Logic Supply ML100G-30 Fanless Broadwell vPro Industrial NUC Review
by Ganesh T S on April 29, 2015 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- Fanless
- NUC
- Industrial PC
- Passive Cooling
- Logic Supply
Performance 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. This is simply a test of CPU performance. As expected, the higher burst clock rate in the ML100G-30 helps it score better than the other systems it is compared against.
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.
The above results track what we observed in the x264 benchmark, and the reason behind it is also the same.
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. Since the Core i5-5300U with vPro capabilities is aimed at the business / enterprise market, it does have AES-NI support. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program 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 Logic Supply ML100G-30 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.
The Logic Supply ML100G-30 performs admirably in the CPU-bound stages. However, when it comes to memory bandwidth-sensitive stages, the unit comes in the middle of the pack.
Dolphin Emulator
Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the CPU capabilities and the memory bandwidth available (more of the former).
The results are as expected, with very little to separate the ML100G-30 from the benchmark leader (the enthusiast configuration of the NUC5i5RYK Broadwell NUC).
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Flunk - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Sometimes, but not now. Right now they're second notch.Jorgisven - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Given that NUC is an Intel branded product, I'd think seeing AMD in a NUC unlikely. You can get a Brix from Gigabyte that supports AMD options, or the Sapphire Edge. These have done alright, but nothing extraordinary, due to equivalent pricing, but less than equivalent performance. Still functional, but not a great value proposition.der - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
noiceUplink10 - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
What is the most ironic is that this 365/24/7 unit does not come with secondary/redundant ethernet port in case the one fails. I am of the opinion that at least two ports should be on every motherboards from 120$ miniPCs and 70$ motherboards to this one. Some may disagree about that but nobody can disagree about 2 ports in industrial grade NUC.As for HTPC, you have two mDP ports and that is sufficient. If monitor manufacturers do not want to implement future (proof) standard it is their own mistake.
And this is not a barebone because you cannot order it without memory stick.
DarekLogic - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Darek here from Logic Supply. One of the other models in the ML100 Series, the ML100G-10 (http://www.logicsupply.com/ml100g-10/) does offer Dual LAN. We're also exploring other emerging motherboard options to enable additional dual NIC models.Ammaross - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Darek, thanks for clarifying. When researching to buy Industrial PCs, it seems you have to dig to find options with dual NICs and is not readily available (findable) on most manufacture's sites.Ammaross - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Unfortunately, the ML100G-10 is only Bay Trail, and thus not the most ideal solution. :(Uplink10 - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
I like hearing that because dual NIC models are wanted and second one can enable a secondary route in case the first one fails.Ammaross - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
"What is the most ironic is that this 365/24/7 unit does not come with secondary/redundant ethernet port in case the one fails"The dual nic isn't in case one of the nics fail on the device, but in case one of the >>Switches<< fails (or needs to be rebooted/serviced/etc). If a NIC dies on the board, the other one will likely be affected too (since they usually would use the same NIC controller and work like a dual-port add-in NIC).
cjs150 - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Two points;1. When a manufacturer comes onto the forum, with all the potential to be flamed, I believe they should be complimented and encourage. So well done Logic supply
2. If the model has a mini DP port, surely a simple miniDP to HDMI adapter would be sufficient to allow it to run as an HTPC.
To be fair to Logic Supply HTPC use is not the market (I think) of the model they supplied. Tranquil PC make nice (but pricey) fanless cases for HTPC use