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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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.