ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1360P/D5 Review: Raptor Lake-P on the Leading Edge

GPU Performance: Synthetic Benchmarks

Intel did not make significant changes in the integrated GPU when moving from Alder Lake to Raptor Lake. Process maturity has allowed it to clock the iGPU a bit higher, but the number of EUs remains the same as in the previous generation. GPU performance evaluation typically involved gaming workloads, and for select PCs, GPU compute. Prior to that, we wanted to take a look at the capabilities of the iGPU in the Core i7-1360P.

The Intel Iris Xe Graphics in the Core i7-1360P handily outperforms the iGPU in the Ryzen 5000U. However, we saw in the review of the 4X4 BOX-7735U that RDNA2 managed to wrest back the crown for AMD in the iGPU space. The evaluation of GPU workloads in the NUC BOX-1360P/D5 and comparison against previous results can allow us to check whether DDR5 can provide some extra performance benefits.

GFXBench

The DirectX 12-based GFXBench tests from Kishonti are cross-platform, and available all the way down to smartphones. As such, they are not very taxing for discrete GPUs and modern integrated GPUs. We processed the offscreen versions of the 'Aztec Ruins' benchmark.

At lower resolutions, the higher power budget is a boon for the NUC BOX-1360P/D5. Even the normal mode outperforms the best possible numbers from the 7735U. However, a resolution increase results in the RDNA2 iGPU reclaiming the title.

UL 3DMark

Four different workload sets were processed in 3DMark - Fire Strike, Time Spy, Night Raid, and Wild Life.

3DMark Fire Strike

The Fire Strike benchmark has three workloads. The base version is meant for high-performance gaming PCs. It uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The Extreme version targets 1440p gaming requirements, while the Ultra version targets 4K gaming system, and renders at 3840 x 2160. The graph below presents the overall score for the Fire Strike Extreme and Fire Strike Ultra benchmark across all the systems that are being compared.

The GFXBench results had already revealed that the RDNA2 iGPU in the 7735U outperforms the Iris Xe iGPU in the Core i7-1360P. So, it is no surprise that the 7735U takes the top two spots in both versions of the Fire Strike benchmark.

3DMark Time Spy

The Time Spy workload has two levels with different complexities. Both use DirectX 12 (feature level 11). However, the plain version targets high-performance gaming PCs with a 2560 x 1440 render resolution, while the Extreme version renders at 3840 x 2160 resolution. The graphs below present both numbers for all the systems that are being compared in this review.

The usage of 1440p and 2160p resolutions again mean that the NUC BOX-1360P/D5 has to put up with the third place. There is a bit of an advantage for it over the DDR4-based Arena Canyon NUC and the NUCS BOX-1360P/D4 systems.

3DMark Wild Life

The Wild Life workload was initially introduced as a cross-platform GPU benchmark in 2020. It renders at a 2560 x 1440 resolution using Vulkan 1.1 APIs on Windows. It is a relatively short-running test, reflective of mobile GPU usage. In mid-2021, UL released the Wild Life Extreme workload that was a more demanding version that renders at 3840 x 2160 and runs for a much longer duration reflective of typical desktop gaming usage.

The Wild Life workloads finally see the NUC BOX-1360P/D5's 40W PL1 avatar successfully overtage the 7735U's best performance mode.

3DMark Night Raid

The Night Raid workload is a DirectX 12 benchmark test. It is less demanding than Time Spy, and is optimized for integrated graphics. The graph below presents the overall score in this workload for different system configurations.

This workload sees a repeat of the Time Spy rankings, with the RDNA2 iGPU being miles ahead of the Iris Xe iGPU in the Core i7-1360P-based systems.