Beelink MiNi PC SII Review: Intel Gemini lake Office Tool
The ultra-low
power platform GeminiLake released by Intel in the fourth quarter of 2017
includes Pentium Silver and Celeron which adopt the Goldmont architecture.
Gemini Lake belongs to the Atom family and is used to replace Apollo Lake. The
major improvements are on the architecture, increased frequency, optimized
multimedia capabilities, more resources for media decoding, and support for the
video format of 10bit (1.07 billion colors) such as VP9, namely, hardware
decoding of VP9 10-bit Profile 2. But the last generation Apollo Lake only
supports VP9 8-bit Profile 0. In short, this generation Gemini Lake will become
the new low-power decoding CPU which supports H.264/MPEG-2/VC-
1/JPEG/VP8/HEVC/HEVC
10-bit/VP9/VP9 10-bit.
Another characteristic of the new processor is
"connectivity", but it does not support Always Connected PC. Instead,
it integrates the Gigabit Wireless-AC 9560 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi module. Compared
with 802.11 b/g/n, the speed is 12 times that of the former one and even
exceeds the traditional Gigabit Ethernet connection, which means that users can
download files and enjoy faster streaming media. The other details are tedious,
LPDDR4-2400 and eMMC5.1/PCIe 2.0/. It supports USB 3.0/USB 2.0 and has 4 cores
(Goldmont + architecture). It adopts the 14nm process like the previous Apollo
Lake.
In May 2018, Beelink SI MiNi Pc was
upgraded to SII MiNi PC. Beelink SII MiNi Pc is equipped with the
new-generation ultra-low power platform of Celeron N4100 and Pentium N5000 to
replace the Apollo lake in SI MiNi PC. The power of N product line is 6W; the
specification is the same with that of SI, that is, 160mm*134mm*32mm; the
performance is very good; and the power consumption is very low. Although it
cannot be compared with the general laptop CPU, it can meet the needs of daily
office and audio/video entertainment.
Compared with
the previous SI’s Apollo lake, the Gemini lake for SII has been upgraded in CPU
frequency and other aspects to some extent. The RAM has been upgraded to
DDR4/2400MHz from DDR3/1866MHz. It has the dual-channel DDR4 RAM, thus the
speed is faster than that of the single-channel RAM of SI.
The key change lies in that the Cache has been
upgraded to 4MB with dual channels, each has 2MB. It also supports dynamic
allocation. If the customer uses the single-channel RAM, the system will
automatically allocate 4MB to one channel to improve the performance.
The Cache of
Apollo lake is 2M, each channel has 1M. It does not support dynamic allocation.
Low-power
N product line Gemini lake vs. Apollo lake
High-power
J product line Gemini lake vs. Apollo lake
Internal
architecture of Gemini lake chipset
Let’s take a look
at the Beelink SII miniPC powered by the Intel Gemini lake Chipset.
Beelink
SII has two configurations
|
Beelink
SII INTEL Gemini lake Celeron N4100
|
Beelink
SII INTEL Gemini lake Celeron N5000
|
|
4GB
LPDDR4
|
8GB
LPDDR4
|
|
64GB 3D FLASH
|
128GB
SSD
|
|
WIFI 2.4G/5.8G
|
WIFI 2.4G/5.8G
|
|
Blutetooth
BT4.0
|
Blutetooth
BT4.0
|
|
1000M
LAN
|
1000LAN
|
Celeron N4100 with
a good performance of overclocking is the first choice for cost performance.
Pentium N5000 has a higher performance. Both configurations can support the
2.5-inch mechanical hard disk and simultaneous and asynchronous display of dual
HDMI, which can bring excellent experience to your office.
Appearance
In terms of
appearance, we give up the style of the previous products, instead, we adopt
the design concepts different from the previous ones. It is three-dimensional
and looks unique. The case has a polished finish is made of hard composite
materials to prevent accidental collisions and damage to the internal
structure.
In terms of heat
dissipation, there are heat dissipation holes on both sides of the case, which
are different from the dissipation of the previous cases as they reduce
overheating resulted from poor heat dissipation.
SII has various
interfaces for peripheral devices. It has two latest 4K 60HZ HDMI 2.0 ports and
gives up the traditional VGA connector. With much better connectivity in high
definition, you will not worry about compatibility and the black screen
resulting from multiple video outputs can be solved. The video transmission is
more stable.
There is an
expansion interface that supports the expansion of 2.5-inch mechanical hard
disk on the back of SII MINI PC. It supports up to 2TB hard disk expansion,
allowing your MINI PC to have larger storage.
Motherboard
SII
does not have the shortcoming of SI. Its motherboard seems very sophisticated.
The arrangement of electronic components is more orderly and reasonable. It is
the greatest news for the pickiest user.
It
simultaneously supports two SSD hard disks of M.2 2280 and M.2 2242. Compared
with the first generation which supports only M.2 2240, it provides more choices.
Since
this generation Gemini Lake uses the BGA1090 slot, it’s an all-in-one design,
and the CPU is directly covered by the aluminum heat sinks using the special
dissipation structure with faster heat dissipation, low heat and ultra-low
power consumption. That means the platform does not need active cooling, thus
it can further reduce the noises of the CPU fan.
Accessories
Then
look at the results of the test software!
PC
Mark Office Performance test
SI N3450
SII
N4100
We
used the latest version of PCMark 10 which is widely regarded as a standard PC
benchmark tool to test the computer. PCMark 10 includes a set of comprehensive
testing items such as various tasks in the modern offices. It mainly test basic
operation and productivity operation. The former includes program start-up, web
browsing and video decoding, and the latter includes editing, excels and other
operations. PCMark series has always been used to gauge the comprehensive
performance of PC, and it can be applied to test the comprehensive performance
of modern office PC.
SII
N5000
After
the PC Mark test, in terms of office software performance, SII N4100 is
increased by about 30% compared to S1, and SII N5000 has a 50% increase.
Power
Test
The
following illustration is in standby power consumption (PS:p=ui , 1 degree
Power =1000w/h )
It can be seen that the power consumption on standby
is very low, that is only about 2.5W. It consumes only 0.0025kW/h, and only
1kW/h when it is in standby for 400 hours.
We stimulated the users' use and added a hard disk
and an USB external USB disk at the back for SII as well as a small speaker and
used Intel(R)ThermalAnalysisTool software for full-load operation of SII.
The full-load operation of Beelink SII MINI PC
consumes a power of only about 9.15W, which is outstanding.
It consumes only 0.01kW/h. 1kW/h can be used for 109
hours. Though it is in the ideal state, the power consumption is really low..
cpu-z
Detect
SI
and SII respectively uses Celeron N3450 of intel APOLLO lake series and Celeron
N4100, Celeron N5000 of intel Gemini Lake series. The main improvement is in
the core speed. And the improvement of frequency allows you to have faster and
smoother user experience.
As
SSD Memory Read-write test (all uses 5G file)
SI N3450 64G 2D FLASH（Test
Data）
SII N4100 64G 3D FLASH（Test
Data）
SI
and SII’s N4100 has no difference in data reading, but the speed of sequential
access has been improved. It has been increased by nearly 300% in the random
reading and writing of 4K and QD64. The Acc.Time has also been shortened.
As
we have upgraded the storage of SII N4100, 2D NAND FLASH of SI has been
upgraded to the 3D NAND FLASH of SII N4100, thus making data transmission
faster and more stable.
SII N5000 M.2 128G SSD （Test
Data）
In
SII N5000, we have equipped with a 128G SSD with the M.2 interface. Although both
of them use the FLASH memory, the ordinary RAM is very different from that of
the SSD. Whether it’s data reading and writing, SSD comprehensively exceeds
ordinary RAM. Seen from the testing scores, the reading and writing speed of
RAM have been increased by nearly three times.
Temperature
test
Inside
SII we have optimized its structure and added a brand new heat sink, a piece of
99% pure red copper sheet as the cooling fin, tightly connected the copper
sheet with the CPU through the thermal
grease silicone, thus accelerating the
heat transfer between CPU and heat sink and making the heat dissipate faster.
Whether
in normal operating or overload operating condition, the overall temperature of
SII is lower than that of SI.
Summarize:
After
a series of tests, it is easy to find that compared to the Apollo Lake on SI,
Gemini Lake has brought the "performance increase" of about 30%-50％.
It allows you to watch HD videos, halve the time to edit images or create
videos. It features mobile office, study and entertainment, family audios and
videos and other functions. When idle, it can be used as a server; when
overloaded, the power consumption of 6W is very low, so it is very attractive
to those who need to establish servers. It can run 24 hours a day.
Such
a powerful MiNi PC will definitely be very popular. We believe that the upgrade
of Beelink will significantly improve the entry-level office PC. It will be
worth looking forward to.
Learn more visit: www.bee-link.com
Skype: Beelink Official
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Beelink.fans/
Email: beelinkservice@bee-link.com
评论
发表评论