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Review: PC Specialist Magma A10

by Parm Mann on 30 May 2014, 15:30

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacexb

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Test Methodology

Comparison Systems

System Name Gigabyte Brix Pro Intel NUC D54250WYK PC Specialist Magma A10 PC Specialist Vanquish Mini 130 Zotac Zbox Nano ID69 Plus Zotac Zbox Sphere OI520
Processor Intel Core i7-4770R @ up to 3.9GHz Intel Core i5-4250U @ up to 2.6GHz AMD A10-7850K @ up to 4.0GHz Intel Core i3-4130 @ 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-4500U @ up to 3.0GHz Intel Core i5-4200U @ up to 2.6GHz
Cooler Gigabyte Brix Pro reference Intel NUC reference AMD reference Intel reference Zotac Zbox Nano reference Zotac Zbox Sphere reference
Motherboard Gigabyte M4HM87P NUC QS87 reference Asus A88XM-Plus Asus H81I-Plus Zotac reference Zotac reference
Memory G.Skill 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) (added) Corsair 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) (added) Kingston Hyper-X Beast 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) Kingston Hyper-X Genesis 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB) Crucial 4GB DDR3 (1x4GB) Crucial 4GB DDR3 (1x4GB)
Memory Speed 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-13-13-30-2T @ 1,600MHz 11-12-11-30-1T @ 2,133MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz
Integrated Graphics Intel Iris Pro 5200 Intel HD 5000 AMD Radeon R7 - Intel HD 4400 Intel HD 4400
Discrete Graphics - - - Palit GeForce GTX 660 2GB - -
Sound Card Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio
Storage 180GB Intel mSATA SSD (added) 128GB Plextor M5M mSATA SSD (added) 1TB Seagate ST1000DX001 SSHD 1TB Toshiba HDD 500GB Samsung ST500LM012 HDD 500GB Samsung ST500LM012 HDD
Optical Drive - - Samsung DVD Writer Lite-On DVD Writer - -
PSU Gigabyte (135W, external) Intel NUC (65W, external) Corsair VS350 (350W, internal) Corsair VS450 (450W, internal) Delta Electronics (65W, external) Delta Electronics (65W, external)
Chassis Gigabyte Brix Pro Intel NUC Aerocool DS Cube Red Edition Cooler Master Elite 130 Zotac Zbox Nano Zotac Zbox Sphere
Operating System Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added) Windows 8.1 (64-bit, added)
Standard Warranty Two years Two years Three years (one-year collect-and-return, one-year parts, three-year labour) Three years (one-year collect-and-return, one-year parts, three-year labour) Two years Two years
Approx. System Cost £750 £450 £469 £550 £600 £420

CPU Benchmarks

HEXUS PiFast Our number-crunching PiFast test is used to benchmark the computational power of each system's CPU.
Cinebench Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses as many cores as possible.
HandBrake Free-to-use video encoder that stresses all CPU cores.

Memory and Storage Benchmarks

AIDA64 Benchmark that analyses memory bandwidth and latency.
CrystalDiskMark Popular free-to-use storage benchmark, used to gauge sequential performance and aggregated 4K QD32 speeds.

System and Gaming Benchmarks

PCMark 8 System-wide examination that uses the Home preset, run with OpenCL acceleration.
3DMark DX11, run at the Firestrike default test.
Aliens vs. Predator 1,920x1,080 resolution, 2xAA, 4xAF, medium quality.

Miscellaneous Benchmarks

Power Consumption Noted for system idling, under HandBrake video-transcoding load, and for GPU playing Aliens vs. Predator.
Temperature Noted for CPU idling, under HandBrake video-transcoding load, and for GPU playing Aliens vs. Predator.