my proxmox cluster after seeing Jeff's review. They are great little boards. Rather happy with mine.

[@TheElly750]

I love those products. I think the design behind them is really cool and they can definitely have some good use while recycling parts. As long as you can actually make them work of course

[@sewer56lol]

I'm a software dev known for Reloaded II (a Mod Loader/Mod Manager) I can relate there, my open source software in the past has often been mistakenly flagged as Wacatac in the past (one of the most common false positives). It's annoying to deal with, but what can you do 😅

[@spencerwren1755]

Man these guys actually seem to care and want to make a good product with what they have. Super cool vid. Love how much you guys look into any subject you make a video on

[@dodgexander]

Great review guys, I could see this particularly useful for someone looking at a home server build. I enjoyed the review but I think it would have been nice to see the total system power consumption measured.

[@oleg_aka_djmeg]

I built a PC with the i9 engineering sample (11980hk) board and an AMD 6600M and it's been rock solid for me for almost 3 months now. I didn't download any additional drivers though, i let Windows download everything. The only issues i've had were some quirks here and there with the AMD software but that's not something exclusive to Aliexpress products like the 6600M. I got the ES combo board for an equivalent of $160 and it's a killer value for the money, definitely do recommend. Though it seems like there's less and less of them on Aliexpress thanks to all the hype around these boards.

[@DigitalJedi]

Where did you find one with a mobile GPU? That's very interesting.

[@oleg_aka_djmeg]

@@DigitalJedi Perhaps i worded it in a wrong way but i didn't mean a package board with the CPU and the GPU as one unit, i meant one of these refurbished 6600M cards that you can find on Aliexpress for dirt cheap.

[@Mickocarbomb]

Great content as always, not to mention the fact somehow I've learned something bout KZbin during the viewing of this video. I wanted to look at the PCIE X16 port closer on that back side pinched to zoom and apparently KZbin implemented a 8X zoom feature on videos now. That is insane man.

[@eric-.]

really cool kit, that. i love the recycle/reuse aspect of it. if these are being produced by small/independent shops that are just recycling from dead laptops and AIO desktops, then i'd be SUPER interested in getting a look at how they design and produce the custom motherboards. top to bottom, this was pretty fascinating, and i thing left the door open for several bits of related content.

[@anonymouscommentator]

This is actually exactly what I was looking for for my home server. It's a mobile cpu so it has a low power draw yet it has pretty decent multi threading performance when you ask for it. Perfect for running a few VMs and other applications! Also I appreciate their honesty and transparancy.

[@theorphanobliterator]

you prob alr know this, but virtualization is kinda buggy and nobody I know of has gotten PCIe passthrough to work yet

[@anonymouscommentator]

@@theorphanobliterator it is a pain yes. i use proxmux as a hypervisor operating system which is not that easy but then it works for me.

[@notjustforme8857]

The brutal honesty of this company almost urges me to buy something from them. I wish ALL manufacturers would do it like this. Hey everyone, this is our best attempt at creating this thing you want to buy. It's really, really hard to make sure it all works, and we gave it our best. We are fairly confident that it will function as expected. If it does not, please contact us, and we will figure something out, or stand by you in these hard times. We appreciate having you as a customer, and we hope that this will be a true relationship of trust. We love you!

[@bleack8701]

This is genuinely a very interesting product and I very much appreciate the honest approach to it in the video

[@DEMENTO01]

i like what this company is doing tbh also being very open and honest about their product and what to expect and not to expect, it's very refreshing to see especially on aliexpress where you can never know where something came from if its new or used or if its a reject or whatnot (like phone screens lol), i wish them the very best tbh, really cool and affordable product and imo itd make sense to buy, also they seem to be all in for customer support, thats amazing

[@akaoveve]

Very interesting stuff! Thank you for this video and a bit of context. I could never imagine this combination

[@Acre00]

There's a lot about the "back-alley", AliExpress based ecosystem that I really admire. It's much more of a true open market than anything else we really have access to here this side of the dark web

[@mattropolis7857]

If you also like to run on almost certainly mal and spyware infected hardware, firmware, and software. No thanks

[@brainthesizeofplanet]

​@@mattropolis7857 if it's in the firmware u won't notice until it's too late😅

[@user-cr4sc1ht9t]

Sad we don't get much back alleys in Tokyo anymore

[@LeonAlkoholik67]

I think Wacatac is the same virus flag you get when trying to run a harmless, compiled AutoHotkey script because the interpreter is being flagged falsely by the AV vendor (which does include Win Defender), instead of checking the actual script's code. If it "really" is a compiled AHK script, then throwing the exe into a tool such as Resource Hacker and checking the source code is the way to go, but I personally doubt a bit that they use this non-mainstream automation based language.

[@GamersNexus]

Interesting information about the virus flag & Wacatac / script interpretation by AV tools. Thanks for that -- maybe if we run across these again, we can try to look into it with the help of someone knowledgeable on the matter.

[@vcprocles]

I've seen Wacatac warnings with my old C++ programs I've written as a kid, which I have source code for, and they're not malicious at all

[@sewer56lol]

I'm a software dev known for Reloaded II (a Mod Loader/Mod Manager) I can relate there, my open source software in the past has often been mistakenly flagged as Wacatac in the past (one of the most common false positives). It's annoying to deal with, but what can you do 😅 Usually in practice you'll run into this false positive with AutoHotkey though, yeah.

[@LeonAlkoholik67]

@@sewer56lol I know that it does happen with v1.1 and it's probably the same with v2 of AHK. I could also imagine very well that AutoIt, which is what AutoHotkey was originally based of (but less popular than AutoHotkey), has probably the exact same virus flag because from the concept the compiler (which isn't an actual machine code compiler) works, it works the same as the AutoHotkey's compiler.

[@15fakeaccount]

Yeah, it seems to be just SFX package.

[@BurleyBoar]

A completely random aside about that IBM 20" LCD you/they brought out. I was very lucky to get one for work back in 2004ish. You don't play games on it unless you want a blurry mess. 1600x1200 lcd pixels with no CRT strain for 8 hours was glorious! Also great review on esoteric hardware that has a place and use for some.

[@davec8153]

Love the review and how brutally honest these companies are. Disclosing all the major limitations in big, bold red letters right at the top of the description is amazing, even if the product isn't for me. Much better than a certain other mobo manufacturer, who advertises certain performances in all their marketing material, then claims it's "overclocking" and voids your warranty. The battery (that's supposedly) taped under the heatsink + note is hilarious.

[@HeisenbergFam]

The amount of research you guys put into analysis videos is astounding, I respect the effort

[@isaacbejjani5116]

Bad bot

[@Vunk]

Or lack of it sometimes, like they didn't even tried to do research about the "malware", just said fuck it and moved on.

[@minigpracing3068]

Just a note. It's very common in servers to have PCIe x16 slots with only x8 connections, and x8 slots with only x4 connections. This is coming to an end in the most modern hardware, but was really common even 5 years ago.

[@spladam3845]

Your content never fails, this is a really cool little system, thanks for bringing to our attention.

[@yudhanjaya]

It's quite amazing to see how far the Chinese Frankenstein mobo market has come. I recently bought a Huananzhi x99 board (for a budget machine learning server). Expected jank, but what I got was a good-looking board with plenty of reinforced PCI-E, 128 gigs of ECC memory, and a seller who was totally upfront with CPU tests and all. There's people out there who clearly take a great deal of pride and care in this work. It's great to see and the cost-per-$ + recycling ethos are pretty good.

[@Doobie3010]

These freaky mish-mash pc tech items are always fascinating, I really could watch these things all day. Excellent stuff guys!

[@LB-yx4yw]

I really hope erying keeps getting better. I have the i7-12700h M-ATX motherboard with the better vrm heatsinks. (beta version) works great except for 1 usb port acting strange sometimes, but a pc reboot fixes the problem. I like this board and use it to run a really power efficient game server (minecraft etc.)

[@jamessnow8402]

Love this unique content and in debt analysis. Thanks Steve.

[@gregsutyla1799]

Thanks for this one guys. What an interesting video. Some cool stuff being scrapped together.

[@gucky4717]

7:27 looking at the traces, it looks only wired for x8... 16 traces, 8 for each side of the PCIe-slot. Normally there are 32 traces.

[@Quizack]

I love this kind of thing. We need to see more companies doing things like this, especially if they’re taking CPUs that might have ended up as e-waste. Super interesting product if it’s done right. Edit: Lmao that VRM heatsink warning was more honest than any motherboard manufacturer. I love this company so far.

[@dracer35]

This is super cool and I hope they keep improving their products and processes. I might have to get one for myself when they release a 13th gen version.

[@SgtMattBaker1]

Great video. Can't wait to see other crazy designs

[@CodexSan]

Chinese retailers can't ship batteries. Colorful brand did the same with the motherboard I got from them. They literally hid the battery in a copper plated Little bag. (like a potato chip bag that has the metal interior.)

[@BobBob-nr1zt]

This seems like the most likely explanation. The thing is, a metalized bag won't actually conceal anything from xray, however people commonly believe that it will.

[@CodexSan]

@@BobBob-nr1zt well, It passed the Brazilian check. So they did something right. But yeah, Brazil customs don't actually check a package content. I once bought whey protein and another supplement from abroad. The Whey protein didn't pass. It came with a "supplement" tag, it went right to ANVISA, (sanitary vigilance) and it was denied entrance. I contacted them, and they said anything food related must have nutritional value listing, which the package didn't have. The other one however, was a white fine powder, it came with a "tea" listing. It passed without any problem or evaluation.. 😂😂😂😅 Absolutely wild... In Brazil we buy a bunch of Chinese brands, because Chinese can lie on the receipts about the cost of the goods, so yeah, we do commit a lot of tax evasion. (taxation on Brazil is absurd. It can go as high as 78% of the product price, so yeah, we make around 250 USD a month, and pay double on GPUs.) That is soon to change unfortunately. As the new economics ministry want to adopt a new method of taxing on the act of the purchase. (like it already happens in most countries)

[@DisposableCrocodile]

This is EXACTLY the kind of review I was looking for with this channel. Keep it up GN. I think subsequent generations of products like this hold a lot of promise. An I9-13900hk or hx sku cpu on a micro atx board could be a serious contender in the SFF space which is a realm that can be cost-prohibitive for some builders.

[@Dtr146]

When craft computing covered this. I thought it was pretty cool. Now the CU guys cover it and rip into it like you guys normally do. It makes me actually want one

[@ErikS-]

Big fan of them... I bought such an engineering spec CPU board from them half a year ago. The price was just impossible to resist. And I had quite some learnings and even fun from it. I honestly hope these Erying guys keep pushing more of these quite radical products to us. Because it is honestly cool to just "play and pray" around with it! Only reco I would have, is that they include 4 memory slots instead of the current two. They should also drop all SATA.

[@psyedk]

just so you know - the !ml at the end of that defender alert signifies it's a machine learning analysis. these are commonly false positives. easy security check for the brave could be observing network connections and active listening ports before / after installing the drivers. or as you suggest sandbox vm but likely just false positive. surprised you guys just shrugged at this particular thing with how in depth you go with everything else interesting bit of hardware!

[@huzudra]

Yes. I love things like this. I'm watching this on a PC with an Asus Z87i and an i7 4950HQ "magic reflow' mobile CPU on a 1150 socket adapter board. I'm planning to build my father a new PC and that 12700H is perfect for him!

[@terrylyn]

That's the most honest marketing pitch I have ever seen! Honestly a lot of products from big-brand names are just similarly flawed but they never tell you about it.

[@Nexai-]

This concept certainly appeals to me. It's something I'll bear in mind for any potential future smaller-scale need. Considering some of the current market brand issues, I truly wish this company achieves success. Its endearing transparency in its operations is a refreshing sight.

[@TheTekknician]

This is actually some old-school fun of building a PC, you know what it is but you're not sure what to readily expect regardless. This gives me such classic vibes of unusuality I want to order one :) Kind of almost like a bargain-bin (the "no-drivers "-kind, you know what I mean, hehe) adventure!

[@0xDEADD00D]

Hey @GamerNexus, Would you also review the Framework motherboards? Technically those laptop boards can also be used to build a PC.

[@GamersNexus]

Sounds interesting! Good point on them being usable standalone. We'll look into it!

[@arthuralford]

From what Linus demonstrated, the idea is that if you upgrade your Framework with a newer processor, you can take the old, working motherboard and put it into a 3D printable case and continue using it. It's a way to keep a working motherboard out of the landfill

[@nickreich1]

Don’t know if you will see this Steve. But I really enjoy your cold opens. Really grabs my attention.

[@ELOCONTOL]

I've been looking for these cpu + mobo combo for a while, I'm planning to build a homelab out of it.

[@UNKA757]

seems like this mitx board with the cpu would be nice for a NAS or storage setup. Perhaps even a box for downloading, with the dual 2.5g nics, you could run a vm or two...seems like there is quite a few things that you can do with it.

[@Nxt25]

That's exactly what I thought. Would this be compatible with ESXi?

[@tedpikul1]

Props for recognizing the legitimacy (and ingenuity and industriousness) of this tech mini-econo-ecosystem.

[@SaadKidwai]

Love this kind of stuff and your review style! Thank you!

[@AutomaticJerk]

Craft Computing looked at one of these recently. While I don't think I'd trust it to be a firewall or something, there's really all kinds of crazy server crap you can do with one of these while keeping your power bill reasonable.

[@j4ck3t]

I can Imagine that they will be sold out now, the video is pretty positive and it looks cool. I wish them the best ! Weird recycled products are always a good thing.

[@drumyogi9281]

Agreed. Like Mad Max stuff. Awesome.

[@Acedemonlord]

I was actually looking at this product last week, I was so close to getting it to use for a streaming box, so it was fun to see

[@CoalitionGaming]

This is awesome. Now considering one of these to upgrade ny "laptop cpu in a desktop" system i built from a Portwell Wade-8321 motherboard and i7-3610qm socketed mobile CPU. That old CPU really holds it back nowadays.

[@symmetrie_bruch]

really love that approach and their way of engaging with the customer basically the opposite of corporate speak

[@Ether_Void]

7:28 You can see that it's only a PCIex8 slot by the amount of differential pairs wired to the slot. Especially the capacitor pairs used for impedance matching there should be one pair per lane. There are 8 pairs of capacitors so it's PCIex8 the other half of the slot has no traces. Or counting traces there are 16-pairs (1 RX and 1 TX per lane) so 8 lanes in total. About the BIOS... I wonder if they had to deal with any Boot Guard limitations if not than someone might potentially be able to port coreboot on it and fix some of the issues although that would in itself require a lot of work.

[@mikeymaiku]

it was probably cheaper to buy a 16x pinned slot to manufactuire than to buy the 16x 8xpinned slot.... is my guess why it was like that

[@Ether_Void]

@@mikeymaiku Yeah they have to be x16 wide otherwise most graphics cards won't fit. x16 wide with x8 pins are also not easy to source. You can get open slots but they are also not that common and not great for dealing with the weight of modern cards. Like with the cooler they probably just used the best solution they could find for the money.

[@mikeymaiku]

@@Ether_Void the solution generally used to be coolers with fixed mounting on the cooler like the noctua l9i. but i guess chinese manufacturers finally buckled and designed something to fit with most coolers on the market today. only recently in the last 2-3 years chinese manufacturers started to make "real" performing imbedded motherboards as for the longest time if you heard the board had a imbedded chip, you were basicly garenteed for bottom tier laptop chips

[@mapscorp]

We overclocki the crap out for this ES version's M-Atx interposer kit's the i7 11800H-ES and i9 11900H-ES... all unlocked for overclock, the only limitation we get its from the motherboard vrm's and bios... i manage to get some i9-ES 4.9ghz to 5ghz OC (using liquid metal), i have a friend runing a i7 ES 4.8ghz all core, 4.9ghz boost up to 4 cores, 1.25v, liquid metal, 240mm aio, 3700mhz ram...

[@mapscorp]

To get Gear 1 and high memory clocks you need to increase Uncore voltage offset to 80mv to 100mv or override mode 1v to 1.2v on this kits

[@SpencerDeven]

I have the mATX version of this with the engineering sample i7, running ESXi passing through a Mellenox ConnectX3 Pro to a OPNsense VM (Got lucky with my sample supporting VT-d), and a few other VMs running on it as well, this thing is a low power workhorse and I couldn't be happier with it.

[@hexacarbide268]

Well this is really cool. Thx for some of the simply awesome B Roll

[@alias5152]

Steve, disinfect hands after touching the "Scumbag RTX 4090"😉

[@shakal_]

man i love how open they are about these, i truly hope for them to suceed at least in their own niche

[@McTroyd]

This is awesome. Really appreciate the culture breakdown -- that attitude is something we could use here in the 'States. Getting GN to say this doesn't suck, and that the company is being honest, is probably the best advertising Erying will get this year. I could see these going into a dedicated budget gaming rig, or home theater PC, or maybe a cheap virtualization system for experimental use. In the spirit of hackery, it might make a good "carputer" core. Lots of fun options that don't involve ewaste. Thanks Steve! 👍

[@popcorny007]

The description of the VRM heatsink is so endearing

[@TOPEC]

The hidden BIOS battery probably has to do with aliexpress limiting certain shipping options when ur product includes any kind of batteries. Usually any electronics shipped from asia (especially from sites such as fasttech when it was still arnd) that includes a battery will be limited to ocean fright instead of air fright.

[@A6Legit]

Yeah because turns out batteries can cause fires and those are bad on planes

[@Quizack]

Wait! Is Fasttech not around anymore?? Edit; Oh no. I had no idea. I used to buy so much vape stuff from them lol. They were the cheapest place you could buy from. Sometimes 30-40% cheaper than Australian retail.

[@bobbydazzler6990]

What do you do with the 250ms you saved by not typing "ou" in "around"? Are you a high-speed stock trader? A brain surgeon? A fighter pilot?

[@A6Legit]

@@Quizack damn