ASRock Beebox Review: A Fanless Braswell UCFF PC
by Ganesh T S on July 14, 2015 8:00 AM ESTNetworking and Storage Performance
We have recently started devoting a separate section to analyze the storage and networking credentials of the units under review. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.
It must be noted that the SSD in our review sample was industrial-grade. The claimed speeds of 510 MBps reads and 300 MBps writes indicate that the controller in the mSATA SSD is likely the Silicon Motion SM2246EN. The PCMark 8 storage bench numbers keep the Beebox in the top half of the graph.
On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client (Zotac ID89-Plus) is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iPerf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iPerf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iPerf and present the highest number in the graph below.
In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.
The Realtek 8821AE 1x1 802.11ac / BT 4.0 combo is no stranger to our testbed. We have seen it before in our GIGABYTE BRIX Pro as well as BRIX Gaming reviews. Unfortunately, the performance of the mPCIe card in the Beebox is not that great - this could be due to a number of factors such as host CPU limitations (Cherry Trail vs. Core-series) and/or antenna placement.
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MapRef41N93W - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
He said he wants to play ripped blu-ray's perfectly, so I assume he means straight off the disc loseless MKVs. iPad can't do that (you'd need to compress the files to H.264).khanov - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
Numbers or pure speculation? I think you might be surprised how many people have home theater systems.Navvie - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
This. My parents have had a 50" TV and 6.1 surround sound for, well, years now. I'd struggle to be 100% accurate, but I'd guess 8 years.And this is not me giving them my old equipment, they had speakers and an AV amp/receiver before I did.
johnhopfensperger - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
Bitstream audio doesn't offer any advantage over PCM.abhaxus - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
Things may have changed but the two AVRs I have do not perform full audio processing on Multichannel LPCM. One of them will not even do Audyssey correction. Not going to replace a fantastic sounding $600 AVR when other devices (notably chromebox) can Bitstream under Linux for less money.nathanddrews - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
Correct. Very few AVRs will perform processing on LPCM. There are pros and cons to this, but in most cases, it's a con. HD bitstreaming has been "a thing" for a decade now. It's inexcusable for a new CPU/IGP to not support it. Laughable, even.joex4444 - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
Being able to send DTS-MA over optical/coaxial does offer an advantage if the AV receiver can decode it, though. Very uptight audiophiles may be concerned that a) the AV receiver decodes it "better" or b) the use of multiple 3.5mm to RCA cables to transfer 5.1/7.1 audio introduces more noises than a purely lossless digital connection would. However in a system like this, it's more important that the small amount of CPU power it does have isn't being burned to decode the audio but is instead saved by simply dumping it bit-for-bit over the coaxial/optical connection.Gadgety - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
@losergamer04I totally agree.
twizzlebizzle22 - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
It finally looks like somebody understands that an extra 16GB of nand shouldn't cost the consumer £100.fic2 - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
But it is hard to know what the price is. For $20 you go from 32G->128G SSD, 2G->4G memory, but loose the Win10 Home license.