Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream
by Ganesh T S on April 16, 2020 8:05 AM ESTMiscellaneous Aspects: Storage Performance
The preceding sections analyzed the performance of two Intel NUC9i9QNX configurations for a variety of workloads, ranging from office usage to professional and industrial workstation applications. We also looked at gaming performance and the suitability of the PC for home-theater use. One of the aspects that we touched on and off across all sections was the evaluation of the storage subsystem. A little bit of additional analysis is in order. In particular, we operated the Intel SSD 905p Optane drive in two modes - directly attached to the CPU's PCIe lanes, and attachment through the PCH.
| Intel NUC9i9QNX Storage-Specific Benchmarks |
Directly attaching the Optane drive to the CPU's PCIe lanes yields 40%+ benefit for workstations based on SPECworkstation 3's wpcStorage workload. PCMark 10's storage bench shows a 50%+ increase in storage bandwidth and a 35%+ decrease in average access time for consumer workloads. The storage bandwidth for the secondary drive attached to the PCH also suffers when the primary drive contends with it for access to the CPU through the DMI link, as shown in the PCMark 10 storage bandwidth graph for the secondary drive above.
On the networking side, we are yet to set up our 802.11 ax / Wi-Fi 6 testbed for small form-factor PCs, and hence, there are no bandwidth numbers to report yet. However, it must be noted that the NUC 9 Extreme Kits, like the Frost Canyon NUC we recently reviewed, come with 802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 support, and its theoretical maximum bandwidth of 2400 Mbps betters the 867 Mbps offered by the Wireless-AC 8265 in the Hades Canyon NUC and the 1733 Mbps offered by the Wireless-AC 9560 in the Bean Canyon NUC. The AX200 WLAN component takes advantage of the MAC built into the CM246 chipset, but uses a dedicated PCIe x1 link to interface (unlike the AX201 / CNVi combination in the Frost Canyon NUC). The AX200 has a 2x2 simultaneous dual-operation in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands and also comes with support for 160 MHz-wide channels.
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fazalmajid - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Yes. I wish they made the Mini in 3950X. If they can support the i9-9900K in the EliteDesk 800 G5 chassis (95W TDP), they should be able to support the 3950X as well, instead of the feeble Ryzen 5 that line tops out at.Namisecond - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
AMD may not be able to meet the OEM demand for their 8-core and 16 core processors, whereas the 9900K may be plentiful.fazalmajid - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
I just got a HP EliteDesk 800 G5 with an i7-9700K and 64GB RAM, uncompromised 95W TDP in a smaller form factor (it’s for software development, so I don’t care about the GPU). You can even configure it with an i9-9900K and dual M.2 SSDs. It’s actually the fastest computer I own:https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1826503
https://browser.geekbench.com/user/122632
henryjin - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Surprised no mention here of the Velka 3 (https://www.velkase.com/products/velka-3) - full mini-ITX motherboard, flex-ATX power supply, and dual slot ITX graphics card in < 4 L.zodiacfml - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
Weren't for Intel's NUCs being priceysjkpublic@gmail.com - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
$1600? Really? Please give me a CPU without the spectre/meltdown microcode fixes and I may pay $500 for a NUC.mikato - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
I see some neat boutique cases mentioned in comments that I haven't heard of before, but what about SFF cases that don't have support or more space for a discrete graphics card? I know that doesn't really match this review, but I'm interested in an SFF for an HTPC using integrated graphics. I don't think we need or want discrete graphics for watching TV.Also, I'll mention I only saw 3 lines of text from the article initially when going to a new article page. That bottom horizontal ad is huge. Come on.
tygrus - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
The Baseboard acts more like a PCIe riser connecting the ECE to the 3 slots sharing the 16 lanes (x16 or X8 + x4 + x4 NVMe).itsratso - Wednesday, July 29, 2020 - link
still waiting for the ability to power your computer on and off with my remote. you know like EVERY OTHER PIECE OF HT EQUIPMENT ON EARTH