Intel's Haswell NUC: D54250WYK UCFF PC Review
by Ganesh T S on January 3, 2014 4:25 PM ESTMiscellaneous Factors and Concluding Remarks
Power Consumption:
We have already carried some graphs and tables with power consumption numbers for various scenarios in the preceding sections. The two graphs below compare idle and full load power consumption numbers across different low power desktops that we have evaluated before.
The Haswell NUC turns in stellar numbers for both scenarios. There is no doubt that this is a powerful, yet power-efficient, computing solution.
Thermal Performance:
The D54250WYK has an active cooling solution, but the size of the chassis is still a bit of a concern when it comes to cooling efficiency. To check the thermal performance of the kit, we let Prime 95 fully load up the CPU for 15 minutes, followed by the addition of Furmark to fully load the GPU also for the next 15 minutes. After this, the unit was left to idle while driving the display. Screenshots of the temperatures of various components (as reported by CPUID Hardware Monitor PRO) recorded at 15 minute intervals are presented in the gallery below.
At full CPU load, the temperatures of the cores reach 74 C, the fan spins at 3958 rpm (can go up to 4192 rpm) and the temperatures around the SSD (on the other side of the board) reach 43 C. With the GPU also fully loaded, the temperatures of the cores go down to around 67 C, the fan takes a little break at 3846 rpm. On the SSD side, the temperatures go a little further down to 41 C. After idling for 15 minutes after full loading, the cores are at 32 C, the fan is at 3206 rpm and the temperature on the SSD side goes down to 33 C. There is nothing to complain about with respect to the thermal solution except for the few notes about the fan noise that were made in the introduction.
Final Words:
From the HTPC perspective, it is troubling that HDMI audio still needs careful configuration in XBMC 12.3. For bitstreaming to work, XBMC has to be configured with WASAPI and not Direct Sound. The symptoms are the same as the Netflix HD audio issue. It is also a pity that interlaced VC-1 DXVA decoding doesn't work in XBMC. These are issues faced by the average consumer. We didn't touch upon the HDMI full range problem which HTPC enthusiasts treat as primary issue. All in all, it looks like Intel's graphics drivers still need to resolve lots of issues. While we have seen stellar progress over the last couple of years, it only leaves consumers asking for more to completely move away from discrete GPUs for HTPCs.
Moving away from the HTPC area, the NUC's low power consumption as well as small footprint enhance its appeal for use as thin clients or even full blown PCs for average office / home desktop use. The traditional desktop is being re-imagined in multiple ways with the advent of the touchscreen AiOs and form factors such as the NUC and the BRIX. The comparatively low cost and flexibility provided by the latter has ensured that the NUC form factor is here to stay as yet another excellent computing platform option for consumers.
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chrnochime - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link
Burned haha. Go ask this question on any english forum worth its salt and realize how wrong you are LOLandrusoid - Thursday, January 9, 2014 - link
Not a double negative. Read a book, preferably one concerning grammar and english usage. "So you actually agreeing with ddriver." Something's missing. By the way, "dis" is not negation. (This is not a double negative statement, as well.)theangryintern - Friday, January 10, 2014 - link
That sounds like a confession to me. In fact the double negative has led to proof positive. I'm afraid you gave yourself away.ddriver - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
You can be sorry and disagree all you want but this will not change the facts.That particular atom chip is a POC, slower than even mid-range contemporary phones, with terrible GPU (cripples browser rendering performance) and running a bloated OS. I have very smooth experience with both "desktop" websites (I hate crippled mobile versions) and with PDFs sporting high resolution images (here the reader implementation plays a tremendous role) on my phone (note 3) - that type of content is literally FLYING. I haven't been printing from the phone yet, but I am pretty sure it will not take minutes to print a 20 page document.
And don't think for a moment that I am used to sluggish performance and therefore have lower standards and expectations. My desktop config: i7 3770k 32gb samsung 830 SSD - while 2 years old, by no means a sloth.
BehindEnemyLines - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link
It makes me wonder why Chrome OS laptops are moving from ARM to Intel x86 (Haswell) if it's "slower than even mid-range contemporary phones"? I mean, Chrome OS started with ARM, and it's pretty lightweight.Gigaplex - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link
An old Atom is slow, not Haswell.lhl - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
I have both the Samsung Series 3 (Exynos 5) Chromebook and the new Haswell-based C720. Performance difference/day-to-day usability is night and day, the C720 blows aways the ARM Chromebook. While I'd imagine TDP to be slightly higher, the C720 actually has much longer battery life (8h vs 5h) while only being 3-4 ounces heavier. The C720 also has better build-quality, screen, keyboard, and trackpad...JohanAnandtech - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link
I guess I will have to benchmark it to prove it. You are downplaying the N2800, but it was close enough to a 1.4 GHz Quad Cortex A9 with a 2 MB L2 (Calxeda ECX-1000). That is very similar to the current midrange Phone. In fact, given how bandwidth bottlenecked most ARM CPUs are, the 4 MB L2 would probably give that chip an edge over the current midrange.virtual void - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link
There is something about Intels CPU-design vs ARM that does not show in benchmarks like Geekbench and similar. Even the old Z2460 (single core "old" Atom) platform still feels quite snappy when running Android, the "feel" of this SoC is way better than what one would believe when looking purely at benchmarks.My guess is that Intels CPU-cache design, especially L2, still is a couple of notch above what any ARM CPU vendor current got.
shodanshok - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link
I absolutely agree. In the past I tried to show that as benchmark results show, a single Atom Core is quite comparable to anything between one and two A9 cores. However, many poster simply choose to ignore this fact, accusing me to be totally wrong...