Intel Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX Review: NUC 9 Extreme Realizes the SFF Dream
by Ganesh T S on April 16, 2020 8:05 AM ESTGPU Performance for Workstations - SPECviewperf 13
The SPECviewperf benchmark from SPEC provides an idea of the capabilities of the GPU in a workstation from the perspective of different CAD, content creation, and visual data analysis tools. It makes more sense to process these benchmarks on workstations with professional GPUs, but, consumer GPUs are often the choice for machines that need to handle both gaming and professional workloads.
SPECviewperf 13 includes nine different workloads representative of graphics content and behavior of actual applications. They make use of the OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 12 APIs under Windows. SPECviewperf 13's workloads (termed viewsets) can officially be run only at two desktop resolutions (1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160), and need the display scaling to be set to 100% (DPI of 96). The available viewsets are listed below.
- 3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
- CATIA (catia-05)
- Creo (creo-02)
- Energy (energy-02)
- Maya (maya-05)
- Medical (medical-02)
- Showcase (showcase-02)
- Siemens NX (snx-03)
- Solidworks (sw-04)
The 3ds Max and Showcase viewsets are available only when processing at 1920 x 1080. The rest are available at both resolutions.
We processed SPECviewperf 13 at both resolutions on the Intel NUC9i9QNX (Ghost Canyon). The benchmark measures the frame rate at which the GPU renders the scenes in a viewset. Each viewset is composed of different scenes and rendering modes, and the composite score for the viewset is a weighted geometric mean of the FPS measured for the different scenes. In this section, we take a look at how its composite scores stack up against other systems targeting this market segment.
3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
The 3dsmax-06 viewset comprises of 11 different scenes. They have been created from traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 using the default Nitrous DX11 driver. Additional details are available here.
The x16 configuration for the RTX 2070 delivers significantly better results compared to the x8 configuration.
CATIA (catia-05)
The catia-05 viewset comprises of 14 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIA V6 R2012 application from Dassault Systemes. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: CATIA Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The RTX 2070 in the NUC9i9QNX doesn't emerge as a leader in this workload, but its performance is almost as good as the top candidate in the x16 configuration.
Creo (creo-02)
The creo-02 viewset comprises of 16 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Creo 3 and Creo 4 applications from PTC. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Creo Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The significant difference between the x16 mode and x8 mode continues here, with the former putting the NUC9i9QNX within touching distance of the top performers.
Energy (energy-02)
The energy-02 viewset comprises of 6 different tests based on techniques used by the OpendTect seismic visualization application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Energy Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The NUC9i9QNX performs well in this workload, emerging as the top candidate. Strangely, the 1080p configuration seems limited by an unknown factor, with the x8 configuration performing better than the x16. At 4K, however, normal service is resumed.
Maya (maya-05)
The maya-05 viewset comprises of 10 different tests based on traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk Maya 2017. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Maya Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The x16 configuration of the RTX 2070 emerges as the clear topper for the Maya workload.
Medical (medical-02)
The medical-02 viewset comprises of 8 different tests derived from 4 distinct datasets. Each test uses the ImageVis3D volume visualization program's Tuvok rendering core for 2D projections of 3D volumetric grids. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Medical Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The NUC9i9QNX emerges second in this workload, next to the Core i7-7700HQ / GTX 1080 combination in the Zotac EK71080.
Showcase (showcase-02)
The showcase-02 viewset comprises of 4 tests created from traces of the Autodesk Showcase 2013 application rendering a racecar model with 8 million vertices using different modes. Additional details are available here.
The x16 RTX 2070 configuration is the clear winner in this workload.
Siemens NX (snx-03)
The snx-03 viewset comprises of 10 tests created with traces from the graphics workload generated by the NX 8.0 application from Siemens PLM. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Siemens NX Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The performance of various systems in this workload is poor (as evident from the SPECworkstation ratings for the corresponding workload). There is not much to separate the various configurations in this workload, as evident from the scores in the graphs above.
Solidworks (sw-04)
The sw-04 viewset comprises of 11 tests created from traces of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 2013 SP1 application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Solidworks Viewset Composite Scores | |||
Overall, the RTX 2070 in the NUC9i9QNX delivers excellent performance for GPU-intensive workstation workloads. In all cases, the x16 mode provides much better performance compared to the original x8 configuration of our review sample.
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ganeshts - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Let me indulge you. Where are the positives exaggerated? In the concluding remarks section, number of pros = number of cons. The last paragraph even mentions the pricing aspect that is not touched upon in the pros and cons. Where are the negatives that I have not dwelt upon?Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
You did fine Ganesh -The kiddies won't be happy unless you totally crap on Intel and exalt the wonderfulness that is AMD.
I am a huge NUC fan - the 4.5"x4.5" NUCs - the reviewed unit is NUC in name only - and I have no clue what the use case is.
Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
and a huge intel fan, obviously, in your posts on tom's show this. thats why you exalt the wonderfulness that is intelDeicidium369 - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Admins - can you have a talk with Jimmy, he is becoming unhinged, and is stalking me.Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
its just funny, you get called out on your BS there, so you come here, and try to spread your bs here as well.GreenReaper - Sunday, May 10, 2020 - link
Come now. His name is clearly Korguz, not Jimmy.Reflex - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
I have one of these: https://www.dan-cases.com/Full mITX in only 7.2L. It's fantastic, and I was able to build a Ryzen with full length GTX1080 no problem last year.
1_rick - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The Dan A4 is $220. What a ripoff, when I can buy a Rosewill case AND get a PSU for $50!(Not really, but that's the same thing a lot of people are saying.)
jtd871 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
That's what they will say until they own one.I was a KS backer of the DAN A4 v1 (silver). The KS price ended up very close to USD$280 after conversion from EUR, which did give me some pause at the time, but I really wanted it (and IIRC the initial KS run met goal in like 10 minutes after it opened). Still totally worth it IMO.
I dare Rosewill to ever produce anything this classy.
The DAN A4 KS cases shipped about this time *4 years ago*. So Intel really dropped the ball with their thermal design on this one, as far as I am concerned as the "sandwich" design has been in the wild for a long time. Keep up the mediocrity, Intel.
Reflex - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Going to second this. The Dan case is incredibly high quality, can accomodate water cooling (not my thing), is well thought out internally with lots of places to stash SSD's and so on, has great airflow/heat characteristics and can be built to be nearly silent even with a powerful CPU/GPU combo.I'm incredibly happy with mine. And unless a person upgrades thier case routinely, the price isn't a big deal