DFI CS551-C246-ECA Intel 8th and 9th Gen Core 3.5″ SBC with C246 Chipset, Dual LAN and -30 to 80 °C

Traffic cabinets, outdoor kiosks and equipment in unheated plant rooms combine a wide temperature swing with long unattended running, which makes both the rating and the memory integrity matter. The CS551-C246-ECA is the wide temperature C246 build of the DFI CS551 series, a 3.5″ SBC rated from -30 to 80 °C with ECC memory support.

The LGA1151 socket takes 8th and 9th Gen Intel Core T and TE processors (Coffee Lake), from the dual-core Celeron G4900T and Pentium G5400T to the eight-core Core i7-9700TE, and DFI rates this build with the processor set to a 15 W TDP-down. ECC works with the Core i3-8100T, i3-9100TE, Pentium G5400T and Celeron G4900T. One DDR4 2666 MHz SO-DIMM takes up to 32 GB, and Intel UHD Graphics 630 drives two DP++ outputs at up to 4096 x 2304 at 60 Hz plus dual-channel LVDS as three independent displays.

Four USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports and an M.2 M-key 2280 socket with PCIe x4 NVMe or SATA give fast local storage, with one SATA 3.0 port for a second drive. Two GbE ports on Intel I211AT or I210IT controllers, a full-size mini PCIe socket with an optional SIM slot for 4G, two internal USB 2.0 ports, an RS-232/422/485 header, 8-bit DIO and Realtek ALC262 audio complete the I/O.

The CS551-C246-ECA runs from 12 V DC on a 4-pin connector, or a barrel jack on request, across -30 to 80 °C, and has a 12 V heater header that DFI recommends using at the bottom of the range. It cools through a fanless heatsink and carries CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS compliance. Indoors at -5 to 65 °C, the CS551-C246-BCA runs processors at their full 35 W, and the CS551-Q370-ECA keeps this temperature rating without ECC.