ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-N97 and GMKtec NucBox G2 Review: Contrasting Compact ADL-N Options
by Ganesh T S on October 6, 2023 9:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- UCFF
- Mini-PC
- ASRock Industrial
- Alder Lake-N
- micro-PC
- GMKtec
Power Consumption and Thermal Characteristics
The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 4K display being driven through the HDMI port of the system. In the graph below, we compare the idle and load power of the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-N97 and the GMKtec NucBox G2 with other systems evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, as well as our custom stress test with Prime95 / Furmark, and noted the peak as well as idling power consumption at the wall.
The numbers are consistent with the TDP and suggested PL1 / PL2 values for the processors in the systems, and do not come as any surprise. The idling numbers are reasonable, but for some reason, they are not as good as what Intel was able to achieve in their Wall Street Canyon and Arena Canyon NUCs (around 5W).
Stress Testing
Our thermal stress routine is a combination of Prime95, Furmark, and Finalwire's AIDA64 System Stability Test. The following 9-step sequence is followed, starting with the system at idle:
- Start with the Prime95 stress test configured for maximum power consumption
- After 30 minutes, add Furmark GPU stress workload
- After 30 minutes, terminate the Prime95 workload
- After 30 minutes, terminate the Furmark workload and let the system idle
- After 30 minutes of idling, start the AIDA64 System Stress Test (SST) with CPU, caches, and RAM activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the previous AIDA64 SST and start a new one with the GPU, CPU, caches, and RAM activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the previous AIDA64 SST and start a new one with only the GPU activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the previous AIDA64 SST and start a new one with the CPU, GPU, caches, RAM, and SSD activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the AIDA64 SST and let the system idle for 30 minutes
Traditionally, this test used to record the clock frequencies - however, with the increasing number of cores in modern processors and fine-grained clock control, frequency information makes the graphs cluttered and doesn't contribute much to understanding the thermal performance of the system. The focus is now on the power consumption and temperature profiles to determine if throttling is in play.
| Custom Stress Test - Power Consumption Profile | |||
We can see spikes to PL2 values for a very brief period in both systems before the package power stabilizes at the configured PL1 values - 12W for the ASRock NUC BOX-N97 and 10W for the GMKtec NucBox G2. Of additional interest is the maximum allowed iGPU power consumption. The N97 budgets 6W, while the N100 budgets 5W in the two evaluated systems.
| Custom Stress Test - Temperature Profile | |||
The thermal solution of both systems is excellent. The package temperature stabilizes around 80C at the configured PL1 numbers. The GMKtec NucBox G2 is more compact, but the package temperature ends up being almost the same as the NUC BOX-N97's under long-term stress. This is due to the lower PL1 value in the system with a smaller physical footprint.
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meacupla - Friday, October 6, 2023 - link
n100 vs n200, n200 is faster. That I can understandn100 vs n97, n97 is faster. Who came up with this naming scheme?
NextGen_Gamer - Friday, October 6, 2023 - link
Total agree, Intel had the opportunity with a new new series (Intel Processor N) and still messed it up. N50 is 2 cores, 6-Watts. N97, somehow, is 4 cores, at 12-Watts. Then you move "up" to N100, 4 cores, but at 6-Watts. N200 is the same as N100, but gets a small clockspeed bump and finally gets you the full Intel UHD Graphics @ 32 EUs. Then Intel went ahead and named the 8 core ones to Core i3 N300/N305 - why throw the i3 in there??? Why not just keep it as Intel Processor N300? At least the split between N300/N305 makes sense: N305 just gets a higher TDP, and nothing else.mode_13h - Sunday, October 8, 2023 - link
Lots of good points, here. However, the part about N97 can be partially explained in that I believe it's not one of their models meant for things like Chromebooks. Rather, it's more of a specialty/embedded part. If you look at them on ark.intel.com, the N97 lists its product segment as Embedded, while the N100's vertical segment is Mobile.The fact that they're aimed at different segments means their specs don't necessarily have to plot along the same continuum. Though, it'd be nice if they did.
NextGen_Gamer - Monday, October 9, 2023 - link
@ mode_13h - Ahh, you are right, that does explain it, a little at least haha. I am personally waiting for a nice NUC-type box to come around with the N200 in it, and *hopefully* a SO-DIMM for DDR5 and M.2 2280 for the SSD.mode_13h - Monday, October 9, 2023 - link
Beware of how many lanes are active on the SSD, though. PCIe 3.0 x1 is pretty disappointing, though it still beats SATA!I was expecting to see at least x2 - these SoCs don't have a ton of I/O, but they have one more lane than the previous generation. Going back 2 generations, Gemini Lake had only PCIe 2.0 x6! So, you'd really think they could spare at least 2 lanes for NVMe.
NextGen_Gamer - Tuesday, October 10, 2023 - link
I currently have the Intel NUC11ATKPE, with the Pentium Silver N6005 processor. My WD SN850 is running at PCIe 3.0 x2 right now, but I really don't see why these newer Alder Lake-N systems wouldn't want to spare a full PCIe 3.0 x4 for the M.2 slot. I would rather sacrifice other I/O and have your storage subsystem running as fast as it can.deil - Wednesday, October 11, 2023 - link
Well, its buldozer kind of thing.It's NEWER, with ddr5 instead of ddr4 AND $100 cheaper.
If your order them by price, performance matches.
sjkpublic@gmail.com - Friday, October 6, 2023 - link
Are the memory timing right? Seems like the ASROCK is a stronger box. Main diff is 2W of powerat idle? And $30 bucks?
ganeshts - Saturday, October 7, 2023 - link
Yes, memory timing is for LPDDR5-4800 (it is not comparable against DDR4-3200 timings or DDR5 timings).The ASRock box is substantially different from the G2 - check the I/Os and also more importantly it has scope for additional user configuration wrt RAM capacity and SSD capacity. The G2 has soldered RAM.
Btw, the difference in price is not $30, but more than $100. The G2 is ready out of the box for $230 with Win 11 Pro pre-installed. The NUC BOX-N97 needs RAM, SSD / HDD, and OS to be supplied by the user.
mode_13h - Sunday, October 8, 2023 - link
Also, the NUC BOX-N97 is from ASRock Industrial, and therefore presumably built to a higher standard and with better support!I've never heard of GMKtek - do they offer real support for US-based customers? What's the warranty on that unit? How long do you think they'll keep releasing BIOS updates for it?