GIGABYTE GB-BXi7H-5500 Broadwell BRIX Review
by Ganesh T S on January 29, 2015 7:00 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - I
The GIGABYTE GB-BXi7H-5500 was evaluated using our standard test suite for low power desktops / industrial PCs. We revamped our benchmark suite early last year after the publication of the Intel D54250WYK NUC review. We reran some of the new benchmarks on the older PCs also, but some of them couldn't be run on loaner samples. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same.
Futuremark PCMark 8
PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU in the system. The i7-5500U is obviously not as powerful as the i7-4770R in the BRIX Pro. As mentioned before, the main tussle is between the BXi7-4500 and BXi7H-5500, and here, the Broadwell-based unit takes a handy lead in all the Futuremark benchmarks. Note that both units were benchmarked with 16 GB of DDR3L memory running at 1866 MHz. This makes it more of a comparison of the CPUs themselves, rather than the rest of the system components.
Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks
In the graphics department, we again see the i7-5500U perform better than the i7-4500U. The difference is very marked in the low end and mainstream tests, while the extreme high quality benchmarks still don't seem to be the Intel IGPs' cup of tea.
3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15
We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results. There is a slight improvement in the performance of the i7-5500U compared to the i7-4500 - mainly due to the higher clocks that can be sustained by the former while remaining under the required power envelop.
The OpenGL performance shows improvement, thanks to the updated GPU architecture, higher base clocks for the GPU and, possibly, driver updates.
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gonchuki - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Please define "decimates". In non-OpenCL and non-GPU bound tests, it's a 5-7% win at most, which can be easily explained by the 33% higher base clock of the CPU cores, plus the die shrink that allows for better thermals (more headroom for higher bins of turbo boost).All of the test results point to Broadwell having the exact same IPC as Haswell in all situations. If anything improved it can only be because of the new stepping that might have fixed some errata.
nathanddrews - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Agreed, the word "decimates" is a bit extreme - but I consider anything in the 10-20% range to be significantly better.Refuge - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
These days I agree, long gone are the days of Sandybridge... Tis a shame, they were fun.Laststop311 - Friday, January 30, 2015 - link
I'm glad some 1 else noticed this. In the benchmarks that strictly use only the cpu, broadwells haswell equivalent is barely and i mean barely any faster. Sure the gpu is a pretty decent improvement but who cares about intels integrated gpu's? Anyone that relies heavily on an integrated gpu is going to get an apu from amd. The only reason the gpu is so much better is its such a poor performing part to begin with, it's a lot easier to improve lower performing things than things that are already highly optimized like the cpu.This is bad news for people using desktops with discrete gpu's and were hoping broadwell would be a decent boost. In those situations the iGPU means nothing so big deal it got better. This also means broadwell-e is going to rly suck and be basically identical to haswell-e almost no reason to even bother designing broadwell-e chips since they dont even use iGPU there is no performance increase at all to talk about in those.
The silver lining though is we get to save money another year. With intel having no pressure on them we get to save our money till there is a real performance boost. Basically anyone with an i7-920 or higher doesn't have to spend money on a pc upgrade till maybe skylake/skylake-e MAYBE, intel has put out underwhelming tocks lately as well. My x58 i7-980x system still has no cpu bottleneck. This allowed me to buy a 55" LG OLED tv as normally i was buying a new pc every 2-3 years before the core i7 series started then all the sudden performance upgrades became pathetic, my new pc fund built up and i found the oled tv for 3000 and figured why not i can easily go another couple years with the same pc. So thanks intel for making no progress i got a new oled tv.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, January 30, 2015 - link
I care about iGPU benchmarks and the computer I use for gaming has an Intel HD3000 and probably will do so for at least another year or more before even thinking about an upgrade. Having dedicated graphics in my laptop seems pointless when I can just wait 5-7 years or so to play a game after it's fully patched and usually avaiable with all of it's DLC for very little cost plus runs well on something that doesn't need a higher end graphics processor. So yes, for serious gaming, iGPUs are fine if you manage expectations and play things your computer can easily handle.purerice - Saturday, January 31, 2015 - link
BrokenCrayons, agreed 100%!! I recently upgraded from Merom to Ivy Bridge myself.There are tons of games now selling for $5-$10 that wouldn't run on Merom when the games cost $40-$60. In addition to being patched and DLC'd, guides and walkthroughs exist to get through any of the "less awesome" parts. More money saved for real life and less frustration to interrupt gaming. Patience pays indeed.
Seeing the ~20% boost over 4500U in Ice Storm and Cinebench Open GL was actually exciting, even if it represents performance below 90% of other Anandtech users' current levels.
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
Decimates means to destroy something by 10% of its whole. All things considered, I'd rather be decimated than . . . you know, devastated, or annihilated.DanNeely - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
While I agree that replacing 1280x1024 is past due; I disagree with picking 1280x720. Back when it was picked 1280x1024 was the most common resolution on low end monitors. Today the default low end resolution is 1366x768 (26.65% on steam); it's also the second most commonly used one (after 1080p).Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Agreed. It's pretty silly to "replace" a higher resolution with a lower one.frozentundra123456 - Saturday, January 31, 2015 - link
I would disagree. It is quite reasonable, because many laptops use 768p, as well as cheap TVs.