ACEMAGIC F2A 125H SFF PC Review: Mid-Range Meteor Lake at 65W

System Performance: UL and BAPCo Benchmarks

Our 2022 Q4 update to the test suite for Windows 11-based systems carries over some of the standard benchmarks we have been using over the last several years. While UL's PCMark makes the list, we have opted to temporarily suspend reporting of BAPCo's SYSmark scores (pending fixture of the energy consumption aspect). Instead, BAPCO's CrossMark multi-platform benchmarking tool has been added to the set along with UL's Procyon suite. While CrossMark employs idle time compression and processes all workloads in an opaque manner, UL's Procyon processes real-world workloads with user interactions (like BAPCo's SYSmark). We have augmented the UL Procyon suite benchmark with our own custom energy measurement setup.

UL PCMark 10

UL's PCMark 10 evaluates computing systems for various usage scenarios (generic / essential tasks such as web browsing and starting up applications, productivity tasks such as editing spreadsheets and documents, gaming, and digital content creation). We benchmarked select PCs with the PCMark 10 Extended profile and recorded the scores for various scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU and GPU in the system, though the RAM and storage device also play a part. The power plan was set to Balanced for all the PCs while processing the PCMark 10 benchmark. The scores for each contributing component / use-case environment are also graphed below.

Almost all of the compared systems use either the Intel Core i7-class processor or the AMD Ryzen 7-class ones. The ECS LIVA Z5 PLUS is the only one with a Core i5, albeit with a U-series member at a much lower power point (20W). The Core Ultra 5 125H at 65W manages to put in a good enough showing to land up in the middle of the pack across all components.

UL Procyon v2.1.544

PCMark 10 utilizes open-source software such as Libre Office and GIMP to evaluate system performance. However, many of their professional benchmark customers have been requesting evaluation with commonly-used commercial software such as Microsoft Office and Adobe applications. In order to serve their needs, UL introduced the Procyon benchmark in late 2020. There are five benchmark categories currently - Office Productivity, AI Inference, Battery Life, Photo Editing, and Video Editing. AI Inference benchmarks are available only for Android devices, while the battery life benchmark is applicable to Windows devices such as notebooks and tablets. We presents results from our processing of the other three benchmarks.

The Excel workload appears to be a weak point for Meteor Lake systems in general, with the F2A being at the bottom of the pack. However, its performance with a 65W configuration in the other components helps it climb into the middle of the pack for the overall score.

From an energy consumption viewpoint, the sustained 65W setting along with a reduction in the number of fast cores (compared to the Ultra 7 155H in the other MTL-based systems) mean that the F2A ends up consuming a lot more energy for the office workload compared to the NUC14 Pro or the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-155H in its default configuration. In fact, the F2A ties for the second worst energy consumption number in this case.

Moving on to the evaluation of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom, we find the F2A 125H in the bottom half - reflecting the cutting down in the number of high-performance cores due to its Ultra 5 / i5-class nature.

Despite the longer time taken to complete the benchmark, the power consumption throughout the processing is lower compared to systems like the NUC14 Pro. This results in a slight advantage in the energy numbers, allowing the F2A 125H to shift towards the center of the pack.

UL Procyon evaluates performance for video editing using Adobe Premier Pro. This utlizes the GPU component also, and the Ultra 5 carries a small penalty here. It manages to stay ahead of the Mini IT13's Core i8-13900H (albeit with an older iGPU architecture and a 35W limit) and the LIVA Z5 PLUS (20W Core i5-1335U) only.

On a redeeming note, the combination of power consumption numbers and the time taken for benchmark completion manages to push the F2A 125H into the top half with respect to the energy consumption metric for video processing.

BAPCo CrossMark 1.0.1.86

BAPCo's CrossMark aims to simplify benchmark processing while still delivering scores that roughly tally with SYSmark. The main advantage is the cross-platform nature of the tool - allowing it to be run on smartphones and tablets as well.

The relative performance seen in the PC Mark 10 workloads translate to CrossMark also, as expected. Things are quite dire for Meteor Lake here - almost all of the Raptor Lake-P systems perform better than the tested MTL-H configurations.