Interestingly, after Intel "shut down" the NUC business, the market ushered in a colorful market, and various manufacturers launched their own mini host products. It turns out that some of the criticisms that appeared on the Mini host have also been solved one by one with the introduction of new products. Nowadays, the performance and playability of mini consoles have become quite high, enough to complete most of our daily work, and even some light entertainment can be satisfied.
First of all, I have already purchased 2 Mini consoles before this. Now one is in the company and the other is at home. But even so, I bought the SEi14 mini computer again.
The reason for this is simple, first of all, it is for the Core Ultra 5-125H, which is said to be able to achieve a strong performance of 54W. Secondly, is it possible to remain silent while still being high-performance? That's something I'm more puzzled about. The next is a detailed review of the SEi14, hoping to bring a reference to all interested partners.
The body volume is 0.8L
The SEi14 mini host doesn't provide much of a mini unit, except for the main unit, power adapter and manual, there is also an HDMI cable. Among them, the power of the power adapter is 19V 5.26A, and the voltage supports the range of 100V to 120V, but the actual situation can be used by plugging in directly, and there is no need for a converter.
This time, the SEi14 adopts an integrated aluminum alloy shell design, with large rounded corners around it, and measures 135cm x 135cm x 447mm, which is nearly half the volume of Mac mini, less than 1L.
At present, the SEi1 is available in two colors, Space Gray and Frost Silver, and I personally recommend choosing Silver. Because after removing the heat vents on both sides, the fruity flavor is really getting stronger. And the slightly frosted surface has a very delicate touch, and with the zero-engraved LOGO on the top, the texture is really top.
The interface given on the front of the SEi14 mini host is relatively complete, not only has a headphone/microphone two-in-one port, CLR CMOS, USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port, but also is equipped with a Type-C port (10 Gbps), which makes it more convenient to access external devices.
On the back of the main unit, in addition to the DC power port, two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.2 port, one 2.5G Ethernet port, DP 1.4a and HDMI 2.1 video outputs, there is also a Thunderbolt 4 port and a 3.5mm audio jack. It can only be said that although the sparrow is small, it has all kinds of organs.
And counting the audio port on the front, we only have two places to connect to the headphones, so we don't have to worry about audio output anymore.
At the same time, the Thunderbolt 4 interface is equipped with a mini host that also allows the SEi14 mini host to have more playability, and the video output alone can support three screens4K, not to mention an external docking station or graphics card dock to enhance performance.
The SEi14 mini host is equipped with an MSC 2.0 cooling system, a VC vapor chamber and a new air duct design. The operating principle is that the airflow enters from the bottom floor, passes through the memory, SSD cooler, CPU, and motherboard components, passes through a single turbofan inside, and finally exits from the pure copper fins at the tail.
It's a bit similar to the MAC Studio's set of heat dissipation, but the SEi14 makes the size of the whole machine smaller, and it is said that the whole machine will not exceed 80 degrees when running at full load.
In the case of full load, the heat source of the SEi14 is mainly located in the rear, that is, at the heat dissipation fins, with a peak temperature of about 54°C, and the temperature of the rest of the body is not too high, and the front shell is only about 32°C.
At this moment, the noise in the in-ear state is about 47.6dBA, and the conventional distance is about 37.4dBA, in fact, the keyboard tapping sound will be more noisy than the Mini host. And this is under high load, our daily use is almost silent existence.
Internal configuration
The disassembly position of the main machine is at the bottom, but this time in order to strengthen the integration, four rubber plugs were specially added, and you need to pry it open to see the screw position. Unscrew the four screws in turn, and then pull the small gray handle to open the bottom cover.
The first thing that catches your eye after opening the lid is a large area of metal dust filter, with a hole spacing of 0.8mm. In addition to preventing dust intrusion to the greatest extent, it also ensures air circulation, and only needs to be cleaned regularly.
After removing the dust filter, we can see that the internal arrangement is relatively neat, with the memory on the left and the hard disk on the right, and the motherboard and CPU at the bottom.
Memory vs. hard disk
Since I'm not buying the barebones version, I come with two DDR5 16GB Crucial RAM clocks at 5600MHz by default for a 32GB dual-channel configuration. The machine can support up to 96GB of dual-channel, but for my use case, 32GB is more than enough.
According to the Cache & Memory Benchmark test, the memory timing is CL46-45-45-90, with a read speed of 73,610 MB/s, a write speed of 72,775 MB/s, a copy speed of 70,006 MB/s, and a latency of 175.3ns. The performance is similar to that of a regular-sized host, with no obvious memory bottlenecks, and the current DDR5 shortcomings will have a higher latency.
In terms of heat dissipation and energy efficiency, the SEi14 also has huge heat dissipation fins installed on the hard drive bay to further enhance the stability during operation.
After removing the heatsink, it can be seen that although the SEi14 has eliminated the 2.5-inch hard drive mounting slot, it provides dual M.2 slots and supports up to 8TB of PCIe 4.0 x4 capacity, which is enough to cope with daily storage needs.
Although there is no sticker for the performance of the fixed disk, it can be known through the main control and particle silk screen that the solid disk is also from Crucial, designed by Micron, using a single particle configuration, 2280 specifications, and Phison PS5021-E21 main controller.
经由CrystalDiskInfo确认，英睿达硬盘的具体型号为CT500P3PSSD8，容量500GB，NVM Express接口，PCI 4.0×4传输模式，支持S.M.A.R.T、TRIM以及VolatileWriteCache功能。
Under the CrystalDiskMark test, the read speed is 5006MB/s, and the write speed is 4056MB/s; In the AS SSD Benchmark, there are 4143MB sequential reads and 3531MB/s writes. Considering that the AS SSD Benchmark will also include the overall performance such as CPU in the test, this performance is quite good.
In terms of network card, the Intel WiFi6 AX200 wireless network card solution is used, and the location is below the fixed disk. AX200 wireless network card supports 2.4GHz/5GHz/dual-band and 2x2 MIMO (MU-MIMO), with a peak bandwidth of 2.4Gbps and Bluetooth 5.2, which is a relatively mature solution in the market.
In terms of details, the SEi14 has shielding patches, conductive cloth and plastic baffles, and the internal component layout is also very neat, and the workmanship is still excellent. In particular, the front panel adopts a separate design, which reasonably avoids the problem of overheating of the USB flash drive.
Navigate a variety of scenarios with ease
The advantage of not choosing a barebones system is that the SEi14 mini PC comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro. After the first boot, make a simple configuration and you are ready to go. Since I chose the 32GB RAM configuration, it was still stress-free to control Win11.
SEi14 is equipped with Intel Core Ultra 5-125H processor, with 14 cores and 18 threads, 18MB L3 cache, and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.5Ghz. The CPU integrates a neural network processing unit (NPU) and supports a variety of AI frameworks and applications, unleashing powerful AI performance.
In the latest version of the Cinebench R24 test, the score was 99 pts for single-core and 783 pts for multi-core. However, Cinebench R24 doesn't have any more reference values, so we moved to the Cinebench R23 test, which scored 1691 cb for single-core and 13265 cb for multi-core. It is completely no problem to cope with daily office and entertainment.
Game entertainment
Although the SEi14 is a Ruixuan Xe-LPG GPU, it can still take on light gaming tasks. Tested by 3DMark, it scored 3455 points in the Time Spy category, 3124 for graphics cards, and 8684 for CPUs. In 1080P mode, GTA V is expected to have 150+ FPS in game performance, and Apex Legends also has 50+ FPS experience at 1440P.
I tried the Fire Strike project again, and the score reached 7052, with a graphics card score of 7767 and a composite score of 2609. It is also estimated that the game performance of Apex Legends at 1080P is 110+ FPS. It can be seen that the core graphics card has reached the level of entry-level discrete graphics cards, which is similar to the Radeon 780M core graphics card of the friend next door.
The comprehensive performance score is 127W (620361 points for processor, 160853 points for graphics card, 246121 points for memory, and 249759 points for hard disk). The score of this verification is not too bad, and it can meet most entertainment needs.
Open the game Shadows with a high graphics score of 4739 at 1920x1080 and an average frame rate of 31 fps. It shouldn't be too much of a problem to play some online games with the SEi14 at 1080p, or early triple-A games.
In CS 2, it can maintain an average of 46 frames per second at 1080p high quality, and quickly turn left and right without stuttering. However, after the smoke grenade appears, the frame will be dropped. Therefore, it is recommended to adjust the medium image quality, so that the frame rate can reach about 69.
Adjust the resolution of "Genshin Impact" to 1920x1080, the image quality is medium, and the overall FPS can be maintained to about 60, so it's no problem to brush the book at ordinary times.
In addition to gaming, HD video playback is also competent. Load a 20GB film source at will, there is no lag during playback, and the progress will be loaded quickly when dragging and dropping.
Productivity scenarios
In the PCMark10 productivity scenario evaluation, the SEi14 achieved a total score of 6877, and the overall performance was relatively balanced. Among them, the highest score in a single category is "common basic functions", which shows that its strength is in daily office and design creation with medium load.
Switching to the PCMark10 application assessment, we can see that in the processing of Microsoft Office office software, the comprehensive score reached 13637 points, which is enough to meet the needs of various commercial scenarios.
Call Master Lu AI evaluation, the results are still relatively ideal. The graphics card AI and processor AI evaluation scores are 44890 and 19020, respectively, with reading comprehension being the highest.
For my most basic needs such as PS and LR, we can also meet them. The opening of the original image is very fast, and there is no lag or prompt lack of memory for multi-layer overlays for effect editing.
Thanks to the support of multiple interfaces, we can connect multiple display devices on the SEi14 to improve work efficiency. For example, when I am retouching a picture, I can look at the previous sample and visually compare the before and after results. Or when creating weekly reports, spreadsheets, and processing documents, you can use dual screens to check each other.
Write at the end
When I first bought the SEi14 mini host, I was completely motivated by the appearance and trust in this brand. After actually getting my hands on it, I found that the performance of the Core Ultra 5-125H processor is really powerful enough to meet all my daily needs. From everyday office to entertainment experiences, even moderate video editing will do the job. There is also a new NPU AI acceleration engine, which has localized AI application capabilities.
Moreover, SEi14 comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro by default, which can be used right out of the box, eliminating many deployment steps. In addition, the boot process of SEi14 is unusually fast, and it takes about 9 seconds to enter the Win11 login interface.
The SEi14 does a good job of cooling the heat, and it does a bit of a surprise to me that it can maintain a relatively quiet operating environment while fully unleashing performance. If there is one point that can be improved, perhaps the tail I/O interface area is not silver, and there is still room for improvement in integrity.
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I'm Nicolás Lalala, bringing you more interesting things.