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Review: Asus VivoMini UN42

by Tarinder Sandhu on 2 February 2015, 15:00

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacoiw

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Testing methodology

Comparison Systems
System Name Asus VivoMini UN42 Gigabyte Brix Pro Intel NUC D54250WYK PC Specialist Magma A10 PC Specialist Vanquish Mini 130 Zotac Zbox Nano ID69 Plus Zotac Zbox Sphere OI520
CPU Intel Celeron 2957U @ up to 1.4GHz 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
CPU Cores / Threads 2 / 2 4 / 8 2 / 4 4 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4
CPU TDP 15W 65W 15W 95W 54W 15W 15W
CPU Cooler Asus VivoMini Gigabyte Brix Pro reference Intel NUC reference AMD reference Intel reference Zotac Zbox Nano reference Zotac Zbox Sphere reference
Motherboard Asus UN42 Gigabyte M4HM87P NUC QS87 reference Asus A88XM-Plus Asus H81I-Plus Zotac reference Zotac reference
Memory Hynix 2GB DDR3 (1x2GB) 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 11-11-11-28-1T @ 1,600MHz 11-13-13-30-2T @ 1,600MHz 11-1211-30-1T @ 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 HD Graphics Intel Iris Pro 5200 Intel HD 5000 AMD Radeon R7 - Intel HD 4400 Intel HD 4400
Dedicated Graphics - - - - Palit GeForce GTX 660 2GB - -
Sound Card Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio Onboard audio
Storage 32GB SK hynix 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 Asus (65W, external) Gigabyte (135W, external) Intel NUC (65W, external) Corsair VS350 (350W, internal) Corsair VS450 (450W, internal) Delta Electronics (65W, external) Delta Electronics (65W, external)
Chassis Asus VivoMini 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) 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 One year 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. Build Cost £190 £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.
CrystalDiskMark Popular, free-to-use storage benchmark, used to gauge sequential performance.

System and Gaming Benchmarks
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.

Notes

The numbers presented here are for reference, comparing the sub-£200 Asus VivoMini PC against a selection of small and large PCs costing significantly more. We're interested to see how much performance is lost when relying on the power of the Celeron processor and 32GB mSATA SSD alone.


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