The Intel Skull Canyon NUC6i7KYK mini-PC Review
by Ganesh T S on May 23, 2016 8:00 AM ESTNetworking and Storage Performance
Networking and storage are two major aspects which influence our experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the Intel NUC6i7KYK (Skull Canyon). On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.
The storage score (primary result) shows that there is not much to gain by going from the SM951 in the NUC6i5SYK to the 950 PRO in the NUC6i7KYK. It shows that workloads are more user-input and CPU-bound, rather than storage-bound. On the other hand, the storage bandwidth number (secondary result) shows a significant jump. Readers can refer to our explanation of how these numbers are calculated by PCMark 8. The secondary result is the total amount of data transferred (both reads and writes) divided by the storage I/O busy time (i.e, time duration during which the number of pending I/O operations was at least 1). The secondary result is a very important metric when idle time compression is involved, but it doesn't matter as much as the primary result when it comes to application responsiveness (as the workload might be CPU-bound, rather than storage-bound). In any case, the above result shows that a powerful CPU can drive up the secondary result very high.
On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client (Zotac ID89-Plus) is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iperf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iperf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iperf and present the highest number in the graph below.
In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.
The antenna placement and the system design ensure that the Intel 802.11ac AC8260 WLAN subsystem performs exceptionally well in our Wi-Fi testing and comes out at the top of the charts in both TCP and UDP tests.
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fanofanand - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
You rebutted your own statement. Casual gamers don't buy $1k mini-PC's. Testing this at super low resolutions can only serve one purpose, which is to provide the appearance of acceptable performance.ganeshts - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
The point with mini-PC reviews with a gaming focus is that they are spread far apart - we may be lucky to have 3 or 4 in a year.So, it boils down to what we think is more relevant to the reader - a set of benchmark numbers that have to be presented standalone, or a set of benchmark numbers which can be compared apples to apples against some similar previous-generation systems (because, that is what we have the numbers for). We think the latter makes more sense, and that is the reason we are having these 'legacy resolutions' in the gaming benchmarks.
fanofanand - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
I completely understand why you need to present the information, I just don't think this really meets the "Skulltrail brand" expectations. Skulltrail was always an enthusiast platform designed by enthusiasts. This product looks like it fell victim to marketing requiring a certain thickness of chassis. This product waters down the skulltrail branding, though I guess skulltrail really isn't even relevant anymore. I just don't understand who this is designed for I guess.FMinus - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
this really isn't a low budget part, they can get similar or better performance in an ATX form factor for around ~$100 to 200 less.zepi - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
I'd love to see a ~90W TDP version of this with CPU cores getting about 30W and GPU having 60 or so allocated for it. Even 65W TDP part would be a definite improvement for gaming as CPU / GPU clocks could stay considerably higher during loading of both parts of the chip.With proper cooling it could actually compete decently with low-end discrete graphic laptops. Now it is clear that TDP is limiting it badly.
The question is: How is the perf/w compared to for example A9x GPU parts or Maxwells? Somehow I'm not terribly impressed by Intel's GPU's. Especially considering that they've had their hugely superior manufacturing technology which should help...
Osamede - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Power consumption measured with a 1080p display. Is this the real use case?ganeshts - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Why not? Not everyone has migrated to 4K yet. I am a first-world tech reviewer, and the max. res monitor that I have is only 2560x1440 :)jhoff80 - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Out of curiosity, will there also be an Anandtech review of the new Core M Compute Sticks as well?jaydee - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Isn't is kinda a no-brainer to make this thing a little big bigger (with a little better cooling), to avoid throttling? Wouldn't just an inch taller help immensely?ShieTar - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Sure, but at ~55mm height it is beginning to look similar in size to a 70 mm high Mini-ITX case, which you can use to build yourself a system with similar compute power, for less than half the system cost.So it really needs to be very flat and very compact to qualify as a niche-product. Asking twice the price for just a 20% difference in some aspect is usually very hard to sell.