Intel launched the Willow Cove micro-architecture with their Tiger Lake processors within the second half of 2020. These had been designed to span a variety of efficiency ranges and functions, with TDPs starting from as little as 7W as much as 65W.
While cellular techniques are the prime marketplace for the 7W – 15W SKUs, increased TDP processors have discovered themselves in quite a few completely different form-factors starting from notebooks and UCFF mini-PCs to full-blown gaming desktops. Many ultra-compact mini-PCs based mostly on Tiger Lake have been launched by completely different distributors in the previous few quarters, however challenges within the international semiconductor provide chain have resulted in scarce provide. ASRock Industrial was one of many first to announce a ‘NUC’ based mostly on Tiger Lake – the 1100 BOX collection. Introduced in October 2020, it began showing within the channel in early 2021.
We have already seen the capabilities of Tiger Lake in a gaming desktop (Beast Canyon NUC). In that system, Tiger Lake appeared in a 8C/16T 65W TDP avatar. Developments associated to ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines over the past decade have resulted in techniques which can be capable of efficiently deal with 28W TDP processors, and that has change into the de-facto normal for high-performance UCFF PCs. ASRock Industrial’s NUC 1100 BOX collection has three SKUs, all of that are based mostly on 28W TDP Tiger Lake-U processors. The flagship SKU is the NUC BOX-1165G7 based mostly on the Intel Core i7-1165G7.
Competitively talking, the Tiger Lake UCFF PCs are available at a time when techniques based mostly on AMD’s compelling 7nm Zen 2-based Ryzen 4000U collection of processors are already well-established available in the market. Advancements in energy effectivity and efficiency per watt, together with a slew of platform updates had enabled Zen 2-based mini-PCs to current a reputable problem to Comet Lake-based techniques by way of worth proposition. Can Tiger Lake shift the metric again in direction of Intel? This evaluation takes a have a look at the options and capabilities of the NUC BOX-1165G7, with some commentary on what Tiger Lake brings to the desk for machines on this form-factor.
Introduction and Product Impressions
ASRock is a widely known vendor within the client PC market. In 2011, the corporate arrange the ASRock Industrial enterprise unit to deal with industrial motherboards. The division branched out in 2018 as an unbiased vendor with unique deal with B2B merchandise. The firm has merchandise for deployment in small companies (workplaces), automation, robotics, safety, and different industrial / IoT functions.
Primarily, the corporate develops motherboards, and sells them to varied system integrators who can do their very own worth additions. For instance, OnLogic’s ML100G-40 relies on ASRock Industrial’s 4X4-V1000M AMD Ryzen Embedded motherboard. As we noticed in our evaluation of the ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-V1000M and the 4X4 BOX-4800U, the corporate additionally sells mini-PCs based mostly on the developed motherboards into the retail channel. The motherboard enclosure bears a robust resemblance to ASRock’s Beebox collection. ASRock has not up to date the Beebox because the introduction of Kaby Lake, probably not desirous to step into ASRock Industrial’s BOX collection of UCFF PCs.
ASRock Industrial has two distinct actively-cooled UCFF PC lineups – the NUC BOX collection based mostly on Intel’s processors, and the 4X4 BOX collection based mostly on AMD Ryzen. Using processors configured with TDPs as much as 28W, these clones of the Intel’s mainstream NUCs service a variety of functions. The NUC 1100 collection of Tiger Lake-U motherboards is available in three completely different variations, as we outlined in our protection of the introduction of the lineup final yr.
The NUC-1165G7 locations the 4.09″ x 4.02″ motherboard inside a chassis measuring 110 mm x 117.5 mm x 47.85 mm. The top permits ASRock Industrial to combine…
