The Zotac ZBOX CI660 nano Fanless mini-PC Review: A Promising HTPC Platform
by Ganesh T S on April 16, 2019 8:15 AM ESTHTPC Credentials - YouTube and Netflix Streaming
Our HTPC testing with respect to YouTube had been restricted to playback of a 1080p music video using the native HTML5 player in Firefox. The move to 4K, and the need to evaluate HDR support have made us choose Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video as our test sample moving forward. On PCs running Windows, it is recommended that HDR streaming videos be viewed using the Microsoft Edge browser after putting the desktop in HDR mode. We evaluated the CI660 nano in SDR mode.
Since the streaming was done in SDR mode, the VP9 video stream with Opus audio was played back.
Various metrics of interest such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption were recorded for the first four minutes of the playback of the above video. The numbers are graphed below.
The average power consumption for YouTube playback is slightly south of 20W. We see the GPU / D3D Load around the 40% mark in the initial stages when the lower resolution stream is decoded and upscaled for display at 4K resolution. The at-wall power consumption is correspondingly higher around 35W. However, once the 4K resolution stream starts getting decided, the media engine / decoder usage settles down around 50% and the D3D loading is no longer a significant factor.
The Netflix 4K HDR capability works with native Windows Store app as well as the Microsoft Edge browser. We used the Windows Store app to evaluate the playback of Season 4 Episode 4 of the Netflix Test Patterns title. The OS screenshot facilities obviously can't capture the video being played back. However, the debug OSD (reachable by Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D) can be recorded.
The (hevc) entry corresponding to the Video Track in the debug OSD, along with the A/V bitrate details (192 kbps / 16 Mbps) indicate that the 4K stream is indeed being played back. Similar to the YouTube streaming case, metrics such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption were recorded for the first three minutes of the playback of the title. The numbers are graphed below.
In the steady state (4K decode and playback), the power consumption is around 18W, and the media engine / decoder load is around 65%.
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jgraham11 - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
BAPCo's SYSmark 2018 is an application-based benchmark that has been developed by Intel engineers for Intel CPUs and does not truly reflect performance of any real world application by any other chip vendor. The fact that every other chip maker have all abandoned Bapco's boards tell you something. This is a known conflict of interest that degrades Anandtech's credibility by highlighting it. At least in the past the articles, these conflicts were pointed out regarding Bapco's shaky past.Daeros - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Anandtech's quality has been on a continuous downward slide, including increasing Intel/Nvidia bias, ever since Anand left. The site looks and sounds like it's written by children now - especially including comments the editorial staff post in comments sections and on twitter.Eris_Floralia - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Hey what about my AndreiDigitalFreak - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
While I would agree that the quality is not near as good as it was when Anand was around, I don't see any bias.PeachNCream - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
Read literally anything written about a Killer NIC.rrinker - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Seems like this article only compares Intel systems to other Intel systems - so what's the problem? Other than, of course, this article does not agree with some personal bias of yours, therefore all of Anandtech is now not credible, etc. A little extreme reaction don't you think? But such is the way witht he extremism in EVERYTHING these days. Social media has destroyed any chance for critical thinking. Anandtech does an article that's positive towards Intel, OMG BIASED, They hate AMD. They write a different article that's positive towards an AMD product - OMG BIASED! Why the hate on Intel?Irata - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Yup, using a benchmark by Bapco in which no chip company besides Intel seems to have confidence does leave a rather bad taste.nVidia, AMD and VIA all left the consortium back in 2011 and prior to that Bapco was found to have modified their benchmarks in a way that favored Intel CPU
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 17, 2019 - link
SYSmark 2018 is one of several tools we use in this article. It is certainly not the only tool we use, and it's not a tool we use in all situations (e.g. architecture deep dives). Meanwhile for SFF PCs in particular, its power measurement capabilities are pretty handy to have. Plus the only other systems we're comparing it to are all Intel-based anyhow.MDD1963 - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
If BAPCO SYSMark was developed by Intel engineers, this would seem more an issue if/when comparing Intel systems to AMD, and not really an issue when comparing all Intel systems...mammothboy - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
The Realtec NICs may be a blessing for use with Windows Server (Intel has a nasty habit of not providing drivers for many of their NICs). Having two will let you set up a team there (perhaps to use as a AD/DNS server) or use as a firewall/router (not that I'd use Windows Server for either).I've generally had good luck with Realtec with Windows Server and PFSense.