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Review: MSI Cubi 2

by Parm Mann on 19 April 2017, 15:45

Tags: MSI, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadgcs

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Test Methodology

Comparison Systems - Part One

System Name ASRock BeeBox DinoPC Primal GT2 Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD Gigabyte Brix Gigabyte Brix S (2016)
Model N300 Primal GT2 GB-BNi7HG4-950 GB-BSi5T-6200 GB-BKi5HA-7200
CPU Intel Celeron N3000 Intel Core i5-6500 Intel Core i7-6700HQ Intel Core i5-6200U Intel Core i5-7200U
CPU Base Clock 1.04GHz 3.2GHz 2.6GHz 2.3GHz 2.5GHz
CPU Turbo Clock 2.08GHz 3.6GHz 3.5GHz 2.8GHz 3.1GHz
CPU Cores / Threads 2 / 2 4 / 4 4 / 8 2 / 4 2 / 4
CPU TDP / SDP 4W / 3W 65W 45W 15W 15W
Motherboard ASRock N3000-NUC Gigabyte Z170N-WiFi Gigabyte MKHM17P Gigabyte MKLP5BP Gigabyte MFLP5AP
Memory Team Group 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB) Crucial 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB) Crucial 16GB (2x8GB) Samsung 32GB (2x16GB) Kingston HyperX 16GB (2x8GB)
Memory Speed 1,600MHz 2,133MHz 2,400MHz 2,133MHz 2,133MHz
Graphics Intel HD Graphics Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 ITX 4GB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 4GB Intel HD 520 Intel HD 620
Primary Storage Team Group 128GB mSATA SSD 240GB Kingston SSDNow V300 SSD 512GB Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD 256GB Toshiba NVMe M.2 SSD 240GB Kingston HyperX Predator M.2 SSD
Secondary Storage - 1TB Seagate SSHD - - -
PSU Asian Power Devices (36W, external) FSP FSP500-60HHN (500W, internal) Delta Electronics (180W, external) FSP Group (90W, external) Asian Power Devices (65W, external)
Chassis ASRock BeeBox Fractal Design Core 500 Gigabyte Brix Gaming UHD Gigabyte Brix Gigabyte Brix S
Operating System Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit)
Date Reviewed January 2016 October 2015 October 2016 March 2016 November 2016
Cost As Reviewed £270 £899 £1,300 £665 £630

Comparison Systems - Part Two

System Name Gigabyte Brix S (2015) Intel Compute Stick Intel NUC Kit MSI Cubi 2
Model GB-BXi5H-5200 STCK1A32WFC NUC5i5RYH 014UK
CPU Intel Core i5-5200U Intel Atom Z3735F Intel Core i5-5250U Intel Core i3-7100U
CPU Base Clock 2.2GHz 1.33GHz 1.6GHz 2.4GHz
CPU Turbo Clock 2.7GHz 1.83GHz 2.7GHz -
CPU Cores / Threads 2 / 4 4 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4
CPU TDP / SDP 15W - / 2.2W 15W 15W
Motherboard Gigabyte MQLP5AP Intel Compute Stick reference Intel NUC5i5RYB MSI MS-B1421
Memory Adata 8GB (2x4GB) Soldered 2GB DDR3 (1x2GB) Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 (2x8GB) (added) SK hynix 4GB DDR4 (1x4GB)
Memory Speed 1,600MHz 1,333MHz 1,600MHz 2,133MHz
Graphics Intel HD 5500 Intel HD Graphics Intel HD 6000 Intel HD 620
Primary Storage 120GB Kingston SSDNow mSATA SSD 32GB eMMC 240GB Crucial M500 SSD 128GB Transcend MTS400 SSD
Secondary Storage 1TB Seagate Momentus HDD - - -
PSU Asian Power Devices (65W, external) Asian Power Devices (10W, external) Intel NUC (65W, external) Delta Electronics (65W, external)
Chassis Gigabyte Brix S Intel Compute Stick Intel NUC MSI Cubi 2
Operating System Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (32-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit)
Date Reviewed March 2015 May 2015 April 2015 April 2017
Cost As Reviewed £665 £130 £535 £450

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, Storage and System Benchmarks
AIDA64 Benchmark that analyses memory bandwidth and latency.
CrystalDiskMark Popular free-to-use storage benchmark, used to gauge sequential performance.

Miscellaneous Benchmarks

Power Consumption Noted for system idling and under HandBrake video-transcoding load.
Temperature Noted for CPU under HandBrake video-transcoding load.