Qotom Q30952UE Review the New Black Box for 10G Networking

The Qotom Q30952UE is the company’s new “fanless” system. You may recall that we reviewed other Qotom items like the 10Gbase-T Mini PC with Intel N355 and the Denverton-based fanless system. Now we have something a bit different, as the Q30952UE uses a different 10GbE NIC (Intel-based) and an unexpected CPU: the Intel Core i5-8260U. For those who saw the N355 and asked why not just use a Core i5, this is the answer, so it is one we were interested in taking a look at. Six 2.5GbE ports and two SFP+ ports, all based around Intel NICs, make this a bit different.

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Starting with the front, you can see that we have a “fanless” chassis. We have that in quotes because, well, there is a fan inside.

Starting out, there is an external DC power supply, so we get a 12V barrel jack input.

Since this is a network box, I think folks will be excited to see a console port.

Next, there are four USB Type-A ports. Three are USB 3, one is USB 2.0.

Although this is more of a network box, we get the Intel UHD Graphics 620 graphics powering a HDMI and DisplayPort.

Then we get status LEDs and the power button.

Next, moving to the rear of the system, we get all of the network ports.

First, we have two Intel X710 SFP+ ports. When we reviewed some of the previous systems, we got feedback that people preferred SFP+, so this answers that request.

Next, there are six 2.5GbE ports based on the Intel i226 NIC.

At this point, you may have noticed the port numbering. It goes 2, 1, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 from left to right on the faceplate.

We have seen this chassis before, but it is a heavy metal chassis.

Here is the bottom, which is a bit odd, given how few vents there are. We will quickly note that there are not many safety and regulatory markings on the system.

Now, let us get inside the system to see how it works.