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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Deicidium369 - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
No, Jimmy it's not made to impress you, I could not care less about what you think. The point is that I am not an Intel fanboy - I prefer Intel AFTER taking the best AMD has to offer in consideration. For that year back when the AMD Athlon 2400XP (pretty sure that was the model) I was sure my next PC would be AMD also - then Core dropped ... and the Sun set on that idea.So when Ryzen released - I put together a 1700 system, It was OK but not great - good for budget builds. The 2700X was very good, few issues, good performance, paired that with a Vega VII - and that was just meh. The 3950 is not bad, but nothing special - I do not have any use for a HEDT system - we migrated from LGA2011v3 to Intel Scalable Xeon for our engineering workstations - although the 2nd socket never got populated - still was the solid choice.
You should try to add something other than being a reflexive little troll - all you do, as does qasar is to call people fanboys - but ALL you add to the conversation is calling other people fanboy - when you 2 are the biggest fanboys I have run into. Kiddies you shouldn't be putting so much of your own self worth into what some corporation is doing - maybe when you get older you will get some perspective - back in my day I fought the Mac vs Atari ST vs Amiga wars, and later the Netscape vs IE wars - so I understand the mentality - but that 30 years ago.
Now run along, Jimmy and clean the basement.
Yeah you mean the guy who could not find the slide that said full scene RT in the cloud? Replied with the Slide that he could not find - and he later PM'd me, And still did not refute a single thing I said. So fight your own battles.
Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
" I am not an Intel fanboy " yea right, your post reek of it, even though you keep saying other wise.and in return, all you do is call people names and insult them cause all you have left, you cant give proof of ANYTHING you say, cause it is all your personal opinion and bias. thats funny, seems a of people refuted what you said, even Johan. what the point of calling me jimmy anyway, does it make you feel better about yourself some how ?
Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
and your " facts " are still BS, thats why you havent replied to that thread, or the one on tom's, cause you have nothing."You should try to add something other than being a reflexive little troll " and so should you, try posting some links or sources to back up what you say. " but ALL you add to the conversation is calling other people fanboy " and all you do is instult people and call them names, point is ?
" Kiddies you shouldn't be putting so much of your own self worth into what some corporation is doing " ha, you should talk. looks like you were refuted on tom's so you came here to spread your BS instead.
Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
johan = jarredOperandi - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
LOL, and you think this is going to sell?If this thing wasn't over priced at least the vast majority of the work of building a SFC system would be done and that would be small win. Still wildly inferior to what you can do with off the shelf iTX hardware (Intel or AMD, dosn't mater) but it would be something. As it is this a over priced cluster fuck disaster of a design that dose nothing you can't do with off the shelf parts. Good job Intel.
Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I honestly have NO CLUE what the exact use case for this system is - Intel calls it a NUC - I DO NOT consider this to be a NUC system... Again, no clue.Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
" work on something that would, you know, sell. " that implies you think this would sell.Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Jimmy - go clean the basement. You seem to be following me - look bud - I don't care what you are into, I am married and your obvious infatuation is starting to creep me out. Seriously - stay away.Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
of frank, when i am done that, i will help you clean out the garage. cause obviously, you are incapable of thatSpunjji - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Your posts here are the worst. 🤦♂️