Intel NUC 13 Pro Arena Canyon Review: Raptor Lake Brings Incremental Gains
by Ganesh T S on March 27, 2023 9:00 AM ESTHTPC and Digital Signage Credentials
The 2022 Q4 update to our system reviews brings an updated media playback evaluation suite for systems. After doing away with the evaluation of display refresh rate stability and Netflix streaming evaluation, the local media playback configurations have also seen a revamp. This section details each of the workloads processed on the Intel NUC13ANKi7 (Arena Canyon).
YouTube Streaming Efficiency
YouTube continues to remain one of the top OTT platforms, primarily due to its free ad-supported tier. Our HTPC test suite update retains YouTube streaming efficiency evaluation as a metric of OTT support in different systems. Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video is the chosen test sample. On PCs running Windows, it is recommended that HDR streaming videos be viewed using the Microsoft Edge browser after putting the desktop in HDR mode.
YouTube Streaming Statistics
The GPU in Intel NUC13ANKi7 (Arena Canyon) supports hardware decoding of VP9 Profile 2, and we see the stream encoded with that codec being played back. The streaming is perfect, thanks to the powerful GPU and hardware decoding support - the dropped frames observed in the statistics below are due to mouse clicks involved in bringing up the overlay.
The streaming efficiency-related aspects such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption are also graphed below.
Energy consumption is a bit of a mixed bag, with the Arena Canyon NUC turning out to be the worst of the lot. It is possible that the iGPU drivers are to blame, but we do not see the issue in other playback workloads.
Hardware-Accelerated Encoding and Decoding
The transcoding benchmarks in the systems performance section presented results from evaluating the QuickSync encoder within Handbrake's framework. The capabilities of the decoder engine are brought out by DXVAChecker.
Video Decoding Hardware Acceleration in Intel NUC13ANKi7 (Arena Canyon)
The iGPU in Raptor Lake-P system supports hardware decode for a variety of codecs including AVC, JPEG, HEVC (8b and 10b, 4:2:0 and 4:4:4), and VP9 (8b and 10b, 4:2:0 and 4:4:4). AV1 decode support is also present. This is currently the most comprehensive codec support seen in the PC space.
Local Media Playback
Evaluation of local media playback and video processing is done by playing back files encompassing a range of relevant codecs, containers, resolutions, and frame rates. A note of the efficiency is also made by tracking GPU usage and power consumption of the system at the wall. Users have their own preference for the playback software / decoder / renderer, and our aim is to have numbers representative of commonly encountered scenarios. Our Q4 2022 test suite update replaces MPC-HC (in LAV filters / madVR modes) with mpv. In addition to being cross-platform and open-source, the player allows easy control via the command-line to enable different shader-based post-processing algorithms. From a benchmarking perspective, the more attractive aspect is the real-time reporting of dropped frames in an easily parseable manner. The players / configurations considered in this subsection include:
- VLC 3.0.18
- Kodi 20.0b1
- mpv 0.35 (hwdec auto, vo=gpu-next)
- mpv 0.35 (hwdec auto, vo=gpu-next, profile=gpu-hq)
Fourteen test streams (each of 90s duration) were played back from the local disk with an interval of 30 seconds in-between. Various metrics including GPU usage, at-wall power consumption, and total energy consumption were recorded during the course of this playback.
All our playback tests were done with the desktop HDR setting turned on. It is possible for certain system configurations to automatically turn on/off the HDR capabilities prior to the playback of a HDR video, but, we didn't take advantage of that in our testing.
Playback was perfect for all codecs except AV1 (the CPU is not strong enough for software-only 8Kp60 decoding). Power consumption numbers are reasonable, and help the Arena Canyon NUC land up in the middle of the pack.
The scenario seen with VLC is replicated in Kodi also. The middle-of-the-pack entry seen in the VLC case makes an appearance here also, with the software decoding attempt for AV1 being one of the main causes for the spike in the energy numbers.
mpv playback with the gpu-next video output driver is the most energy efficient of the lot. We also have hardware accelerated decode for AV1. However, the playback for that clip still has issues, with approximately 60% of the frames getting dropped in the video output (the decoder itself doesn't drop any frames).
Activating the GPU shaders for video post processing does result in increased energy consumption, but there are no dropped frames. The 8Kp60 AV1 decode video output issue remains the same irrespective of the profile used.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
46 Comments
View All Comments
MrCommunistGen - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
If you're just looking to dabble, you might check out Apple's Refurbished shop. I swear by their shop and use it to help my parents getting inexpensive iDevices as they don't need the latest and greatest.They tend to sell pretty lightly used machines that are only a generation or two old at decently discounted prices. If you buy a laptop or other mobile device, I believe that all 1st party Apple Refurbished devices get a brand new battery as part of the refurb process.
FWIW, it looks like through the refurb site you can get an M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for $809. Yes, you lose out on the improvements that the M2 brings, but it saves you almost $200 too.
The M1 is going to be plenty potent compared to your... Core2 Duo(?) based Macbook?
Glaurung - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
If you can't stomach apple's prices, check out refurbished/lightly used apple gear on backmarket or, for older machines you can upgrade yourself, Ebay. Apple's official refurb store is great but you will never get more than about 15% off there. I love my apple gear, but I only ever buy used/refurb, because I cannot afford the price Apple charges for new.Affectionate-Bed-980 - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
For how "dead" Anandtech has been in terms of publishing GPU and CPU reviews, I'm surprised we get a NUC update and full review before this is even available for consumers!abufrejoval - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
My NUC10 seems to just have burned through its Thunderbolt port: for some weeks it's lost the connection to the Sabrent/Aquantia 10Gbit NIC after a couple of days, but power cycling brought it back. Now it's just gone completely, just can't seen anything connected on TB any more.So while I needed a replacement, NUC12 is still rather expensive and I am still yearning for something Mini-ITX not NUC anyway, I hit across this one: https://elchapuzasinformatico.com/2023/03/cpu-inte... which is much cheaper than a comparable NUC of that generation.
So I just decided to order one to see if it holds water. I won't be able to reuse the RAM, but with 64GB at €120 that's no longer a pain point and it is a bit more flexible and expandable than the NUCs, while unfortunately it lacks the TB port, but will allow me to use one of my AQC107 PCIe x4 NIC in storage.
Mini-ITX with one of my Noctuas allows to raise the sustained TDP to 35 Watts without getting annoying, while idle power consumption might not be very different. That's my main beef with desktop based Mini-ITX hardware, I want the lowest idle power and then "comfortable" peak performance without getting distracted by noise, heat or electric bills.
H- and P-class SoCs from AMD and Intel basically allow that, but are hard-to-get in these smaller form factors: high-end notebooks obviously represent the more attractive sales channels and older parts are leak into these Chinese surplus channels only when laptops have switched to the next generation.
abufrejoval - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
IMHO one of the biggest missing elements for several generations now has been lack of ECC support. With both "normal" and inline ECC most likely being included in the silicon, it's really just market segmentation again and a reason to go with Ryzen, if ECC support on their APUs wasn't such a lottery game, too.64GB is half a billion bits where things can go wrong and I just like the odds less and less...
Up2Trix - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
@abufrejoval: I agree 100%. ECC DRAM is the single most important hardware feature that most people need but don't have a clue about. I curse Intel for segmenting it out of existence, and AMD for not promoting it. May the world wake up...Anyone know of a small form factor / NUC like computer with ECC support? Intel's NUC 9 Pro / Quartz Canyon from 2019 is the only one that I can readily find.
Fenturi - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
I'm not sure the price/performance is here for this one vs chips like 6800HX with a much better igpu. That said two thunderbolt ports are very interesting for my use case and would be the best feature.abufrejoval - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
I see the 96EU Xe doing 5-25% better than the 5800U iGPU and iGPUs typically get Wattage priority over CPUs so a "H" class iGPUs don't do better than "U", no matter if I operate the SoC at 15-28 (AMD) or 15-64 Watt (Tiger Lake NUC).So the 6800 generational uplift may just put AMD ever so slightly in the lead again, but in a race of sloths vs turtles.
For TB I keep hearing that many of the USB4 ports on AMD APUs are actually TB capable and only lack certifications... Have not had a chance to verify that.
I can't mix AMD and Intel in my clusters, so it's too late for me to switch. But the other thing is that I needed 10Gbit and for that TB sadly was a must, because for some crazy reason vendors believe 1/2.5Gbit is adequate for NVMe systems.
I've wanted mobile SoC based mainboards with PC type flexibilty for years, but only some crazy Chinese companies are selling that.
Fenturi - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
Sadly, as someone who has built my own systems going back to 486 CPUs and outrageous fast wide SCSI and a super expensive video card.I think the days of building desktop PC is in it's last days.
Most people are going to only need small nuk sized units that will do most of what they need.
abufrejoval - Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - link
I can beat that, started with an 80286 (actually with an Apple ][ clone before that) and SCSI fast, wide or dual channel came much later, it was MFM and RLL before, using PIO, because the 8-bit DMA from the original PC simply wasn't fast enough for anything beyond floppy. BTW that system cost me more than a new middle class car would have and the people and shops selling them, would reflect that (suits, ties and talk): Those weren't just another microwave like box at the mall.Yes, after more than 4 decades the PC era is drawing to a close, but I'm not sure it's from lack of scale at the desktop: it's ARM from above and below that will spell the end of the x86 evolution.
There are way more PC enthusiasts today than there were PC users when we got hooked and custom builds just never scale: IKEA!
To me the real successor of the PC is the smartphone, but only if it isn't actually an Apple or Google remote control.