System Builder Marathon Q3 2015: AMD Mini PC

How We Tested

Test System Components

At twice the price of the Munchkin, there's little information we can glean from comparing it against builds from last quarter. However the Q1 systems were $700 and $1300, so the Munchkin will slot nicely between them.

Both of those systems feature Intel CPUs (an i3 and i7, respectively), and Intel's had the CPU efficiency crown for a while. I already know the Munchkin will get slaughtered in the productivity benchmarks. I'm not too worried about that because I built this as a LAN box. The Q1 $1300 machine has a GTX 970 as well, so this is a perfect opportunity to test my hypothesis. If I'm right and the 860K isn't a big bottleneck, we should see similar framerates between the two, especially at the higher detail levels.

I've done something a little different this time in calculating system cost. I've tallied the total cost for each system into Complete System, Hardware Only, Performance Parts, and Core Components categories. Core Components includes the CPU, CPU cooler, motherboard, RAM, GPU, system drive, and power supply. The Performance Parts category take the Core group and adds the case. My reasoning on this is that the case is an integral part of system cooling and directly responsible for the overclocks achieved. The Hardware Only category should be self-explanatory, and the Complete System total includes the OS.

Benchmark Suite

As with my motherboard reviews, I set this machine to stock clocks, enabled AMD Cool'n'Quiet and other energy saving features, and set the CPU fan to maximum. I use Windows default "Performance" power option preset for everything except idle power consumption where it's set to "Balanced."