Acoustic, Power & Thermal Performance
Acoustic Performance
In terms of noise, the Zeus Mini EVO i-970 is sublime and ridiculously quiet under the most strenuous of tasks. This makes for a magnificent desktop experience and it’s difficult to detect any sudden changes in RPM values. At times, I had to check if the benchmark was running correctly because I couldn’t believe how quiet the system could be.
Power Consumption
The Skylake and Maxwell architectures are a match made in heaven which results in exceedingly low power draw. This is astonishing given the amount of gaming horsepower at your disposal.
Thermal Performance
Initially, I was concerned about the system’s thermal performance as the CPU started downclocking from 4.2GHz to 800MHz at random intervals. Despite changing various settings in the BIOS, disabling C states, and looking through Windows power options, there was no change in the benchmark’s behavior. After hours of testing, I discovered the root cause was Prime95. Once I decided to transition from Prime95 to AIDA64, all was well.
However, please note all the results barring this system were conducted on Prime95. This could have a slight effect on the load temperatures. To clarify, all future system testing will be conducted on AIDA64 as Skylake appears to have problems with Prime95.
Moving onto the results, the Zeus Mini EVO I-970 reported marvelous CPU figures under idle and load conditions. This was surprising given the chassis’ enclosed design which I expected to raise temperatures by a decent margin. On another note, the graphics card remained well within its operating temperatures and hit a maximum value of 81 degrees. These statistics emphasize how small cases can disperse heat and maintain a decent overclock. Honestly, 4.2GHz is nothing for a Skylake system, and there’s ample room to progress to 4.4-4.5GHz with the equipment available.
Only Windows and no Steam OS? ¬¬