ZBOX Sphere OI520 Plus: Zotac's Take on the NUC
by Ganesh T S on August 1, 2014 8:50 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - I
The ZBOX OI520 Plus was evaluated using our standard test suite for low power desktops / industrial PCs. We have recently revamped our benchmark suite (after the publication of the first Intel NUC review). We reran some of the new benchmarks on the original NUC also, but some of them couldn't be run on loaner samples. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same.
Futuremark PCMark 8
PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios.
Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks
3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15
We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results.
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Assimilator87 - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
You guys are forgetting that the NUC and related SFF PCs all use mobile chips. If you want a full Kaveri with 512 shaders, the FX-7600P has a 35W TDP. For something with similar TDP to the i5 U, there's the FX-7500 at 19W, although that only has 384 shaders.Voldenuit - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
Needs copper foam afro.Bobs_Your_Uncle - Sunday, August 3, 2014 - link
Given the spherical nature of this beast, maybe even a copper foam Goatee would be a stylish compliment to the fro action.( Scratching your head? => http://hexus.net/tech/news/systems/72569-silent-po... )
know of fence - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
Any chance that those Benchmarks find their way into Bench?I'd really appreciate some perspective of just how a dual core i5 fits into the full picture or how it compares to the 10W 4C/4T J1900 CPUs formerly known as Bay Trail, which also come with 9-19VDC adapters and are available as mini-ITX boards.
With the piddly cooling system being the Achilles heel of these SFFs, some noise testing would be appreciated.
Josh Peck - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
It's only the most sophisticated gaming experience ever created by humans.And it's spherical!
SPHERICAL!
arod916 - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
Looks like the design was ripped off from the Nexus Q. Google could sue them hmmm.M/2 - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
A Mac Mini is the same price... why do Mini's never make the "compared to" list? You can run MS & Linux as well as OSX on a Mini.... At the risk of being called a Fanboy (they're all JUST MACHINES). IMHO, I'd still opt for a MiniM/2 - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
PS: Sound is the only thing I see that may be better than a mini. Mini's have options for i7, 2 memory slots, so someone tell why this hardware set (or most of the others) are better?Iketh - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
what's a "mac" ?FelixDraconis - Saturday, August 2, 2014 - link
The mini is lacking the newest Haswell chip, which should hopefully come soon. Should be an even better value proposition.But people also didn't take into account that it comes with an OS, whereas the Zotac does not.
We often use Mac Minis for light servers and compile machines, as you can fit a whole bunch of them in a small space and span virtual screens with software. They're not amazing but they're solid and dependable and get the job done.