ZBOX Sphere OI520 Plus: Zotac's Take on the NUC
by Ganesh T S on August 1, 2014 8:50 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - II
In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.
x264 Benchmark
First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0.
7-Zip
7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.
TrueCrypt
As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. CPUs supporting the AES-NI instruction for accelerating the encryption and decryption processes have, till now, been the higher end SKUs. However, with Bay Trail, even the lowly Atom series has gained support for AES-NI. The i5-4200U in the ZBOX OI520 has AES-NI support. TrueCrypt is a popular open-source disk encryption program which can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. The TrueCrypt internal benchmark provides some interesting cryptography-related numbers to ponder. In the graph below, we can get an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the ZBOX OI520 and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test.
Agisoft Photoscan
Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:
- Stage 1: Align Photographs
- Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
- Stage 3: Build Mesh
- Stage 4: Build Textures
We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software.
Dolphin Emulator
Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results.
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heffeque - Sunday, August 3, 2014 - link
Why weren't 2 slot memory + ssd benchmarks posted?biffzinker - Sunday, August 3, 2014 - link
The motherboard only has one slot, bandwidth to the CPU/iGPU is cut in half (out of 25.6 GB/s.)biffzinker - Sunday, August 3, 2014 - link
My bad it has two slots, so yeah why wasn't it tested with two sticks?ct909 - Sunday, August 3, 2014 - link
We deployed a number of the D54250WYKH units, and although the i5-4250U is not in the same league as the i7-4770R of the Brix, for standard office apps, they work well enough.Apart from the usual "I like it but could I have a faster one" request, the wish-list feature that seemed to get the most requests was a QI charger built into the lid, so you can place your phone on the computer to re-charge - we have them sitting on the desk.
It seems that Intel are planning this for the next iteration, and personally, I can't see that working with a sphere.
Impulses - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
Hmm, phones usually get a little warmer charging thru Qi, not sure I'd want that atop a small form factor case... Unless you're working in like a 3ft cubicle or something.ct909 - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
Intel have this feature on the roadmap for the next version, so presumably it will be designed to manage any heat issue.duploxxx - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
intel GPU 4400 on the 15W part so downscaled like hell in combo with a default HD...The kaveri a10-7300 with 19W and SSD for the same price would be awesome in that box.
same price since intel cpu are way more expensive.
Haravikk - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
It's nice to see something a little different, but I can't help but feel like they could have utilised the space better. For example, an internal PSU that occupies some of the extra internal space. I dunno, I just think it'd be more pleasing to have a unit that has nothing coming out of it besides a power cable and monitor cable, a brick kind of spoils that IMO. It also seems like it could have been a prime candidate for a passively cooled case, due to the sheer amount of surface area compared to the more compact, flat NUC systems.briansmccrary - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
fgfggfDoomtomb - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Google Nexus Q much?