ZBOX Sphere OI520 Plus: Zotac's Take on the NUC
by Ganesh T S on August 1, 2014 8:50 AM ESTMiscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks
The power consumption at the wall was measured with the display being driven through the HDMI port. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the ZBOX OI520 Plus with other low power PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran Furmark 1.12.0 and Prime95 v27.9 together. The unit could have been more power efficient compared to the Intel NUC kit if it had come with a SSD instead of the hard drive.
Given the active nature of the thermal solution, it is no surprise that the unit is able to handle full loading without any throttling. In fact, even after a hour of processor-intensive tasks (30 minutes of full CPU loading + 30 minutes of full CPU and GPU loading), the maximum temperature of the cores was only 71 C (as show in the gallery below).
Coming to the business end of the review, it is heartening to see motherboard / mini-PC vendors sit up and build upon Intel's NUC efforts. The OI520's performance is very similar to the high-end NUC, but it has additional I/O options (extra USB 2.0 ports, card reader etc.). For users looking to get a mini-PC that is not just a plain rectangular box, the ZBOX Sphere OI520 makes for a very good choice. Pretty much the only downside is that the Plus model makes for a questionable choice as it come with hard drives instead of SSDs and only one SO-DIMM slot occupied. Readers would be better off grabbing the non-Plus model and putting in a SSD / two SO-DIMM sticks for better performance.
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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?