Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream
by Ganesh T S on April 16, 2020 8:05 AM ESTPower Consumption and Thermal Performance
The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 4K display being driven through the HDMI port of the discrete GPU. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the Intel NUC9i9QNX (Ghost Canyon) with other SFF PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, as well as a combination of Prime95 and Furmark, and noted the maximum sustained power consumption at the wall.
The power consumption numbers are along expected lines, matching what we had observed for a similar mobile CPU / desktop GPU combination in the Kaby Lake / Pascal generation (Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080). The additional factors leading to the slightly higher numbers (295W vs 272W) include a dedicated secondary drive, a power-hungry 905p series Optane SSD, and a relaxation in the permissible sustained package power consumption that we analyze further down.
Our thermal stress routine starts with the system at idle, followed by four stages of different system loading profiles using the AIDA64 System Stability Test (each of 30 minutes duration). In the first stage, we stress the CPU, caches and RAM. In the second stage, we add the GPU to the above list. In the third stage, we stress the GPU standalone. In the final stage, we stress all the system components (including the disks). Beyond this, we leave the unit idle in order to determine how quickly the various temperatures in the system can come back to normal idling range. The various clocks, temperatures and power consumption numbers for the system during the above routine are presented in the graphs below.
| Intel NUC9i9QNX (Ghost Canyon) System Loading with the AIDA64 System Stability Test | |||
The AIDA64 system stability test does not have many surprises in store. The core frequencies stay well above the advertised base speeds of 2.4 GHz throughout the loading period. The package and core temperature stay around 90C for the most part, though they do momentarily reach the junction temperature (100C) as the transition from a full-stress to a standalone GPU stress scenario takes place. Things do get to a stable state quite soon. Meanwhile the RTX 2070 never crosses 70C, pointing to a well-designed thermal solution by ASUS.
On the power consumption side, we have the first surprise - the CPU package is allowed its PL2 limits for a short duration (close to 100W) in the beginning. In the steady loading stage, the number drops down to 65W (compared to the 45W we saw for the Core i7-7700HQ in the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080). This accounts for the additional load power consumption identified in the beginning of this section. The GPU power consumption tops out around 165W in the AIDA64 stress test. The at-wall numbers show spikes of up to 325W, but the steady loading state numbers are around 280W with all stress components enabled.
| Intel NUC9i9QNX (Ghost Canyon) System Loading with Prime95 and Furmark | |||
The frequency-related observations made in the AIDA64 system stability test hold true for our artificial power virus test involving Prime95 and Furmark also. The clocks stay well above the advertised base numbers. The temperature numbers tell a similar story too, though the absolute numbers are a bit lower, coming in around 80C instead of 90C for the package. The GPU temperature stays south of 70C throughout. On the power consumption side, we again see the CPU package allowed to dissipate up to 65W in the steady state. The at-wall numbers are slightly north of 290W in the steady state, as graphed in the beginning of this section.
Overall, our power consumption and thermal solution testing revealed a few surprises - the CPU package power budget is 65W (instead of the 45W we saw with mobile CPUs used in SFF PCs in the previous generation). The system as a whole is able to handle this without any undue cause for alarm with respect to the temperatures. ASUS does deserve plaudits for a well-designed thermal solution that doesn't allow the GPU to go beyond 70C even in high-stress scenarios. The system as a whole is surprisingly quiet at idle given the dimensions of the chassis and the number of fans in the system.
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PeachNCream - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
NUCs have usually had a bit of a markup, but the price here is quite a bit higher than one would expect.Deicidium369 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
I don't consider this a NUC, even though Intel puts it in that category - same thing with the ones with the skulls on them... the standard 4.5"x4.5" are the only ones I consider a NUC. Not really sure what the use case for this machine is.PeachNCream - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I agree with you all around. This is far different than the goals Intel originally set out to attain with the NUC form factor. It's Intel's objective and the company can do whatever it wants with the name, slapping it on a super computer for all I care, but that doesn't mean we are compelled to acknowledge it in the same way we would prior designs.The use case for it - a small form factor system used for gaming or GPU-based graphics work is certainly the intent. The problem is the pricing is way off as a lot of others have pointed out so the same goals could be accomplished in a similar, but slightly larger system for considerably lower cost.
This seems like a Google-style thought experiment that some employee or team dreamed up. it got approved and is on sale. If subsequent generations are not sold in the future, we will know it didn't get close to projections or targets.
Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I have over 60 of these deployed in my business offices. I fabricate a 4.5" x ~11" piece of stainless steel - each end is drilled with the 100mm VESA bolt pattern. There are 2 90deg brakes (bends). 1 end in sandwiched between the monitor stand and monitor - other side the NUC mounting bracket is bolted. Short (12") DP and USB cables connect NUC to monitor - sourced a 100W power brick (Intel ships a variety of designs. some with convex sides) that is rectangular - with a standard 3pin AC jack and a barrel DC jack. Y splitter for the AC power - 1 to monitor other to power brick, and a 12" DC cable. So, coming up from the wallplate is 1 AC power cable & 1 CAT6e cableMakes an all in 1 - usecase doesn't require a desktop PC - even a normal SFF one. My employees can choose wired or wireless Microsoft keybd/mice. Keeps it super neat and super clean.
When I started to migrate those people to work at home, made the move super easy - and didn't require one of my IT staff to handle the moves - the Palo Alto Networks VPN Endpoint was preconfigured, so just plug in the desktop and the IP Phone, and they were up an running again.
I have 3 generations of units - about half are the oldest - the real NUC Tiger Lake will replace them all (not running into issues with compute power - but the iGPU struggles with dual 2560 or 4K monitors. 32GB + Samsung 512GB or 1TB NVME - no 2.5"
Icehawk - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Take a look at Dell’s 7070 Ultra. It’s basically a monitor stand, combine with a USB-C monitor and it’s very sleek. I work for a mid sized bank and will be deploying these in the future in our branches where before we used mini-PCs VESA mounted. Much cleaner and enterprise pricing is good.Deicidium369 - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Thank's for the information - I actually bought one soon after they were released and evaluated as a replacement for the 35 or so NUCs I had installed at the time. There were manufacturing defects or issues, and had to send the eval unit back twice. By December, I had to purchase machines, as the business was expanding - and just couldn't, at that point, consider the Dell an option. The processing power at the time was pretty well evenly matched - the dual channel memory in the NUCs wasn't a huge advantage in testing. and the NVMe speed was comparable. So from a performance standpoint, they were pretty evenly matched - one of the main big features that was lacking in the Dell was the IGP - I had thought that instead of Comet Lake we would have gotten Ice Lake. Our workflow is pretty mundane - Word Excel Outlook and Chrome... So at this point the big reason for sticking with the NUCs is the "ecosystem" I have built around them - when we do replace with the Tiger Lake NUCs later this year, will be pretty well painless.ingwe - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Yeah the pricing is crazy. Which is disappointing because I think it is a pretty neat concept and I would love something like this from AMD.Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
AMD sells CPU and GPU - nothing else.Sailor23M - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Agree, Intel has lost it way with the NUCs. They should be in the $500-$999 range, come with best embedded graphics that Intel can provide with lots of ports. Not sure who is excited about $3000 SFF box.Qasar - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
intel has lost its way in alot more then just nucs. it lost its way 5-7 years ago when it thought ot was unbeatable, and kept rehashing the same cpu over and over.