ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1165G7 Mini-PC Review: An Ultra-Compact Tiger Lake Desktop
by Ganesh T S on August 26, 2021 8:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- NUC
- UCFF
- Willow Cove
- ASRock Industrial
- Tiger Lake-U
Power Consumption and Thermal Performance
The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 4K display being driven through the HDMI port. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the ASRock NUC BOX-1165G7 with other low power PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, as well as a combination of Prime95 and Furmark, and noted the maximum sustained power consumption at the wall.
The load power consumption of the NUC BOX-1165G7 actually turned out to be the least of all systems. It doesn't idle as nicely, possibly due to the presence of 64GB of DRAM and the PCIe 4.0 SSD.
Our thermal stress routine starts with the system at idle, followed by four stages of different system loading profiles using the AIDA64 System Stability Test (each of 30 minutes duration). In the first stage, we stress the CPU, caches and RAM. In the second stage, we add the GPU to the above list. In the third stage, we stress the GPU standalone. In the final stage, we stress all the system components (including the disks). Beyond this, we leave the unit idle in order to determine how quickly the various temperatures in the system can come back to normal idling range. The various clocks, temperatures and power consumption numbers for the system during the above routine are presented in the graphs below.
| ASRock NUC BOX-1165G7 System Loading with the AIDA64 System Stability Test | |||
The active cooling solution has no trouble keeping the package temperature below 95C even under extreme stress. The thermal strip over the ADATA XPG GAMMMIX S50 Lite also prevents the SSD from going higher than 70C under extended traffic. The overall air movement ensures that the SSD idles at a sub-40C temperature. On the power front, we see that the package power remains constant at 28W in all scenarios where the CPU is involved. This shows that the thermal solution is good enough to sustain the 28W TDP.
An artificial stress routine using Prime95 and Furmark was also processed. Each workload runs for 60 minutes, with a 30 minute overlap between them. Prime95, configured for maximum power consumption, goes in first, and is followed after 30 minutes by Furmark. The system is then left idle for another 30 minutes. The metrics graphed for the AIDA64 SST case are also graphed for the custom stress test.
| ASRock NUC BOX-1165G7 System Loading with Prime95 and Furmark | |||
The custom stress test also shows that the system is able to sustain 28W package power consumption. The Furmark test is more stressful in terms of GPU power consumption compared to AIDA64's SST GPU workload.
Overall, the NUC BOX-1165G7's thermal solution is good enough for the Tiger Lake-U processor to provide its best possible performance.
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TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, August 26, 2021 - link
Really dissapointed there are no games benchmarked." If AMD's OEMs manage to create a mini-PC with, say, the Ryzen 7 5800U in a 25W cTDP-up configuration, Tiger Lake-U's appeal could be dented further."
Well that's just not going to happen. Even now 4700/4800u NUC sized PCs are extremely rare, and AMD isnt going to bother making their own.
xsoft7 - Thursday, August 26, 2021 - link
there is a Zen3 mini PC.. with 5900HXhttps://store.minisforum.com/collections/all-produ...
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, August 27, 2021 - link
Now that's interesting. Not a single tech outlet has talked about these guys yet.ganeshts - Friday, August 27, 2021 - link
Coverage dated Aug. 4th: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16866/minisforum-un...TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - link
That's nothing more then a product announcement. It's not a review, and if we base a products coverage by announcements then there are 15 electric trucks on the market already.meacupla - Thursday, August 26, 2021 - link
By "rare", do you mean product variety, or product availability?Because I can totally find the 4x4 BOX-4800U in stock, at newegg. They even have a BRIX with 4800U in stock.
Of course, if you are outside of NA, then GL with that.
domih - Thursday, August 26, 2021 - link
4x4 BOX-4800U user here in California. I bought it on NewEgg months ago, then it became out of stock, then apparently NewEgg is expecting a new batch. Good news for you guys: it is even less expensive now. Experience matches this review. Yes, the 4800U model has DASH allowing out-of-band management. The box is so small that some wide USB keys won't coexist pacifically with others. Ubuntu 20.04. When I ran Phoronix tests the box went quite hot and the fan is not really silent. Should be OK as HTPC though, won't get that hot playing video.ifThenError - Friday, August 27, 2021 - link
>> Well that's just not going to happen.Well not quite so fortunately! Gigabyte has anounced a UCFF barebone going up to a Ryzen 7 5800u to be released in "available in Q3 2021".
https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/1915
In theory you could order one within the next 1 - 2 months, if and when you can really purchase these, we will see...
quiksilvr - Friday, August 27, 2021 - link
More disappointed that upon looking at the gallery it is two USB-C ports and not a Thunderbolt 4 port on the device.ginandbacon - Sunday, October 10, 2021 - link
I own this device, you have to install a TB driver and I have a TB4 Hub attached with two TB3 NVME drives and they both work at TB3 speeds (40Gbps), Asrock didn't want to pay Intel, I bet Asrock gets sued over this. You can find the board on Ebay for around $260 if you are willing to wait, it's the better deal, the case is junk anyways. I was under the impression that both front USB C ports where TB4 but Asrock hinted they were and only one is.