Intel NUC DC53427RKE / HYE Review

Performance Analysis

The extra 1GHz CPU clock speed offered by Turbo Boost made a massive different in our Media Benchmarks, boosting the image editing score by over 40 percent from 835 to 1,201. This saw it take the scalp of the stock speed AMD A10-6800K too although it was still several hundred points short of matching a desktop Ivy Bridge Core i3.

The difference was just as marked in the video encoding test - despite having the same number of physical and virtual cores, the Core i5-based DC53427RKE was nearly 50 per cent faster thanks to Turbo Boost, although again the extra grunt provided by the desktop Core i3 and Core i5 chips was very evident. In the multi-tasking test, the increase wasn't as dramatic but we still saw a hike of over 25 percent. Overall, the performance increased by nearly 40 per cent - a massive difference and the overall score of 1,247 was only a little way behind that of AMD's A10-6800K.


Power consumption has changed little with the DC53427RKE drawing near-identical amounts of power as the Core i3-based D33217CK, albeit within our margin of error of 2W. With AMD's APUs drawing a huge amount more at idle and load, the case for using a non-gaming HTPC is pretty strong if your primary concern is power consumption. SATA 6Gbps performance was 15MB/sec better than the D33217CK in terms of write speed, and pretty much the same for read speed.

Left 4 Dead 2 is our game test benchmark for this end of the spectrum when it comes to CPUs and while the difference wasn't as marked as in our other tests, the Core i5 was noticeably faster here too, boosting the minimum frame rate from 25fps to 29fps at 1,280 x 720 and from 20fps to 23fps at 1,680 x 1,050 - both increases of more than 10 per cent. Noise wasn't a massive issue in general use, but in our full-on stress test, the fan did spin up to mini hair dryer levels. Using the fan controls in the EFI will largely solve this, but under 100 per cent load the CPU does dish out a lot of heat for the small cooler to contend with.


Conclusion

The NUC is still a niche product, despite the increased performance of the DC53427RKE. It's no match for AMDs APUs when it comes to games, although at 720p you're not likely to be too disappointed, especially if you're not talking about demanding games. However, in our Media Benchmarks, the Core i5 offers a very substantial increase in performance - so much so that we have no problem recommending that you avoid the Core i3 models and go for their faster sibling instead, if desktop productivity as of any concern. With nearly 50 per cent more performance in some cases for around 25 per cent bigger outlay, it makes sense.

USB 3.0 is also a big plus and cases designed specifically for the DC53427RKE have ports built-in too. However, it would still be useful to have SATA ports if only to spur on the development of NUC cases to maybe offer more substantial HTPC-related features such as optical drives and hard disks. As it stands, though, it's still a much more expensive option than a desktop Intel Core i3 or AMD A10 system. However, if you're looking for a seriously small, low-power setup with grunt enough to cope with light photo and video editing the DC53427RKE gets our vote, especially when combined with one of the many fanless cases available for it.