The Intel NUC6i5SYK Skylake UCFF PC Review
by Ganesh T S on March 11, 2016 8:00 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - II
In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.
x264 Benchmark
First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0. This is simply a test of CPU performance. As expected, the 35W TDP Core i3-6100T and the 28W TDP Core i5-5557U take the lead over the 15W Core i5-6260U.
7-Zip
7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.
TrueCrypt
As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. CPUs supporting the AES-NI instruction for accelerating the encryption and decryption processes used to be restricted to high-end SKUs. That has changed now, and even the consumer-focused Core i5-6260U in the NUC6i5SYK has AES-NI support. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. The TrueCrypt internal benchmark provides some interesting cryptography-related numbers to ponder. In the graph below, we can get an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the Intel NUC6i5SYK and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test.
Agisoft Photoscan
Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:
- Stage 1: Align Photographs
- Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
- Stage 3: Build Mesh
- Stage 4: Build Textures
We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software.
Bringing the GPU into the picture helps the NUC6i5SYK to emerge as the Stage 2 leader, but, in other stages, the raw CPU performance is held back by the lower TDP compared to some of the other PCs in the comparison list.
Dolphin Emulator
Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the CPU capabilities, and the higher TDP CPUs perform better.
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CajunArson - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
Keep in mind that the older i7 NUC is a 28 watt TDP part with a 3.1GHz *base* clock (turbo to 3.4GHz) while this is a 15 watt part with only a 2.9GHz *turbo* maximum clock. It seems to beat the older i5 Broadwell at CPU benchmarks too.MattMe - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
I've been buying NUCs for desktop replacements at work now for the last year. We have around 40 Broadwell units and so far around 20 Skylake units.I've never experienced any of the issues mentioned in this article, so it's a shame to have what I see as excellent SFF PCs receive a poor review based on that. Understandable, of course.
The only issues we have experienced is the power supplies which are universal, interchangeable plug units. We have had 5 or 6 that have started buzzing and crackling due to arcing on the contact points. A little persuasion with a screwdriver fixes it, but they really let the whole thing down in my opinion.
Otherwise the performance, price, low power and near-silent operation make them perfect office PCs for all except power users and devs. Mounted on the supplied VESA bracket behind the monitor saves a lot of space too. You can set the BIOS to allow power on USB so the users simply press a keyboard key or move the mouse to switch it on in the morning. Perfect.
Zingam - Sunday, March 13, 2016 - link
What type of work is your business? Text editing?TheinsanegamerN - Monday, March 14, 2016 - link
Text editors, powerpoints, excel spreadsheets, web apps, all sorts of stuff business does runs wonderfully on NUCs.We've started using them to drive our POS systems, and our AV systems that broadcast to TVs in our buildings. They work quite well.
8steve8 - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
No idea why they keep pushing NUCs with 15W cpus, excessively low power for a non-mobile system.the 45W CPU skull canyon is exciting, when should we expect this to launch?
damianrobertjones - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
...because people buy them? People want them?(I'm sitting in front of one now)
Valantar - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
If what you want is the tiny NUC form factor, then 15W seems to be spot on. Anything higer would require a very noticeable size increase to help with cooling - unless you're willing to increase noise dramatically, which ... no.Is >30W in a NUC-ish form factor doable, and with low enough noise? Absolutely. Skull Canyon will be intriguing. But it will also undoubtedly be quite a bit larger than the standard NUCs.
8steve8 - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
yes it would have to be noticeably larger, but still tiny. 45W is a better sweetspot IMO for this kind of SFF PC... and please for skull canyon... please use a regular CPU cooler, and not a noisy blower like gigabyte tried with their brixxx.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, March 14, 2016 - link
It will most likely still be a blower, since the case will most likely be too small for a typical cooler, which needs more space and a different design than what the NUCs use.That being said, intel does a much better job with their blower coolers then gigabyte does.
8steve8 - Monday, March 14, 2016 - link
the intel retail HSF that comes with 65W CPUs is pretty small, yes taller than the NUC blowers, but only by like an inch... no bigger in other dims.Intel may do better than gigabyte with blowers, but gigabyte tried to cool a 65W cpu with a blower, intel is only trying on 5,15 or 28w CPUs... it's easy to be quiet when you are dealing with 15W vs 65W