ASRock Beebox-S 7200U Kaby Lake UCFF PC Review
by Ganesh T S on February 7, 2017 8:00 AM ESTNetworking and Storage Performance
Networking and storage are two major aspects which influence our experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the ASRock Beebox-S 7200U. 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.
The Samsung SSD 950 PRO PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD is able to deliver on its full potential when used in the Beebox-S 7200U. The uplink to the SiP is true PCIe 3.0 x4, unlike some of the Skylake-U UCFF PCs.
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 with an Intel GbE LAN port 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.
Despite sporting the same WLAN adapter as the Beebox-S 6200U, we find that the Wi-Fi performance of the Kaby Lake unit is much worse compared to the Skylake version. Some customer reviews have indicated that swapping the pigtail connections in the WLAN card helps in improving the performance, though we found that out after our benchmarking was completed.
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fanofanand - Thursday, February 9, 2017 - link
This is probably why they are tapping AMD for iGPU's, or at least those are the rumors.surfnaround - Tuesday, February 21, 2017 - link
The GTX630 (or 730, or whatever nvidia deems should fill its place) is your friend...25watt max, faster than OBG... and only tends to add 3watts at idle...
Sene - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link
thanks but I want to use only for 1080p, no 4K files. Would that be OK with basic settings ?HideOut - Tuesday, February 7, 2017 - link
When they gonna learn to use 2x2 AC wireless...Samus - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link
I know...but money. It's an easy corner to cut, annoyingly. I can't tell you how many OEM systems I upgrade monthly from crap non-AC or crap 1x1 mPCIe adapters. And it's not the simplest part to upgrade, either, when you are dealing with Dell, HP and Lenovo's obsession with whitelisting specific parts.fanofanand - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link
You are undoubtedly right but it's still a big impact on the user experience waiting for videos to buffer. Seems like another stupid beancounter idea.lordmocha - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link
"After some back and forth with ASRock, and getting hold of an updated LSPCon firmware and BIOS (v1.60), we were able to get Netflix 4K streams to work."Any word on the availability of the updated LSPcon firmware? Is it available for download, are new units being shipped with it yet?...
ganeshts - Thursday, February 9, 2017 - link
Latest LSPCon firmware with HDCP 2.2 support is already available for download in the Utilities section here:http://www.asrock.com/nettop/Intel/Beebox-S%20Seri...
I will check with them on the BIOS...
Ranger1065 - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
It's abundantly clear that Anandtech no longer gives a damn about what its readers are interested in.BrokenCrayons - Friday, February 10, 2017 - link
AT's articles are broadly representative of what the computer industry is doing. Presuming you're interest is in DIY desktop computers, there are exactly two GPU companies and two CPU companies that release new products at predictable intervals with predictable increases in performance. Honestly, there's not much to talk about that would keep those sorts of people happy between release cycles. It'd therefore be more accurate to say that the computer industry no longer cares what Ranger1065 is interested in.