Meteor Lake Brings Accelerated AI to UCFF PCs

Intel’s Meteor Lake sequence of processors has had a drawn-out launch since its particulars have been officially revealed in September 2023. The sequence marks Intel’s foray into the patron market with a tile-based chiplet configuration held along with Foveros packaging. Much like Tiger Lake, the main target of Meteor Lake has primarily been on the mobile market – ultraportables and notebooks. Nonetheless, this has not prevented Intel and its companions from introducing it as a follow-up to Raptor Lake-P and Raptor Lake-H within the SFF / UCFF desktop market.

ASRock Industrial has persistently been the primary to market with ultra-compact form-factor motherboards and mini-PCs, with product bulletins usually coinciding with Intel’s launch of its newest and best cell processors. Meteor Lake has not been any completely different, with the NUC(S) Ultra 100 BOX series launching in direction of the top of This fall 2023. In the mean time, Intel’s NUC business was taken over by ASUS. ASUS’s first main product announcement after the acquisition got here within the type of the Meteor Lake-based Revel Canyon NUCs on the 2024 CES.

The flagship NUC Extremely 100 BOX system is the NUC BOX-155H primarily based on the Intel Core Extremely 7 155H. The Revel Canyon NUC lineup features a mannequin primarily based on the Core Extremely 7 165H with vPro capabilities, with its declare to fame being the power to hit 5 GHz on the efficiency cores. This evaluate takes an in depth have a look at the options and efficiency profile of the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-155H and the ASUS NUC14RVHv7. The evaluation additionally helps in establishing the potential and advantages of Meteor Lake for the UCFF desktop market over its predecessors and the competitors.

Introduction and Product Impressions

The final decade has seen important strides in processor efficiency in addition to energy effectivity. Coupled with developments in thermal options, we now have seen compact methods with low-power SoCs turning into able to changing cumbersome desktops for a lot of use-cases. This pattern gained mainstream consideration with Intel’s introduction of the ultra-compact form-factor (4in. x 4in.) NUC within the early 2010s.

The 4×4 form-factor continues to carry sway even right now, as evidenced by the number of UCFF methods launched by a number of distributors yearly. Each the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-155H and the ASUS NUC14RVHv7 we’re on this evaluate make the most of the tried and examined 4×4 form-factor.

ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-155H

ASRock Industrial has been serving the commercial methods market with compact boards and mini-PCs because the days of Intel Skylake (6th Gen) / Braswell. Having taken over ASRock’s Beebox design, the corporate’s product releases on this class have had an everyday cadence.

The corporate has been recurrently iterating on the unique design and making enhancements over time. The shiny fingerprint-magnet of a chassis was lastly changed with a matte high within the Raptor Lake era. This yr, we’re seeing a revamp of the internals to accommodate a thermal answer able to dealing with the warmth generated by Gen4 SSDs working at full speeds. The NUC BOX-155H being checked out right now is the tall model with assist for a 2.5″ SATA drive.

Along with the primary unit, the NUC BOX-155H package deal comes with a VESA mount and corresponding screws, M.2 mounts and screws, a mixed SATA knowledge and energy cable appropriate with the SATA port on the interior board, an person guide, and a 120W AC adapter (19V @ 6.32A) coupled with a geo-specific energy twine. The gallery beneath offers a complete have a look at the chassis design and I/O ports placement, in addition to the format of the interior board.

Our evaluate pattern from ASRock Industrial was a barebones system. We opted to put in 2x 16GB Essential DDR5-5600 SODIMMs and a 2TB Samsung SSD 990 PRO SSD.

Entry to the SSD and SODIMM slots is obtained by eradicating 4 screws from the underside of the system. The mount for the two.5″ drive can be connected to the underside, as proven within the image beneath. One of many key updates on this iteration of the chassis design is the presence of a thick metallic blocks with affixed thermal pads connected to the metallic mount. These pads make shut contact with the put in SSDs and SODIMMs. Care should be taken by the top person to take away the plastic movie masking the thermal pads after the corresponding elements are put in.

The addition of this thermal answer ought to ostensibly result in cooler DRAM and SSD temperatures beneath stress. This is likely one of the features evaluated additional down on this evaluate. The wires from the WLAN / BT card beneath the M.2 2280 slot get affixed to the chassis on the opposite facet. Not seen within the above image, however included within the gallery, is the notebook-style cooler that acts because the thermal answer for the MTL-H processor.

ASUS NUC14RVHv7

Since its introduction within the early 2010s, the NUC lineup has acted as a reference design for the 4×4 form-factor in every processor era. The Revel Canyon NUC continues this custom. Externally, there’s not a lot distinction between the brand new models and the Raptor Lake-P-based Enviornment Canyon NUCs. The NUC14RVHv7 being checked out right now is the tall model with assist for a 2.5″ SATA drive.

Along with the primary unit, the NUC14RVHv7 package deal comes with a VESA mount and corresponding screws, a screw configuration to lock within the energy twine, person manuals and security info, together with a 120W (19V @ 6.32A) AC adapter. Our evaluate pattern from ASUS got here with 2x 8GB SK hynix DDR5-5600 SODIMMs and a 512GB Samsung PM9A1a SSD pre-installed.

One of many key enhancements made within the Revel Canyon NUC over the Enviornment Canyon NUC is the transfer to a totally tool-less operation for the elements set up. A sliding mechanism holds the underside of the chassis in place. The slider will also be locked with a twist, if wanted. Pulling out the metallic underside reveals a receptacle for a 2.5″ drive. This additionally incorporates a copper block with thermal pads, as proven within the image beneath.

The SATA ribbon cable with each energy and knowledge is pre-installed within the system. The M.2 SSDs are locked in place with the assistance of a rubber peg / screw holder system that does not require any instruments to mount / dismount the drive.

Assessment System Specs

Analysis of SFF / UCFF methods is carried out with the BIOS settings at default. Nonetheless, ASRock Industrial has all the time really helpful us to current outcomes from each the default (CPU Efficiency set to Regular Mode) in addition to a tweaked configuration (CPU Efficiency set to Efficiency Mode). The distinction between the 2 settings pertains to the facility limits configuration for the processor. By default, it’s set to 28W, whereas the efficiency mode will increase it to 40W.

One of many key variations between the BIOS options of the Enviornment Canyon NUC and the Revel Canyon NUC is the adoption of a dynamic PL1 configuration because the default. Primarily based on the minimal assist textual content, this appears much like the skin-temperature conscious energy administration (STAPM) scheme utilized in latest AMD methods. Instruments working within the OS detect the PL1 setting as 64W for the ASUS NUC14RVHv7, however the BIOS truly configures it to be dynamic.

The total specs of the evaluate samples are offered within the desk beneath.

Within the subsequent part, we check out the methods’ setup course of and comply with it up with an in depth platform evaluation.