Intel NUC 12 Pro Wall Street Canyon Kits Review: Alder Lake in UCFF Avatar
by Ganesh T S on January 26, 2023 11:30 AM ESTSystem Performance: Miscellaneous Workloads
Standardized benchmarks such as UL's PCMark 10 and BAPCo's SYSmark take a holistic view of the system and process a wide range of workloads to arrive at a single score. Some systems are required to excel at specific tasks - so it is often helpful to see how a computer performs in specific scenarios such as rendering, transcoding, JavaScript execution (web browsing), etc. This section presents focused benchmark numbers for specific application scenarios.
3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R23
We use CINEBENCH R23 for 3D rendering evaluation. R23 provides two benchmark modes - single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of different PC configurations in both supported modes provided us the following results.
The performance numbers tally with the 40W PL1 allocation in the actively-cooled NUC 12 Pro kits compared to the 28W number for the same processor in the NUC BOX-1260P.
Transcoding: Handbrake 1.5.1
Handbrake is one of the most user-friendly open source transcoding front-ends in the market. It allows users to opt for either software-based higher quality processing or hardware-based fast processing in their transcoding jobs. Our new test suite uses the 'Tears of Steel' 4K AVC video as input and transcodes it with a quality setting of 19 to create a 720p AVC stream and a 1080p HEVC stream.
Despite the Ryzen 7 5800U being configured with a 25W-30W target TDP, the larger number of high-performance cores enable it to perform almost as well as the Alder Lake-P systems configured with a higher power limit in these multi-threaded benchmarks.
The faster iGPU clocks in the Core i7-12x0P and a better allocation of the power budget to the iGPU help the actively-cooled NUC 12 Pro kits to lead the pack in this QSV benchmark.
Archiving: 7-Zip 21.7
The 7-Zip benchmark is carried over from our previous test suite with an update to the latest version of the open source compression / decompression software.
The larger number of high-performance cores enables the Ryzen 7 5800U to surpass the NUC 12 Pro kits in this multi-threaded benchmark.
Web Browsing: JetStream, Speedometer, and Principled Technologies WebXPRT4
Web browser-based workloads have emerged as a major component of the typical home and business PC usage scenarios. For headless systems, many applications based on JavaScript are becoming relevant too. In order to evaluate systems for their JavaScript execution efficiency, we are carrying over the browser-focused benchmarks from the WebKit developers used in our notebook reviews. Hosted at BrowserBench, JetStream 2.0 benchmarks JavaScript and WebAssembly performance, while Speedometer measures web application responsiveness.
From a real-life workload perspective, we also process WebXPRT4 from Principled Technologies. WebXPRT4 benchmarks the performance of some popular JavaScript libraries that are widely used in websites.
Web browsing user-experience continues to be dictated by single-threaded performance. Within the list of compared systems, the actively-cooled NUC 12 Pro kits were expected to be on top based on the processors. There are no surprises across the full gamut of browser benchmarks.
Application Startup: GIMP 2.10.30
A new addition to our systems test suite is AppTimer - a benchmark that loads up a program and determines how long it takes for it to accept user inputs. We use GIMP 2.10.30 with a 50MB multi-layered xcf file as input. What we test here is the first run as well as the cached run - normally on the first time a user loads the GIMP package from a fresh install, the system has to configure a few dozen files that remain optimized on subsequent opening. For our test we delete those configured optimized files in order to force a fresh load every second time the software is run.
The fast cores in the Core i7-12x0P are of great help here, with thermal throttling also not coming into the picture for the Bleu Jour Meta 12.
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dontlistentome - Thursday, January 26, 2023 - link
There's quite a few discounts floating around for the 11th gen at the moment, so probably a better bet for many users.As ever Intel send the i7 - i've been looking at the i3-1220p version - effectively the i5-1235u - 2x P plus 8x E cores should be better thermals, still great peak performance and should live nicely in an Akasa Turing case fanless. Only frustration is there onlyseems to be about £40 between the i3 and i5.
I think if you're using these as a desktop the Dell/HP/Lenovo micro desktops are a better bet - bigger for better cooling so should be quieter.
1_rick - Thursday, January 26, 2023 - link
I've been using a Beelink SEI12 for a couple of weeks, the 1235U version, and it's pretty impressive, all things considered. I did notice that out of the box it will tend to be power limited to keep the fan noise reasonable: Prime95 settles in very quickly to a speed of around 2500MHz for the P cores and 100MHz slower for the E cores. But if you're doing anything that isn't that computationally intensive, it feels plenty snappy, especially compared to, say, a 5yo Dell Latitude (even when that was new). Surprisingly, it'll even play Minecraft (unmodded) pretty well.dontlistentome - Friday, January 27, 2023 - link
Nice. I've got an i7-1260p thinkpad from work and it's a furnace that thermally throttles constantly. I don't need 4 fat cores for a box that will be running pretty gentle server services (basic file-sharing, MySQL for Kodi, Roon, Home Assistant etc) two can handle the peaks with the E cores humming away in the background. I may just go for an 8 E core i3-300N box if they appear soon.nandnandnand - Friday, January 27, 2023 - link
It might be worth it to go to 1215U or 1235U instead depending on the use case. Alder Lake-N drops a memory channel, supports only 16 GB memory, and drops many of the PCIe lanes. If the specs on ARK are accurate. Even the weird Intel Processor U300 might be better.diamondsw - Thursday, January 26, 2023 - link
Given the recent introduction of the M2 Mac Mini, it would be very interesting to see how Intel's small form factor integrated system compares to Apple's. We haven't seen much head-to-head between Intel and Apple Silicon in a while, and a lot has changed (more for Intel than Apple). I imagine performance and power consumption would be closer these days.timecop1818 - Thursday, January 26, 2023 - link
What do you need to compare? The NUC runs a real OS and can actually be used for serious work, while the apple offering can only scroll Facebook and Instagram but at 120HzGrabo - Thursday, January 26, 2023 - link
While "a real OS" and "serious work" makes your comment harder to take seriously you have a point in that the Nuc can run any OS (except perhaps macOS) whereas the Macmini is closely associated with MacOS (I hope Asahi gets to where it wants to go and enables Linux on Apple's arm implementation). I have little doubt the Macmini is the more power efficient machine, especially the M2. (Am currently writing this on a NUC12WSHi5. It works pretty well but don't force it to do 120Hz and play youtube videos. I kind of wish more reviewers would mention the NUC fan. Even at "quiet" it behaves like the small fan that it is, sudden jumps to 100% fan noise as the CPU or GPU load suddenly increases)Kuhar - Friday, January 27, 2023 - link
I agree with you 100% - both on comment about Apple and NUC. The problem with those NUC fans is IMHO their coolers arent big enough (not enough mass - same problem with most laptops) so the fan starts every time even for relatively small temperature increase. And the fan curve isnt to my liking aswell - i would prefer if fan would spin constantly with lower RPMs than to start/stop all the time.max - Friday, February 3, 2023 - link
Because it'll be interesting. That's why. Mabye not for the wintel-fanboys like You, which need couple of years to grow up. MacOS i very powerful OS, and Apple hardware is the best in its class. I agree, maybye not for kids like you, so don't bother. Nobody cares what is your opinion.erotomania - Thursday, January 26, 2023 - link
Thanks Ganesh!$167 for a 100 MHz clock bump (1260P -> 1270P). Anything else included with that? I looked and could not find.