Hey everyone, we have a small update to share for the gControl. New gControl computers will start shipping with the latest N150 processor. This comes with a small performance bump over the previous N100 processor, as well as a small price bump. This article explains the changes below.
Future supply chain considerations
The N100 chip was first launched in the first quarter of 2023, making it just over 2 years old at the time of writing. In the modern era, this still makes the N100 a pretty new chip. The N150 on the other hand, was released just a few months ago, in the first quarter of 2025. From discussions with our manufacturers, Intel is working to discontinue the N100 in favour of the N150 in the longer term, which has caused the price of the N100 to increase, and for the N150 to only be a few dollars more than the N100 (after the price increase.) We are anticipating that pricing availability for the N100 to continue to be volatile as it becomes discontinued in favor of the N150, so we have decided to move over to having the N150 processor in computers in our latest batch.
Unfortunately, the pricing for both the N100 and N150 have both increased, which means that we are increasing the price of the gControl computer to accommodate this change.
N100 vs N150
Overall, with the architecture between N100 and N150 being nearly identical, differences are minor as well. Users may see a 5-10% general improvement in performance, due to the ability to boost to slightly higher clock speeds. (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/6304vs5157/Intel-N150-vs-Intel-N100)
In practice, users will not notice a significant change between the processors, and computer assembly and form factor will remain the same.
External power supply
In the previous generation of computers, the power supply for the computers were placed inside the computer. N150 computers will now come with an external power supply over an internal one for two reasons.
First, is to reduce the cooling needs of the computer. Moving one of the heat generating components outside of the case will allow the computer to run cooler, which is especially difficult in a fanless system. We believe this will help the overall performance of the computer by reducing the chance of thermal throttling, where the computer will reduce its performance by reducing the speed of the processor.
Second, is to better comply with EU standards for safety compliance. Having a certified power supply used externally is considered “safer” and limits the chance for issues with shipping computers to this market. Users will get a power supply that plugs into a DC port, rather than the AC cable previously. Otherwise, the use and assembly of the computer remains identical.
Future of gControl?
To preface this section, we discuss some of the aims and goals for the gControl project here: https://sienci.com/2024/10/17/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-gcontrol-panel-computer/
One of the main reasons we went with a Windows based industrial computer with this version of gControl was largely due to the power requirements to have the graphics interface of gSender, as well as limitations of graphics driver support. However, we do have to acknowledge that one of the biggest limitations to offering a lower cost option is how we can optimize gSender for a lower powered device.
Price changes
Pricing for the gControl Panel Computer will be updated to $459USD and $619CAD.