Intel Atlas Canyon (NUC11ATKPE) and GEEKOM MiniAir 11 UCFF PCs Review: Desktop Jasper Lake Impresses
by Ganesh T S on July 14, 2022 8:00 AM ESTSystem Performance: UL and BAPCo Benchmarks
Our 2022 test suite for Windows 11-based systems carries over some of the standard benchmarks we have been using over the last several years, including UL's PCMark and BAPCo's SYSmark. Starting this year, we are also including BAPCo's CrossMark multi-platform benchmarking tool.
PCMark 10
UL's PCMark 10 evaluates computing systems for various usage scenarios (generic / essential tasks such as web browsing and starting up applications, productivity tasks such as editing spreadsheets and documents, gaming, and digital content creation). We benchmarked select PCs with the PCMark 10 Extended profile and recorded the scores for various scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU and GPU in the system, though the RAM and storage device also play a part. The power plan was set to Balanced for all the PCs while processing the PCMark 10 benchmark.
As expected, Atlas Canyon comes out on top in all sections. Not surprising, given that it has the highest PL1 (15W) and PL2 (25W) settings, is equipped with the fastest possible DDR4-2933 RAM in dual-channel configuration, and comes with active cooling. The MiniAir 11 compares favorably against the June Canyon NUC in all except the Gaming component (where it loses out due to a combination of lesser number of EUs in the GPU and lack of dual channel memory). Additionally, it loses out against the CI331 nano consistently and against the JSLM-MINI in the Essentials and Productivity components - again, due to the lack of dual-channel memory.
BAPCo SYSmark 25
BAPCo's SYSmark 25 is an application-based benchmark that uses real-world applications to replay usage patterns of business users in the areas of productivity, creativity, and responsiveness. The 'Productivity Scenario' covers office-centric activities including word processing, spreadsheet usage, financial analysis, software development, application installation, file compression, and e-mail management. The 'Creativity Scenario' represents media-centric activities such as digital photo processing, AI and ML for face recognition in photos and videos for the purpose of content creation, etc. The 'Responsiveness Scenario' evaluates the ability of the system to react in a quick manner to user inputs in areas such as application and file launches, web browsing, and multi-tasking.
Scores are meant to be compared against a reference desktop (the SYSmark 25 calibration system, a Lenovo Thinkcenter M720q with a Core i5-8500T and 8GB of DDR4 memory to go with a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD). The calibration system scores 1000 in each of the scenarios. A score of, say, 2000, would imply that the system under test is twice as fast as the reference system.
SYSmark 25 also adds energy measurement to the mix. A high score in the SYSmark benchmarks might be nice to have, but potential customers also need to determine the balance between power consumption and the performance of the system. For example, in the average office scenario, it might not be worth purchasing a noisy and power-hungry PC just because it ends up with a 2000 score in the SYSmark 25 benchmarks. In order to provide a balanced perspective, SYSmark 25 also allows vendors and decision makers to track the energy consumption during each workload. In the graphs below, we find the total energy consumed by the PC under test for a single iteration of each SYSmark 25 workload. For reference, the calibration system consumes 8.88 Wh for productivity, 10.81 Wh for creativity, and 19.69 Wh overall.
Almost all the observations made for the PCMark 10 benchmarks hold true here too. The Atlas Canyon NUC is on top, and the ZBOX CI331 nano manages to sneak in ahead of the MiniAir 11 despite being passively cooled. The MiniAir 11 pays the penalty for prioritizing cooling requirements / silence (by lowering PL1 and PL2), and cost (by configuring the system with single-channel memory). However, the same aspects help the system in delivering very good energy efficiency - yes, it does perform slower in the benchmarks, but it makes up for it by consuming very less power for the workload duration. The comparison for the June Canyon and Atlas Canyon on the energy front is more interesting. The Atlas Canyon NUC delivers approximately 60% better performance at the cost of 18% additional energy.
BAPCo CrossMark 1.0.1.86
BAPCo's CrossMark aims to simplify benchmark processing while still delivering scores that roughly tally with SYSmark. The main advantage is the cross-platform nature of the tool - allowing it to be run on smartphones and tablets as well.
The relative performance seen in SYSmark 25 translate to CrossMark also, as expected. The responsiveness ratings vary significantly due to the usage of SATA SSDs in the MiniAir 11 and the ZBOX CI331 nano, compared to NVMe ones in others.
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JWade - Thursday, July 14, 2022 - link
comparing the two, how would they be if they had equal amounts of ram?dmill - Friday, July 15, 2022 - link
Can you also do an in depth review of the new HP 11 Windows tablet. Compared to the Surface Go3 and link the benchmarks from these NUCs and something like the Asus Vivobook 13 Slate so we can see how the thermals compare please. I want to get the HP, but I'm afraid HP may has castrated the performance.mode_13h - Friday, July 15, 2022 - link
Thanks for your ongoing coverage of machines built around Intel's efficiency-oriented CPUs.I appreciate the inclusion of Cinebench, compression, & other benchmarks, but what I'd really like to see are SPEC2017 numbers. Especially for the NUC, where I think they would tell us how these CPUs compare with many others you've covered.
DigitalFreak - Saturday, July 16, 2022 - link
Intel doesn't even use their own NICs. How sad.mode_13h - Sunday, July 17, 2022 - link
That's weird. Could it be related to fab capacity?t.s - Monday, July 18, 2022 - link
Nope. They usually differentiate their product. Below i3, you get realtek NIC. i3 and higher, you get intel NIC. below i3, you'll miss something like avx2 or others feature. i5 and higher, business use, you get vPro. And so on and on..George2022 - Sunday, July 17, 2022 - link
The progress over previous offerings in this class is obvious. Also visible is the lag due to the output delay. I hope Intel catches up next year with a significantly better product equipped with DDR5 RAM, and most modern external interfaces and inner technologies.mode_13h - Sunday, July 17, 2022 - link
I doubt they'll use DDR5, at this level. It's not really necessary and still commands a price premium that doesn't make a lot of sense for such a budget platform. Maybe its best selling point for systems at this price tier would be the performance improvement on single-DIMM configurations.Bruzzone - Sunday, July 17, 2022 - link
Panther Lake Tiger NUC 11 was a failure and barely produced beyond sample volume. Tremont Jasper Lake was introduced in February 2021 but did not ship till April and the J desktop version was not shipped at all until Atlas Canyon NUC that is a full 15 months after mobile N offerings became available. This week in the WW channel N mobile devices represent approximately the same volume in the channel as Alder i3 which is only 2.5% of AL for the week running 1.98% of full run volume to date. To date jasper Lake N mobile sales have been flat and only Celeron N4500 cleared down 43% in the last 11 weeks which is some sort of flushing because otherwise N sales are basically flat since launch. Speaks of Atlas Canyon? mb