Performance Benchmarks
As I installed Windows and the appropriate drivers for the X2, I had the feeling of a system no faster than the LIVA X that preceded it. I must point out the difference in system specs between the two, with our LIVA X unit at 4 GB of memory and a 64 GB eMMC drive, and the X2 arriving with only 2 GB of memory and a 32 GB drive. This lower RAM/storage number seem to be the standard for Braswell systems in general, if the base specs of the new Intel Braswell NUC can be used a reference.
The LIVA X2 uses the Celeron N3050 Braswell SoC, a dual-core 1.6 GHz processor with 2 MB of L2 cache and turbo boost speeds up to 2.16 GHz. This is (at least on paper) a slight upgrade to the LIVA X's Celeron N2808, a dual-core Bay Trail-M SoC with only 1 MB of L2 cache but similar base/boost speeds.
Moving right into some benchmark results, let's see how the LIVA X2 performed compared to last years model – with performance from a quad-core Bay Trail-M part (Pentium N3540) via a Dell Inspiron 11 3000-series laptop thrown in for reference.
SiSoft Sandra
I separated the CPU arithmetic tests here to more easily show the single vs. multi-thread results.
The N3540 in the Dell Inspiron 11 is a quad-core part, and it of course will lead in every multi-threaded benchmark against the dual-core parts. Of interest is how closely the Braswell N3050 and Bay Trail-M N2808 parts perform, with the newer N3050 holding the advantage with integer performance.
Here we see a shift with the Bay Trail-M parts displaying higher per-thread performance during the floating-point tests; first with single-float, and then double-float performance:
Next we'll look at the aggregate multi-media performance:
Once again last year's LIVA X out-performs the Braswell LIVA X2, with the Bay Trail-M N2808 providing a slight advantage in both single and multi-threaded performance.
Geekbench 3
To provide another look at the CPU performance from these SoCs, I ran the latest version of Geekbench (in 32-bit mode) on the systems.
Here we see a repeat of the SiSoft Sandra tests, with the Braswell SoC taking the lead in integer performance, but trailing in floating-point performance.
3DMark – Cloud Gate
These mini-PCs certainly aren't going to allow anything but casual gaming, but I ran the Cloud Gate benchmark to see what improvement there might be in the graphics department with this new LIVA.
Here we see significant graphics performance gains with the Braswell SoC in the LIVA X2, though physics performance was higher with the LIVA X. The LIVA X2's graphical advantage extends to desktop productivity, as the X2 immediately recognized my 2560×1440 monitor and permitted full native resolution, while last year's LIVA X was limited to 1920×1080 output (both connected via HDMI).
Next I'll cover my experience with network performance, video playback, and general desktop use.
Sebastian, do you think the
Sebastian, do you think the Liva X2 or an Asus Chromebox CN60 would be better as a computer illiterate family member computing solution for light internet browsing, email, picture viewing, word processing, and gaming (solitaire)?
I think the CN60 would be a
I think the CN60 would be a lot snappier considering they all use Haswell parts, especially with Chrome OS as I'm sure it's better optimized for limited hardware. The 16GB storage is a negative, as the LIVA comes with 32GB standard, but you lose half of that to the Windows install on the LIVA…
I'm torn here. If I had to use one myself I'd go with the CN60 because of the faster CPU and I'd just deal with the storage limitation by using an external drive (or high capacity SD card). Part of this comes down to price, of course. The Core i3 CN60 is about $200, LIVA X2 is about $160.
In either case I'd install Ubuntu if it was my daily driver. In my experience Linux runs better on these mini-PCs, and I'd be content with the productivity experience of LibreOffice and Firefox.
Why not look at a Mint Box
Why not look at a Mint Box with Linux Mint factory installed, if you want ease of use and a nice UI!
Go to Microcenter/Etc. and
Go to Microcenter/Etc. and get a last generation Ivybridge or Haswell laptop NEW and on sale with windows 7/8.1! There will be core i3/i5 laptops that will have much better features for around $300 for the i3 laptop models, the i5 laptop models a little more. The GPUs in some of the Liva devices use low cost Intel Celeron/Atom SKUs that are not going to be as powerful as Intel’s earlier generation regular form factor laptop(IvyBridge/Haswell) SKUs anyways. you are going to have to have a monitor and keyboard at extra costs, so the retail channels are still offering some very nice deals on NEW IvyBridge, or Haswell based laptop SKUs.
It’s too bad there are not any AMD Carrizo offerings in these types of Mini devices, but that Intel contra revenue and other Intel influences are keeping AMD pushed out of some markets. Carrizo not Carrizo-L with a quad core excavator CPU and the AMD latest GCN integrated graphics would make for some nice affordable systems with better than Intel graphics, and at Carrizo’s price point Intel would definitely not be offering their best graphics in any Intel SKUs!
You guys know office runs on
You guys know office runs on the web right why even install libreoffice when office.com has excel, word, and powerpoint.
Libreoffice is going to come
Libreoffice is going to come with the Linux distros as standard on most. I use Libreoffice and even Libreoffice can accelerate spreadsheet/other workloads on the GPU if there is openCL support for the GPU. That’s why I’d love to see AMD’s Carrizo SKUs on some of these Mini type devices. The AMD latest GCN graphics has the ACE units for accelerating Libreoffice and any other Application that makes use of OpenCL, and a lot of applications, open source and proprietary, are using OpenCL(for compute acceleration on the GPU), and OpenGL(for graphics). Vulkan when it is released will offer even better acceleration of graphics and non graphics computations on the GPU.
Can these mini PCs be set up
Can these mini PCs be set up to stream steam from a more powerful PC I the house?
2gb of RAM is quite frankly a
2gb of RAM is quite frankly a useless amount to have in a modern PC. It leaves the PC constantly using its storage drive (I speak from experience here). I think the impressions would have been far better with a unit that had more integrated memory.
In this day and age where DDR3 is so cheap, having so little RAM is a warning sign that the unit has been cut down too far. While you can make do with 4gb for an office machine just doing MS Office and emails, I could not advise someone to buy a machine with less than 8gb RAM.