Gemini Lake Pentium NUC Review (NUC7PJYH) – Games, Linux, HTPC (3/3)

Let’s wrap up the review with some random observations about gaming, Linux, HTPCs and power consumption. If you landed here via a search engine, you might be interested in the previous parts of the review.

Casual Gaming

In addition to desktop apps and benchmarks I even tried to run a couple of older games on the NUC. Surprisingly, it did quite all right. Dirt 3 with 1920×1080 resolution, low details and no MSAA gave me an average frame rate of 38.4 and minimum of 29.0. Very much playable. Of course we’ll need to put things in context: This is a cheap low-end PC with integrated graphics. It will not run most of the newest games in a decent way. But if you want to enjoy some of your older classics or maybe do some emulator gaming, it’s up to the task.

Finally I tried out the Nintendo Wii emulator called Dolphin and was happy to find out that it was not a problem to play some Super Mario with it.

Installing Linux on NUC7PJYH

The other Gemini Lake NUC I tested with Ubuntu 17.10 but since that article Ubuntu 18.04 has been released. So that’s what I installed on my NUC this time. One positive thing about that change stood out immediately: the WiFi adapter was supported out-of-the-box as the kernel was recent enough.

In general the system seemed to be working fine. Functionality was there: WiFi, Bluetooth, wired Ethernet, display, audio over HDMI all working as I expected. Here’s a dmesg printout of the system and here’s lshw.

Building a HTPC

In theory the Gemini Lake NUC is a good platform for a HTPC. Hardware decoding of 10-bit VP9 and HEVC videos, low power usage, almost silent operation, 4k support, HDMI 2.0a ports are all good characteristics of a modern HTPC.

In Windows all important functionality seems to be supported fine. 4k resolution at 60Hz works fine and I can play HEVC encoded videos at 4k/60Hz without any problems. CPU utilization stays below 20%. I can play 4k video from YouTube without any issues on Chrome and on Microsoft Edge, but on Firefox there seems to be severe skipping. I presume that’s due to lack of hardware decoding. In addition and unlike with the Apollo Lake NUC at introduction, passthrough audio seemed to work for all audio formats that I tested: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-X.

Here’s a DXVA Checker result for the NUC:

The only letdown here is that Intel will not support HDR on Gemini Lake NUCs. You will need to get at least an i3 NUC in order to play HDR videos in Windows 10. However, there are some indications that the Gemini Lake hardware itself could actually be HDR capable, it’s just that there’s no HDR capable Windows driver for it.

Which brings us to Linux. LibreELEC is the way to install Kodi on Linux on your PC with no Linux skills required. Unfortunately the latest stable release (8.2.4 at the time of writing) did not boot up at all with the NUC. All I got was an error message about the GPU being unsupported. I talked to a few developers and they basically told me that there are a few developer versions available.

I tried one such developer version and could confirm that all basic functions were working as expected: H.264 and HEVC videos at 4k@60Hz, audio passthrough even for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-X, WiFi and wired Ethernet. In general it looks like LibreELEC 9.0 will support these Gemini Lake devices just fine. However, don’t expect any HDR capabilities yet. It’s still a long way before Linux can handle HDR content properly on x86 platforms. As far as I have understood, changes are needed in Linux kernel, the drivers and in Kodi. This is by no means trivial but I expect things to happen during this year anyhow. As I said before, there are indications that the Gemini Lake hardware supports HDR even if currently Intel has no plans to bring support for it in Windows. Ville Syrjälä, an Intel Open Source developer, posted a source code of a PoC that provides very experimental HDR support last December. In the description of the PoC, he writes (among other things):

Hardware wise you’ll need a HDR capable display obviously, and you’ll need an Intel Geminilake GPU. Older Intel platforms don’t support the HDR infoframe, so the display wouldn’t know what to do with the data you’re feeding it.

Power Consumption

I also took power consumption measurements. These are taken with an el cheapo Brennenstuhl consumer-grade measurement device so I’m sure they’re a bit off, but close enough to give you an idea anyhow.

  • Idle at Windows 10 desktop: 8.8 W
  • Playing 4k HEVC video: 15.1 W
  • Prime95 stress test: 22.9 W
  • Prime95 stress test and Cinebench OpenGL test simultaneously: 21.8 W

It’s clear that when both the CPU and the GPU are getting fully loaded some kind of thermal throttling takes place. In the BIOS you can set the package power limits but unfortunately you can only set them lower than the default values. This seems a bit odd, as the CPU never gets very hot and the fan doesn’t kick in properly at any point. During simultaneously stress test of both CPU and GPU it does start to spin in an audible way, but by no means it’s anywhere near noisy. That was actually the only time during my evaluation when I heard the fan.

Conclusion

I was a bit underwhelmed with the other Gemini Lake NUC (NUC7CJYH) when it came to performance compared to NUC6CAYH from last year. However, the Pentium NUC (NUC7PJYH) here makes a strong appearance. The CPU is more powerful than previous generation i3 NUCs and the GPU is a good 30% more powerful than the lower end sibling. This one is $50 more expensive than the NUC7CJYH, but in my opinion it is money well spent. In the total cost of the NUC that’s neglible and you do get up to 100% more CPU power depending on the application. Personally I made the choice to keep the NUC7PJYH and sold out my NUC7CJYH.

It’ll be interesting to see the Coffee Lake i3 NUC. It’ll be a 28-watt CPU instead of 15W like before, so I expect significantly better CPU performance and some more fan noise.

In any case, if you’re in need of a mini PC for light desktop use, HTPC, mini server, the NUC7PJYH gets my recommendation. It’s well built, HW decodes all modern video codecs even at 10-bit 4k and the CPU is relatively beefy for many tasks. However, by no means it’s suitable for gaming and the lack of HDR support is a bit of a bummer.

Recommended Setup

If you would like to customize this NUC for your needs go visit our NUC Guru – it’s a simple tool that will recommend you hardware that is known to work together and if you want, it’ll give you a ready shopping list as well. This NUC is a bit picky when it comes to the RAM so pay attention when choosing your RAM. Intel has a list of validated hardware here.

Navigation

Be sure to read also the earlier parts of this review!

49 Responses

  1. meilon says:

    Thanks for the review! Since AV1 is in feature freeze and should be released in a few months, could you do a comparison of AV1 performance once it is released? I know there is no hardware decoding yet (my guess would be with the 10th core generation), but it would be interesting to see if the little NUCs would still be capable of decoding.

  2. Fred says:

    Thanks for the great review.

    I think that not supporting HDR in the Windows driver is a very poor choice from Intel. The Apollo Lake NUCs would make such a great HTPC, but without HDR Intel does not have anything in their product portfolio to compete with the cheap AMLogic HTPC devices. A Core-i3 NUC is clearly overkill for just a HDR-capable HTPC, so I guess people will go the AMLogic route then. Kinda sad.

    Maybe you are right that there is still a tiny bit of hope left that at least on Linux things will look better, as HDR seems to be possible hardware-wise. On the other hand the patches from Ville Syrjälä are pretty big and incomplete, so I doubt that HDR on Linux will be possible at all this year (with Open Source graphics drivers).

  3. bokker11 says:

    The nuc6cayh have HDR support and can playback 10bit 4k. HDR was added in the latest nightly libreelec builds and seems to be working fine.The newest nightly seems to be having a playback bug where the video ends up with shutters. But there are builds that work with HDR perfectly. But yes I have waited for HDR to be supported on linux for close to 2 years.

  4. Book Adams says:

    Great review Olli:

    Finally retired my ten-year-old Shuttle E8400 Windows 7 pc with this four-core Pentium NUC. Hate Windows 10, so now running the free Ubuntu 18.04 and very pleased.

    The arriving 28-watt i3 NUC will be silly overkill. I’m more then content with the price/performance of this NUC7PJYH for my new daily pc.

  5. INTC says:

    https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27680/Graphics-Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10

    Still using outdated “Intel UHD Graphics driver version 23.20.16.4944” instead of latest Intel 24.20.100.6025 driver.

  6. Abel says:

    Lol, Intel is releasing a new platform in 2018 without HDR support. That really sounds like a joke, but apparently it is real.

    • boyce says:

      Really, some still waste time with these Gemini Lake ones?

      Release were too late and strange month delays, no information about HDR support (official word, no. but drivers could bring it for Windows)

      NUC7CJYH is somewhat useless, compared to NUC7PJYH (price difference around 50 dollars or so, but really other is dual core and other pretty powerful quad core, so well spend 50 dollars)

    • Olli says:

      Do you get HDR with that driver? I just tried updating my NUC7PJYH with that driver, but there’s still no HDR option in the display settings even if I’m connected to my HDR capable TV.

      • Vlado says:

        This new driver brings significant quality and power saving improvements while displaying Enhanced Dynamic Range (EDR) content and provides better brightness in High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode for ” 7th Generation processors or higher “

  7. Vlado says:

    I have NUC7i3BNH and in windows 10 ver.1803 with this driver when you select 3840×2160 @ 60p and switch the HDR ON you have 8bit RGB with dithering. The dithering and tone mapping is done by shader program not HW acceleration. With i3 7100u (this is hd620 with 24EU) when playing HEVC10bit 4k @ 60p using “tv and movies app” – probably most efficient, with HDR ON you can see in task manager GPU 3D usage go to 90% (this is on a 4k TV – 3840x2160p60 full screen).I think 18EU in UHD 605 are just not enough for the dithering and tone mapping. If you only have to play the file and pass the metadata to the monitor then UHD 605 must be ok. But not for the way windows 10 HDR is working now. If the HDR setting is OFF and you play HDR move (BT 2020) then windows is tone mapping (converting to sRGB) and for 4k 60p it is difficult for i3 7100u.

    See here:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/10959/intel-launches-7th-generation-kaby-lake-i7-7700k-i5-7600k-i3-7350k/6

    “Intel pointed out that the HDR capabilities involve usage of both the VQE and the EUs in the GPU. So, there is still scope for further hardware acceleration and lower power consumption in this particular use-case.”

    I still hope for the Linux support for the play back of HDR movies by NUC7PJYH.

  8. Roger says:

    So if I were to choose between a MINIX U9-H and a Inte nuc Gemini Lake for 4k and DTS-HD Audio support. HDR is welcome but not a dealbreaker.

    What would be the best choice?
    I want it simple and stable and preferly with Kodi (family friendly)

    Thats the 2 options im looking at now, with a budget around 400$

  9. fenomalist says:

    I’m setting this machine up with Ubuntu Linux Server 18.04 LTS and have problems getting it up and running with the WIFI. Trying to set up as a server and be able to ssh from a another device in the local network. Is anyone trying this? I can’t figure out how to SSH from local using wifi (wired works fine).

  10. Tomm says:

    New BIOS again?

    New Fixes/Features:

    Added security enhancements.

    Fixed issue where Fault Tolerance failed when flashing BootBlock.

    Added setup item “Allow UEFI 3rd party driver loaded”
    .

  11. bash0r says:

    Thank you for the detailed review!

    Have you sucessfully set up the consumer infrared sensor (CIR) to use it with Libreelec/Kodi?

    Thanks
    bash0r

  12. Karol says:

    No HDR support on a 2018 device? What is Intel thinking? Your review actually looks very promising, but unfortunately the device is kinda pointless for HTPC usage without HDR support. *sigh*

    Thumbs up for your work, thumbs down for Intel’s work.

  13. Thunder says:

    I installed 2x Ballistix Sport LT BLS8G4S240FSD (8GB each, dual Rank form, totally 16GB, but not the kit of 2x 8GB) in my NUC7PJYH, and it works well. I would expect the corresponding RAM of single Rank form also works.

  14. RM says:

    What’s everyone using as a storage driver in windows? I’m using the Windows in-box storahci.sys but I strongly suspect I’d get better results with one of the iaStor.sys variants. I’m trying to figure out which one supports this chipset. The Intel driver updater thingy was no help…

  15. Tomm says:

    Looks like Akasa released fanless aluminum case for PJYH/CJYH.

  16. Ken says:

    Thank you very much for this review! May I know where to check the validated list of RAM sticks?

  17. Tomm says:

    Intel released “official” .6194 GPU drivers for NUC7PJYH, with updated BIOS 0042.

  18. Andrew Hood says:

    Unfortunately the Pentium Silver NUC has one large drawback..at the moment..whilst supporting two channels… and according to Intel docs supposedly with dual channel support.. the memory will not operate in Dual Channel (Interleaved) mode. That all but halves the memory transfer speeds which is a serious limitation for the system and rather cripples overall performance as you can imagine..

    • Tomm says:

      I have currently “F4-2400C16D-16GRS”, works on dual and it’s even 16GB! :D

      Supported RAM page is very important to check.

      • Vishwesh says:

        Which software you used to confirm the dual channel? I’ve tried cpu-z and hwinfo64 but both show blank.

        • joum says:

          Not really many RAM types even supported, go only for ones from the list or you run to problems very likely. I had first 8GB dual channel from G.Skill, upgraded later for 16GB kit from G.Skill.

          Using portable version of cpu-z

          • Vishwesh says:

            Are you sure yours is working in dual channel? Cause Intel staff just confirmed on their forum that dual channel is NOT supported at this time and they are working on it.

            I’m also using G.Skill 8GB kit from Intel list and latest cpu-z shows blank to me. Only AIDA64 shows that it’s working as single channel.

  19. yeahmaan says:

    0043 BIOS out :o

  20. Book Adams says:

    https://communities.intel.com/thread/127686

    Dual channel memory confirmed NOT SUPPORTED by lazy, incompetent Intel Support.

    • notplease says:

      Use only NUC drivers.

      • Ignorenotplease says:

        Please ignore this ignorant clueless moron above, the NUC drivers are just older driver versions, you can see yourself from comparing the driver versions.

        Always use the latest Intel graphics drivers for best performance and bug fixes.

  21. jesplease says:

    0044 BIOS is out!

  22. blerg says:

    Who really cares, sold my PJYH and stuff for it while ago.

  23. Nucaddict says:

    BIOS 0045 out. Don’t worry dual channel not fixed yet.

  24. Lars says:

    Is it correct that this NUC7PJYH uses twice the electric power compared to the NUC8i3 (8 vs 4 watts)?

  25. Stefan says:

    This NUC does all the parts I had in mind for such a device: Using W10 Home 64bit with 8GB RAM and a 250GB SSD, it’s trunning Kodi incl. CIR, Mame and Steam inhome-streaming at Full HD 60Hz.

  26. Book Adams says:

    Bios 47 and the latest Linux kernel finally cured my Ubuntu graphics problem. Looks like Intel is done with updating the Bios and took a dive with the still-slow memory controller speed and lack of HDR. Probably now as good as it will ever get…

  27. cun says:

    bought mine in nov. 2018 + 8G ram + 250G SSD: very happy with it as a family PC (ubuntu ok out of the zipbox !)..

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