System Performance: UL and BAPCo Benchmarks

Our 2022 Q4 update to the 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. New additions include BAPCo's CrossMark multi-platform benchmarking tool, as well as UL's Procyon benchmark suite.

UL 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. The scores for each contributing component / use-case environment are also graphed below.

UL PCMark 10 - Performance Scores

The NUC BOX-1360P/D5 shows marked improvement over the D4 model across the board. In the 'Performance' setting, the scores are better than the Arena Canyon's numbers. The AMD models enjoy significant lead in the productivity benchmark. The graphics performance of the RDNA2 iGPU in the 4X4 BOX-7735U also lends its weightage to the overall scores, with both operating modes of the Rembrandt refresh model leapfrogging the NUC BOX-1360P/D5.

UL Procyon v2.1.544

PCMark 10 utilizes open-source software such as Libre Office and GIMP to evaluate system performance. However, many of their professional benchmark customers have been requesting evaluation with commonly-used commercial software such as Microsoft Office and Adobe applications. In order to serve their needs, UL introduced the Procyon benchmark in late 2020. There are five benchmark categories currently - Office Productivity, AI Inference, Battery Life, Photo Editing, and Video Editing. The battery life benchmark is applicable to Windows devices such as notebooks and tablets. We presents results from our processing of the other three benchmarks.

UL Procyon - Office Productivity Scores

In the Office workloads, the Raptor Lake-P systems all perform quite similar to each other irrespective of the memory technology used.

However, on the energy front, the 28W PL1 setting coupled with DDR5 SODIMMs result in the lowest consumption numbers for workload completion. The Arena Canyon NUC fares slightly worse in terms of scores while consuming the same amount of energy.

Moving on to the evaluation of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom, we find the normal mode configuration of the NUC BOX-1360P/D5 performing similar to the Arena Canyon NUC while consuming lesser energy. From a raw performance viewpoint, the 40W PL1 setting is enough to make the system climb up to the top spot.

UL Procyon - Photo Editing

UL Procyon evaluates performance for video editing using Adobe Premier Pro.The two operating modes of the NUC BOX-1360P/D5 hold on to the top two spots.

UL Procyon - Photo Editing

In terms of energy consumption, the DDR5 configuration in the Normal mode manages to be the most efficient of the lot.

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.

BAPCo CrossMark 1.0.1.86 - Sub-Category Scores

The two modes of the NUC BOX-1360P/D5 take the top two spots, but the performance of the DDR5 configuration is quite similar to the DDR4 ones. Since CrossMark attempts to consolidate different workloads together without idle time intervals and play it back in a non-real-time environment, it is not entirely representative of real-world performance like SYSmark 25.

Setup Notes and Platform Analysis System Performance: Miscellaneous Workloads
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  • ganeshts - Wednesday, July 19, 2023 - link

    Any links to such a 'NUC' ?

    I do have a Phoenix-based GTR7 from Beelink here in my testbed, but driver issues are preventing it from completing our benchmark suite. I am waiting for a new driver release from AMD.
  • lemurbutton - Friday, July 21, 2023 - link

    And any M2 Mac Mini would destroy any Zen4 NUC.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Monday, July 24, 2023 - link

    Until you have to run something not in the MAC ecosystem. OOPS!
  • PeachNCream - Friday, July 21, 2023 - link

    I don't think destruction is quite the right to articulate your apparent thoughts. Perhaps "result in higher scores on benchmarks" or maybe "complete compute workloads sooner" would fit better in this case. Computer nerds appear to be rather detached from reality when expressing thoughts which gives all of them a bad reputation among the better positioned and more intelligent normal population.
  • Samus - Saturday, July 22, 2023 - link

    The problem with AMD enterprise and industrial products has always been management adoption. Intel has IT depts hooked on vPro, iME, AMT, etc.
  • nicolaim - Wednesday, July 19, 2023 - link

    It's 2023. Only two USB-C ports, none on the back.
  • Samus - Thursday, July 20, 2023 - link

    That was my gripe. Replace the HDMI and DP ports with two TB4-compliant USB-C ports on the rear would be the minimum modification for such an 'industrial' appliance. Seriously, why do you have to plug something into the front to use Thunderbolt?
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, July 20, 2023 - link

    Probably because nobody uses or cares about Thunderbolt. Sure it has that usual small, insane rabid fanbase that any obscure computer standard had in the past, but outside of the inevitable idiots that inflate its utility, no one cares and no one profits from it.
  • abufrejoval - Monday, July 24, 2023 - link

    That's a bit harsh.

    Yes, using TB to its full potential is somewhat expensive but given a choice, I'll always opt for the TB variant over pure USB, if only for 10Gbit Ethernet.

    Front vs. back: I guess they have done their studies on how people use TB and unfortunately habits vary between people.

    Most of my dual TB systems have one TB in the front, the other in the back and that works pretty well for me. The 10GBase-T NIC goes into the back port and the front port is open to anything transient, which could be just some USB media (these native SATA 10Gbit USB sticks are hard to beat via anything native TB), a temporary display (Alt-DP handy there) and in theory to things like TB networking, which is typically transient.

    The older systems just have a single TB and expect a hub connected on the back, which seems sensible.

    Two in the front and two in the back would be better still, even if you couldn't use all four at full speed for lack of PCIe lanes or a cheap enough switch.

    Yet again, when your NUC is stuck to the back of a display, who cares what's front or back, because it's all behind the screen anyway and it's only people like me, wo use clusters of these NUCs as µ-servers in a "tiny-rack" who get bothered by the orientation of those ports.

    Changing port orientation in a NUC means a mainboard redesign and few would want to pay for that. So I guess their asked their volume customers and this is what those came up with.

    Very few vendors want to aggravate the customers.
  • sjkpublic@gmail.com - Thursday, July 20, 2023 - link

    Performance comparison says it all. 1360P DOA. 7735U $100-200 cheaper for ASROCK. Even cheaper if you look at other companies.

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