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
Power Consumption and Thermal Characteristics
The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 4K display being driven through the HDMI port of the core computing unit in both configurations. In the graph below, we compare the idle and load power of the Khadas Mind Premium with other systems evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, as well as our custom stress test with Prime95 / Furmark, and noted the peak as well as idling power consumption at the wall.
While the load numbers put the Mind Premium in the top half of the graph, the idle numbers are very disappointing. The load numbers are consistent with the TDP and suggested PL1 / PL2 values for the processors in the systems, and do not come as any surprise. While the Arena Canyon NUC idled at 4.84W, and the NUC BOX-1360P/D5 at 6.44W, the Mind Premium idles at 11.06W. Adding the dock to the mix drives that up by a few watts. It should be possible for Khadas to tweak the default BIOS settings to optimize this aspect.
Stress Testing
Our thermal stress routine is a combination of Prime95, Furmark, and Finalwire's AIDA64 System Stability Test. The following 9-step sequence is followed, starting with the system at idle:
- Start with the Prime95 stress test configured for maximum power consumption
- After 30 minutes, add Furmark GPU stress workload
- After 30 minutes, terminate the Prime95 workload
- After 30 minutes, terminate the Furmark workload and let the system idle
- After 30 minutes of idling, start the AIDA64 System Stress Test (SST) with CPU, caches, and RAM activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the previous AIDA64 SST and start a new one with the GPU, CPU, caches, and RAM activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the previous AIDA64 SST and start a new one with only the GPU activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the previous AIDA64 SST and start a new one with the CPU, GPU, caches, RAM, and SSD activated
- After 30 minutes, terminate the AIDA64 SST and let the system idle for 30 minutes
Traditionally, this test used to record the clock frequencies - however, with the increasing number of cores in modern processors and fine-grained clock control, frequency information makes the graphs cluttered and doesn't contribute much to understanding the thermal performance of the system. The focus is now on the power consumption and temperature profiles to determine if throttling is in play.
| Custom Stress Test - Power Consumption Profile | |||
The cooling solution for the processor package is effective, and the package power doesn't dip below the PL1 value of 28W throughout the duration in which it is stressed. The iGPU alone seems to have a power budget of around 20W.
| Custom Stress Test - Temperature Profile | |||
On the temperature front, the package remains below 85C and there is no throttling from a package power consumption perspective. Certain parts of the SSD reach worrisome temperatures (as high as 78C) even when it is not subject to active stress.
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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.