GEEKOM A5 mini-PC Review: Affordable Cezanne Zen 3 at 35W
by Ganesh T S on December 8, 2023 9:15 AM ESTGPU Performance: Synthetic Benchmarks
The integrated GPU in Cezanne is weak compared to the ones in the Rembrandt (Zen 3+) and Phoenix (Zen 4) APUs. It was great for 2021, but is only passable for 2023. We first take look at the GPU's capabilities from AIDA64 and GPU-Z.
The RX Vega 8 iGPU is based on the Vega architecture. Since then, AMD has already shipped RDNA2 and RDNA3-based iGPUs in this segment. GPU performance evaluation typically involved gaming workloads, and for select PCs, GPU compute. We take a look at a few of them below.
GFXBench
The DirectX 12-based GFXBench tests from Kishonti are cross-platform, and available all the way down to smartphones. As such, they are not very taxing for discrete GPUs and modern integrated GPUs. We processed the offscreen versions of the 'Aztec Ruins' benchmark.
The results are largely along expected lines, ordered by iGPU generation. The Cezanne systems are bunched together towards the middle of the pack.
UL 3DMark
Four different workload sets were processed in 3DMark - Fire Strike, Time Spy, Night Raid, and Wild Life.
3DMark Fire Strike
The Fire Strike benchmark has three workloads. The base version is meant for high-performance gaming PCs. It uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The Extreme version targets 1440p gaming requirements, while the Ultra version targets 4K gaming system, and renders at 3840 x 2160.
| UL 3DMark - Fire Strike Workloads | |||
The graphs above presents the overall score for the Fire Strike Extreme and Fire Strike Ultra benchmarks across all the systems that are being compared.
3DMark Time Spy
The Time Spy workload has two levels with different complexities. Both use DirectX 12 (feature level 11). However, the plain version targets high-performance gaming PCs with a 2560 x 1440 render resolution, while the Extreme version renders at 3840 x 2160 resolution.
| UL 3DMark - Time Spy Workloads | |||
The graphs above present both numbers for all the systems that are being compared in this review.
3DMark Wild Life
The Wild Life workload was initially introduced as a cross-platform GPU benchmark in 2020. It renders at a 2560 x 1440 resolution using Vulkan 1.1 APIs on Windows. It is a relatively short-running test, reflective of mobile GPU usage. In mid-2021, UL released the Wild Life Extreme workload that was a more demanding version that renders at 3840 x 2160 and runs for a much longer duration reflective of typical desktop gaming usage.
| UL 3DMark - Wild Life Workloads | |||
3DMark Night Raid
The Night Raid workload is a DirectX 12 benchmark test. It is less demanding than Time Spy, and is optimized for integrated graphics. The graph below presents the overall score in this workload for different system configurations.
The relative performance of the GEEKOM A5 across all of the 3DMark workloads is the same as what was observed in the GFXbench workloads. The comparison is between systems with integrated GPUs based on different architectures. As a result, the order is just based on the generation, rather than the minor differences in the iGPU clock rates and/or power budgets.
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Reflex - Monday, December 11, 2023 - link
This is just a bizarre comment. These systems have a near top end CPU from the previous generation and can have up to 64GB of RAM. The vast majority of PC's sold are around 16GB of RAM and nobody complains about that (and this mini PC has twice that). Yes, web browsers can eat up a lot of memory, but regardless regular people and even many power users who aren't gamers are well served by these.As much as I love my overbuilt ITX system the fact is that I could get by on one of these things fine for everything but gaming, and I usually have 3 browsers open with dozens of tabs in each (guess what? Browsers hibernate tabs not in use), I do photo editing via Capture One and run a ton of messaging apps, some work applications and a desktop AI solution and my Ryzen 5700G handles it without breaking a sweat. I have 64GB of memory, which these mini PC's can handle as well, and my memory usage is rarely more than 35-50%.
I don't know what you believe a regular user does that requires so much more than what they offer but you may need a reality check.
ballsystemlord - Tuesday, December 12, 2023 - link
As I said to another reply, I mistakenly thought the mini-PC was equipped with 16GB of RAM.t.s - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
still, 16GB of RAM is enough for running 20 tabs or more. Well, except, like they said, you watch dual 8k vr. BTW, I'm now with 32 firefox tab, 11GB RAM usage.StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
Depends on the browser and what is going on.Some browsers are known to aggressively cache data into RAM.
However 8GB of Ram+Windows+Firefox I can happily run a dozen or more tabs with a decent SSD with music streaming in the background.
garblah - Friday, December 8, 2023 - link
No AV1 decoding in hardware. Small chance it could be an issue in a few of years, though the rise of AV1 to prominence has been slow.Not sure this configuration could brute force 4K AV1 playback without dropping frames. At any rate, I don't think the highest quality streaming content will be found as AV1 for another 4 years at minimum.
garblah - Friday, December 8, 2023 - link
*I see 8K 60p AV1 was tested for CPU usage. Why 8K 60p only... hmm.Samus - Saturday, December 9, 2023 - link
Is this OS license actually legit?meacupla - Sunday, December 10, 2023 - link
Win11 pro keys cost $36 for the end user. They probably cost like $10 for geekom, who get volume discountsSamus - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
Sure, except this is equipped with Windows Enterprise...that's normally reserved for corporate and site-licensing, not end-user\resale applications.Very strange.
gz-0 - Saturday, December 9, 2023 - link
The comparison with different setups shows this to be the best for value. I was surprised that Intel setups seemed so inferior to the AMD setups.Looked closely at the lower cost, lower performances of the other AMD units. This seems to be the best. My previous experiences were with a Celeron 8GB memory unit. The lack of hardware ports was treated with external plugin ports.