Intel's Bean Canyon (NUC8i7BEH) Coffee Lake NUC Review - Ticking the Right Boxes
by Ganesh T S on April 3, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- NUC
- UCFF
- Thunderbolt 3
- Cannon Point
- Coffee Lake-U
HTPC Credentials - YouTube and Netflix Streaming
Our HTPC testing with respect to YouTube had been restricted to playback of a 1080p music video using the native HTML5 player in Firefox. The move to 4K, and the need to evaluate HDR support have made us choose Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video as our test sample moving forward. On PCs running Windows, it is recommended that HDR streaming videos be viewed using the Microsoft Edge browser after putting the desktop in HDR mode.
The 'Stats for Nerds' debug OSD in the top left shows that the stream being played back is a VP9 Profile 2 bitstream.
Various metrics of interest such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption were recorded for the first three minutes of the playback of the above video. The numbers are graphed below.
We find that the playback consumes about 40% of the resources of one of the two available decoders. Thanks to the stream being progressive, the video processing usage is minimal. In the steady state, the GPU consumes around 4W, while the system consumes around 30W (on an average)
The Netflix 4K HDR capability works with native Windows Store app as well as the Microsoft Edge browser. We used the Windows Store app to evaluate the playback of Season 4 Episode 4 of the Netflix Test Patterns title. The OS screenshot facilities obviously can't capture the video being played back. However, the debug OSD (reachable by Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D) can be recorded.
The (hevc,hdr,prk) entry corresponding to the Video Track in the debug OSD, along with the A/V bitrate details (192 kbps / 16 Mbps) indicate that the HDR stream is indeed being played back. Similar to the YouTube streaming case, metrics such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption were recorded for the first five minutes of the playback of the title. The numbers are graphed below.
The HEVC Main10 stream consumes around 50% of one of the two decoders, and the at-wall power consumption in the steady state is around 23W.
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imaheadcase - Sunday, April 7, 2019 - link
Why would you compare to a laptop. This isn't even for that market, its for Home Media/dumb computer you never look at.Samus - Thursday, April 4, 2019 - link
Man this thing is a beast. It's practically the same speed as my brand new full size desktop (Core i5-9400)DimeCadmium - Thursday, April 4, 2019 - link
Umm, what? There aren't currently any Atom NUCs and the Bean Canyons are half a year old.Pisi - Thursday, April 4, 2019 - link
Haven't been able to find this RAM (G.Skill RipjawsV F4-3000C16-16GRS DDR4 SODIMM) anywhere. Are you sure there's no typo involved?eastcoast_pete - Thursday, April 4, 2019 - link
Ganesh, thanks for including the HTPC-relevant tests and benchmarks in the review. Many (most?) NUCs end up serving as HTPCs, and that information is key for selecting the right one.DroidTomTom - Friday, April 5, 2019 - link
I wish someone made one with 3 HDMI outputs and high quality analog audio (Note after 2015 even so so quality analog audio is hard to find in these, have to tie up a USB port for external audio). Only need a Core i3 and 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD would be fine.fackamato - Saturday, April 6, 2019 - link
Most people either use an AVR (audio via HDMI) or a DAC, why on earth would you want good onboard audio?bill44 - Saturday, April 6, 2019 - link
“Unfortunately, stereoscopic 3D is not supported in this configuration.”Are there any DP 1.2 or TB3 to HDMI adapter/converter that works with FP 3D?
Also, why not Titan Ridge controller with DP 1.4?
Naxxy - Sunday, April 7, 2019 - link
Did the 3000 mhz ram work just like that?? I have the Intel NUC8i7BEH and i first bought 16gb Ballistix Sport DDR4 @ 2666 and there was no way to boot the system...... had to switch to 2400mhz ram.....Talked to an Intel support and they told me that having no XMP profiles that NUC would only work with ram up to 2400.
Mr0czny - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link
Im also interested cause im going to replace desktop to this NUC 8i5 ...does 3200 MHz ram add some performance or advantages are negligible
And does it works without problems like Naxxy wrote