Khadas Mind Premium Review: Raptor Lake-P in a Modular Portable Workstation
by Ganesh T S on September 14, 2023 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- Mini-PC
- Raptor Lake-P
- Khadas
HTPC Credentials
The 2022 Q4 update to our system reviews brings an updated HTPC evaluation suite for systems. After doing away with the evaluation of display refresh rate stability and Netflix streaming evaluation, the local media playback configurations have also seen a revamp. This section details each of the workloads processed on the Khadas Mind Premium as part of the HTPC suite.
YouTube Streaming Efficiency
YouTube continues to remain one of the top OTT platforms, primarily due to its free ad-supported tier. Our HTPC test suite update retains YouTube streaming efficiency evaluation as a metric of OTT support in different systems. Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video is the chosen test sample. On PCs running Windows, it is recommended that HDR streaming videos be viewed using the Microsoft Edge browser after putting the desktop in HDR mode.
| YouTube Streaming Statistics | |||
The GPU in Khadas Mind Premium supports hardware decoding of VP9 Profile 2, and we see the stream encoded with that codec being played back. The streaming is perfect, thanks to the powerful GPU and hardware decoding support - the few dropped frames observed in the statistics below are due to mouse clicks involved in bringing up the overlay.
The streaming efficiency-related aspects such as GPU usage and at-wall power consumption are also graphed below for both configurations.
| YouTube Network Streaming Efficiency | |||
HDR playback of the YouTube stream is very energy efficient, and matches that of the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1360P/D5. Obviously, adding the dock does increase the energy consumption, but it is still much better than most of the other systems in the mix.
Hardware-Accelerated Encoding and Decoding
The transcoding benchmarks in the systems performance section presented results from evaluating the QuickSync encoder within Handbrake's framework. The capabilities of the decoder engine are brought out by DXVAChecker.
Video Decoding Hardware Acceleration in Khadas Mind Premium
The iGPU in Raptor Lake-P system supports hardware decode for a variety of codecs including AVC, JPEG, HEVC (8b and 10b, 4:2:0 and 4:4:4), and VP9 (8b and 10b, 4:2:0 and 4:4:4). AV1 decode support is also present. This is currently the most comprehensive codec support seen in the PC space.
Local Media Playback
Evaluation of local media playback and video processing is done by playing back files encompassing a range of relevant codecs, containers, resolutions, and frame rates. A note of the efficiency is also made by tracking GPU usage and power consumption of the system at the wall. Users have their own preference for the playback software / decoder / renderer, and our aim is to have numbers representative of commonly encountered scenarios. Our Q4 2022 test suite update replaces MPC-HC (in LAV filters / madVR modes) with mpv. In addition to being cross-platform and open-source, the player allows easy control via the command-line to enable different shader-based post-processing algorithms. From a benchmarking perspective, the more attractive aspect is the real-time reporting of dropped frames in an easily parseable manner. The players / configurations considered in this subsection include:
- VLC 3.0.18
- Kodi 20.2
- mpv 0.35.1 (hwdec auto, vo=gpu-next)
- mpv 0.35.1 (hwdec auto, vo=gpu-next, profile=gpu-hq)
Fourteen test streams (each of 90s duration) were played back from the local disk with an interval of 30 seconds in-between. Various metrics including GPU usage, at-wall power consumption, and total energy consumption were recorded during the course of this playback.
All our playback tests were done with the desktop HDR setting turned on. It is possible for certain system configurations to automatically turn on/off the HDR capabilities prior to the playback of a HDR video, but, we didn't take advantage of that in our testing.
| VLC Playback Efficiency | |||
Playback was perfect for all codecs except AV1 (the CPU is not strong enough for software-only 8Kp60 decoding), and the power consumption numbers are excellent - matching that of the Arena Canyon NUC near the top of the table.
| Kodi Playback Efficiency | |||
The scenario seen with VLC is replicated in Kodi also - no proper AV1 playback, but energy numbers good enough to put the Mind Premium on par with the Arena Canyon NUC at the third place in the table.
| mpv (Default) Playback Efficiency | |||
mpv playback with the gpu-next video output driver is reasonably energy efficient. We also have hardware accelerated decode for AV1. However, the playback for that clip still has issues, with more than half of the frames getting dropped in the video output (the decoder itself doesn't drop any frames).
| mpv (GPU-HQ) Playback Efficiency | |||
Putting additional stress on the GPU shaders for video post processing does result in increased energy consumption, but there are no dropped frames. The relative positions in the energy consumption graph remain the same. The 8Kp60 AV1 decode video output issue remains the same irrespective of the used profile.
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wr3zzz - Thursday, September 14, 2023 - link
This is what Intel NUC should've been. 450 grams, sleek look, magnetic snap-on interface for compatible docking station, e-GPU, portable and fixed displays.hubick - Thursday, September 14, 2023 - link
Thunderbolt eGPU's and stuff are already niche enough, and being invested in that ecosystem, the proprietary connector is a deal breaker for me. I fully lost interest when I saw the RAM was soldered. It's a shame they went proprietary, cuz this looks neat.meacupla - Thursday, September 14, 2023 - link
It has 32GB of LPDDR5 5200. How much more do you want?Samus - Friday, September 15, 2023 - link
Seriously, and there aren't really any options out there for high speed low profile memory. I'd take soldered LPDDR5 over any regular DDR4\5 socket, just make sure you get 16GB-32GB depending on your future use case. Nobody is going to keep running this thing 10 years from now when 32GB won't suffice.Meanwhile most PC's ship with 16GB and I still see 8GB in laptops, which has been pretty standard for...10 years.
PeachNCream - Thursday, September 14, 2023 - link
This was absolutely sent to Future for the free advertising that an article about it would generate AND it's a pretty stupid idea since, well laptop and desktop workstations both exist and offer either more flexibility and the same relative compute power (typically with a larger company's backing) OR more compute power for the same cost. The gimmicky form factor is only a gimmick and nothing more.ganeshts - Thursday, September 14, 2023 - link
'Product sent for free advertising' - The way PR works is that the agency is tasked with promoting product awareness. 'Advertising' - at least in the TV / Internet age - refers to something that focuses purely on the positives of a product and pushes viewers / readers to go out and purchase the product. It is always a good idea to approach any article or review with wariness, but it looks like you want to see malice where there is none.PR agencies and reps pitch countless products for review, and we don't have enough resources or man-hours to justify an AnandTech-level review for each of those pitched products. Personally, I take up a product for review only if it offers something new or novel. There is absolutely no doubt that the Mind Family of products is something that has not been attempted successfully before. It may appear gimmicky, but the engineering effort towards creating a 256 Gbps external peripheral interface is definitely not something to be viewed with derision (which is what your post comes across as).
Every time a company tries to create something new with focus on multiple product categories - 'a jack of all trades', there is always going to be a 'master of one' competitor. The question is whether the new product can evolve over multiple generations to re-frame the paradigm. (I would take the example of an iPod that appeared when there were other MP3 players in the market too. In fact, other than branding and industrial design, it wasn't offering too much novelty. But, that slowly metamorphosed into the iPhone juggernaut over a 15 - 20 year timeframe).
The reason I am typing out this lengthy response is not because I have a vested interest in promoting the Mind family. In fact, you can see we do not even carry a link to the crowdfunding site where Khadas is currently selling the system before moving it to the Khadas shop / Amazon. Rather, I want to make sure readers are able to see the big picture as well as detailed specifics on where Khadas should be improving. I would say that in the last 5 - 7 years, this mini-PC is probably the one that I have spent the most time in reviewing - just because it is very different from what is usually put out in this space. And, I would love readers to understand that.
Coming back to the 'advertising' claims - did you even read the concluding section? Khadas actually links to various reviews from their crowfunding campaign. I suspect it is unlikely they are going to link to our review. We have always aimed to present a balanced view of products and its capabilities. As it stands today, Khadas still has much to prove. That said, there is plenty of potential and the Mind Link interface is certainly praiseworthy for its capabilities (it is better than external OCuLink and Thunderbolt 5 from a technical viewpoint).
meacupla - Thursday, September 14, 2023 - link
When do you expect to see the GPU and monitor docks become available?When they do, are you going to review those?
ganeshts - Friday, September 15, 2023 - link
The GPU should be available in June 2024. There is no ETA yet for the other peripherals.As for review, it depends on Khadas. If they offer, I will definitely take it up [ as we do have a concrete idea of how eGPU enclosures need to be evaluated - https://www.anandtech.com/show/13944 ]
meacupla - Friday, September 15, 2023 - link
oof, that is a rough launch window for the GPU dock. They should have stuck to an already established connector, like occulink.Samus - Friday, September 15, 2023 - link
Probably not worth considering the i7-1360P. It is (in real world performance) virtually identical to the i5-1340P.I have two notebooks with an i5-1240P and i7-1260P respectively and you literally would never be able to tell them apart in any task. The only difference as far as I can tell is slightly higher base and boost clock, and the i7 has more L3 cache that doesn't seem to mean anything in most applications. The GPU core has an additional core (so 96 EU's over 80 EU's in the i5.) They are otherwise identical CPU's with the same P and E cores.