Intel's Haswell NUC: D54250WYK UCFF PC Review
by Ganesh T S on January 3, 2014 4:25 PM ESTThe NUC as an HTPC
The form factor and network streaming power consumption profile of the Intel D54250WYK NUC makes it a very attractive option for HTPCs. We have already covered Haswell as a HTPC platform in great detail before. So, we will just take a look at a couple of interesting aspects which may vary from one build to another.
Refresh Rate Handling:
One of the most important fixes in Haswell for HTPC users was increased display refresh rate accuracy. We have already seen 23.976 Hz working perfectly in our custom Haswell HTPC build. The gallery below presents the various refresh rates that we tested out on the Intel D54250WYK NUC.
As expected, the refresh rate accuracy is excellent across all tested points. One of the pleasantly surprising aspect was that the drivers allowed forcing of refresh rates not reported by the display through EDID. This must have come in a recent update, because, when I was evaluating our first Haswell HTPC build, the i7-4765T based PC refused to drive 50 Hz on the Sony KDL46EX720. However, the NUC was able to do it successfully after deselecting 'Hide modes not supported by this monitor'.
Decoding and Rendering Benchmarks:
Detailed decoder / renderer benchmarks for Haswell were presented in our initial review. For the NUC, we are going to concentrate on XBMC's native decoding / rendering (used by the average HTPC user) and the combination of QuickSync with EVR-CP and madVR.
We used MPC-HC v1.7.1 for evaluation. LAV Filters 0.59.1.26 come pre-integrated as the default choice with that version. madVR 0.86.11 was configured with the following options: no decoding, deinterlacing automatically activated when needed with deactivation when in doubt (decided by only looking at pixels in the frame center), chroma upscaling set to bicubic with a sharpness of 75, image upscaling and downscaling done by GPU video logic using DXVA2 calls, rendering in full screen exclusive mode with playback delayed until fill up of the render queue, a separate device for presentation, CPU and GPU queue sizes of 128 and 24, 16 frames presented in advance, smooth motion features disabled and the default quality-performance tradeoffs of 16b pixel shader results and subtitle quality optimization for performance.
A number of experiments were done with different madVR settings and this was the one with which we were able to play all our test streams without frame drops. It must be noted that the streams benchmarked are meant to stress the system. The usual media file played back is more of the 1080p24 variety which goes comparatively easy on the resources compared to the 60 fps streams used for the tables below.
| QuickSync Decoder + EVR-CP | |||
| Stream | GPU Usage % | CPU Usage % | Power Consumption |
| 480i60 MPEG-2 | 23.02 | 7.55 | 11.27 W |
| 576i50 H.264 | 20.80 | 6.68 | 10.97 W |
| 720p60 H.264 | 33.04 | 16.53 | 13.70 W |
| 1080i60 H.264 | 38.72 | 16.44 | 14.66 W |
| 1080i60 MPEG-2 | 37.29 | 12.82 | 13.95 W |
| 1080i60 VC-1 | 35.53 | 14.31 | 14.61 W |
| 1080p60 H.264 | 41.98 | 19.88 | 16.05 W |
| QuickSync Decoder + madVR | |||
| Stream | GPU Usage % | CPU Usage % | Power Consumption |
| 480i60 MPEG-2 | 44.66 | 9.72 | 15.59 W |
| 576i50 H.264 | 49.02 | 10.98 | 16.01 W |
| 720p60 H.264 | 58.57 | 24.98 | 19.27 W |
| 1080i60 H.264 | 56.97 | 35.28 | 23.60 W |
| 1080i60 MPEG-2 | 54.76 | 33.13 | 23.17 W |
| 1080i60 VC-1 | 56.49 | 34.00 | 23.19 W |
| 1080p60 H.264 | 60.21 | 27.92 | 27.01 W |
| XBMC 12.3 | |||
| Stream | GPU Usage % | CPU Usage % | Power Consumption |
| 480i60 MPEG-2* | 23.92 | 7.32 | 11.20 W |
| 576i50 H.264 | 11.23 | 4.44 | 9.23 W |
| 720p60 H.264 | 28.80 | 8.79 | 11.99 W |
| 1080i60 H.264 | 16.71 | 7.42 | 10.78 W |
| 1080i60 MPEG-2 | 16.52 | 6.04 | 10.22 W |
| 1080i60 VC-1** | 5.23 | 5.34 | 8.71 W |
| 1080p60 H.264 | 33.62 | 8.16 | 13.05 W |
The only disappointing aspects above are related to the native decoder / renderer used by XBMC. Interlaced VC-1 decoding is broken when hardware accelerated decoding is enabled. Deinterlacing, particularly for the 480i60 stream, was not properly performed with any combination of settings. On the other hand, QuickSync decoding works smoothly (as expected) for all the test streams when used with any renderer.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
107 Comments
View All Comments
CSMR - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
Intel will release a bay trail NUC shortly. Should be powerful enough for HTPC tasks but 23.976Hz capability is unknown. Unfortunately it only supports one SATA, so HDD+mSATA is not possible as it is with these Haswell NUCs.Solandri - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
The tiny size is really the only advantage this brings to a HTPC. For $680, you can buy a decent laptop with better specs and similar power profile, and use that as your HTPC.Lundmark - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
Yeah, it's very tiny. Here's an image I made for comparisons (based on USB port size on Mac mini's backside).http://imgur.com/u2tRI85
ganeshts - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
Thanks for your kinds words.1. For HTPC reviews, we don't test audio quality because the traditional use case is to get digital audio out of the HDMI port and on to the AV receiver for further processing. The on-board DAC is not that important for the living room HTPC, though I can see it being an issue in other scenarios. But, again, I feel that in the other scenarios, ease of use / power etc. take more precedence over onboard DAC sound quality (as long as it is not absolutely horrible).
2. I wouldn't suggest a box this small (and with this power envelop) for mid-level gaming. Light gaming might be OK. You could consider the BRIX Pro with Iris Pro, but the thermals on that m/c are yet to be evaluated.
3. Will take that into consideration for future reviews.
asliarun - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
Thanks for your reply, Ganesh!Even with a digital out, there seems to be a huge amount of variability in terms of jitter. Maybe this is overkill, but I love the fact that you guys do reviews so thoroughly, and would love it even more if you could review sound quality in more detail. IMHO, sound quality is often neglected and people tend to see this as the domain of "audiophiles". However, it is as important (if not more) as video quality on which several pages of a typical review are normally dedicated. All the more because DACs are getting hugely better and more affordable, and so are other components like headphones and amps. In a reasonably "revealing" system, audio quality starts making a big difference. Again, just my two cents.
selimnairb - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
When I saw this review, I got excited that this could provide a high-quality Mac mini alternative. However, once you add the SATA, memory, and wireless card, and OS (if you want to run Windows) the Mac mini is a better value, plus you get OS X (if you want that). Even running Linux, this thing doesn't make much sense from a price point of view (unless you really value DIY).purerice - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
True it gets expensive, which is a bummer. A desktop i3 w/ 4400 or 4600 iGPU would be faster than the HD 5000 and cost less. A cheap 2.5" HD would also be about $130 less. Full-sized RAM can be had for cheaper as well.I get that NUC = low power, they could easily bring the cost of a complete system down to $500 by making a few small compromises in TDP. For $780 w/Windows you can get an equivalently powerful laptop/convertible that naturally has a screen and more connectivity.
dstarr3 - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
The Mac Mini isn't necessarily any better value. Configuring one to the 8GB like this NUC and you're already at the same cost. You then have to upgrade to SSD in the Mini, and that puts you over $1k. The real problem is that these very small systems don't actually cost less than a full-size computer. They deliver less performance at the same cost in the name of form factor and efficiency. Which, y'know, if that's what you value, that's a perfectly reasonable way to spend the money. But, the idea that smaller equals cheaper is certainly an illusion.name99 - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
The interesting point is not that the mini is absolutely cheaper. It's that, even after years of it not being true, we still hear a constant whine about the "Apple Tax". There's value in simply pointing out, repeatedly, that Apple products, whether it's mac mini or mac pro, are comparably priced to the competition. You can find details that are different, but the point is "comparably" priced, not outrageously more expensive.What IS the case (which may or may not matter to a buyer) is that Apple doesn't sell low-end stuff --- if you want something comparable to that $350 laptop in Best Buy, well, Apple isn't going to sell you a laptop with those (low-end) specs at that (low-end) price.
Of course you lose SOME flexibility if you go with a Mac Mini. But you also get some things in return, right now, most obviously, Fusion drive.
On the third hand, it's kinda a moot point because, for reasons that are unclear, Apple STILL does not ship a Haswell mac mini, so if Haswell is important to you, it's NUC or nothing.
(My hypothesis is that Apple is delaying the mini update to try as best they can to even out their revenue stream. Right now they have this crazy unbalanced system where they upgrade the laptops as soon as Intel has the CPU ready, so generally Q2, then Q3 they release the new iPhone, Q4 is the new iPad and iMac, plus Christmas and Chinese New Year plus the iPhone delayers who didn't upgrade the day of the release so a FLOOD of cash, then a lean Q1. Post Jan 1 purchases for Chinese New Year help a bit, but if you release a new mini in Q1 rather than Q2,3,4 you do make some small change at the margin to move revenue into Q1.
We'll see if I'm right soon enough...
The other thing they could do to even things out would be to establish a pattern of speed bumps for iOS devices in late Q1/early Q2. With their control over the CPU this should now be possible, and establishing a pattern of speed jumping by 10% or so, just a 100 or 150MHz bump, on the 6 month beats would again do something to start shifting revenue and demand across the year. It can't be optimal for productivity to have factories ramp up for such massive demand concentrated into three months, and more idle the rest of the year.)
brucek2 - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
In addition to the lack of low end offerings, Apple's value "tax" can also kick in as the months roll by in between their often lengthy refresh cycles. A model that had good components at a reasonable price on the day it was introduced, can sometimes start to look really non-competitive in its 11th month.