Installing Windows on an Xbox One APU: The Chuwi Aerobox Review
by Dr. Ian Cutress on December 24, 2020 9:45 AM ESTGaming Performance
So there’s going to be a lot of interest as to how this performs in our gaming tests, given the heritage of the processor. However, as previously mentioned, there are three things that are going to be against us here.
First is the driver stack. On a console the top to bottom software stack is optimized for both performance and ease of use. Game engine creators and game developers can both work to a fixed set of hardware, and take advantage of how close to the metal that software stack can be; this is why we get such great looking games as the lifecycle of a console continues. By contrast, our system has a straight forward version of Windows 10. It is as generic as it gets, which means optimizations will be on a much lower scale.
Second are the drivers themselves. There is no up-to-date solution here; our system shipped with beta versions of Adrenaline 17.12, which indicates we have December 2017 drivers. None of AMD’s regular driver packages will recognize this system as it uses a custom embedded processor. Some games will refuse to run because the drivers are so old. As a result we’re stuck in the services with a flat tire and no rescue in sight.
Third is the lack of additional eSRAM to help with memory bandwidth. The Xbox One and One S consoles had 32 MB of SRAM plus DDR3, while the Xbox One X had no SRAM but GDDR5. The A9-9820 APU has neither, instead relying on DDR3, and slow DDR3 at that. Memory bandwidth would appear to be a very obvious bottleneck in this regard, assuming that the graphics cores have plenty to work on.
Gaming Results
With all that being said, here are our numbers, and we’re putting them up against some of the very basic competition from our database. Perhaps the best modern comparison point will be to the Ryzen 5 2400G, however we also have a Ryzen V1605B here, which is a 12 W embedded Zen processor with Vega 8 graphics. On the Intel side, I have the Core i5-6500U, a mid-range Skylake mobile processor used in many mini-PCs.
All of our games here are running at 720p minimum settings or lower, and the numbers will show you why.
| Benchmark Results | |||||
| AnandTech | Chuwi Aerobox |
Ryzen 5 2400G |
Ryzen V1605B |
Core i5 6500U |
|
| Frames Per Second Averages | |||||
| Civilization 6 | 480p Min | 24.4 | 91.2 | 52.9 | 35.7 |
| Final Fantasy XV | 720p Med | 20.1 | 26.8 | 14.2 | 35.4 |
| World of Tanks | 768p Min | 144.7 | 223.8 | 141.1 | 165.8 |
| Borderlands 3 | 360p VLow | 31.3 | 70.8 | 42.9 | 29.0 |
| Far Cry 5 | 360p Low | 31.5 | 58.0 | 25.5 | 19.0 |
| GTA 5 | 720p Low | 37.8 | 83.0 | 52.9 | 32.8 |
| 95th Frame Time Percentiles (shown as FPS) | |||||
| Civilization 6 | 480p Min | 17.1 | 57.6 | 34.8 | 26.8 |
| Final Fantasy XV | 720p Med | 17.1 | 22.6 | 11.3 | 6.8 |
| World of Tanks | 768p Min | 40.2 | 130.7 | 84.5 | 115.2 |
| Borderlands 3 | 360p VLow | 24.2 | 55.2 | 32.7 | 22.3 |
| Far Cry 5 | 360p Low | 26.0 | 49.0 | 21.5 | 16.0 |
| GTA 5 | 720p Low | 25.4 | 56.6 | 38.3 | 23.3 |
In games like Civilization where the CPU matters, and in some of the other numbers, the poor performing Jaguar cores show how bad it can get – that low World of Tanks percentile comes into playm scoring only 40 FPS. If it weren’t for the CPU, the A9-9820 would be comfortably ahead of the i5-6500U in all of the tests. Games that didn’t run due to driver issues included F1 2019, Gears Tactics, and Red Dead Redemption.
From a personal experience perspective, I set myself up with a wired Xbox controller, and I very comfortably played several hours of Borderlands 3 single player at 720p Ultra Low settings. Frame rates hovered around the 30s, dipping into the 20s during firefights, or up in the 40s when walking through open spaces or in the towns.
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yeeeeman - Thursday, December 24, 2020 - link
while this is an interesting product, it is one SLOW machine and even a Sandy Bridge based system trounces it.Silver5urfer - Thursday, December 24, 2020 - link
PS4 and XB1 get crushed by Q6600 Core2Quad, Sandy i7 2600K obliterates it. And that SB processor is still relevant even today can play a lot of games which came in 2020.d0x360 - Thursday, December 24, 2020 - link
Allot of 2d indies maybe...and surely nothing that's using unity for it's engine.I mean hell I have an i7 5820k with an all core OC of 4.6ghz (stable to 5.4), that's 6 cores btw. I also have 32 gigs of ddr4 quad channel and a 2080ti ftw3 ultra +170 core +1400mem.
I found that this year my CPU just isn't cutting it.. except for in cyberpunk oddly enough. In watch dogs legion I'm getting 30fps at 1080p with ray tracing off and DLSS on perf. Yeah that's probably because it's ubi soft but still there have been plenty of other games that came out in the 2nd half of this year that offer unacceptable performance and it's always because I'm cpu bound.
No it doesn't help that I play at 4k... I like dropping to 3200x1800 but some games freak out when using a custom resolution so then I have to go to 1440p which looks soft on a 4k display.
So an i7 2600k... Nah. No way. I doubt it even "crushes" the base consoles.
loki1944 - Thursday, December 24, 2020 - link
Yes; it does, because even Bloomfield will demolish an xbox one X. I have C2Q 6600, 9650, i7 920, 930, 960, 980X, 870, 4770K, 6850K, 7800X and i5 750, 6600K, and 9400. There is simply no comparison. If your 5820k isn't cutting it then it's probably dying.Silver5urfer - Thursday, December 24, 2020 - link
"CBR11.5 marksAMD QuadCore A6-5200 2.0GHz: 1,99pts
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz: 2,70pts
Intel OctaCore Atom C2750 2.4GHz (@2.6GHz Turbo): 3,81pts
AMD EightCore FX-9370 @ 2.4GHz: 4,16pts
Intel Core i7-4770K @ 2.4GHz: 5,18pts
source: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/topic/review/20...
source: http://adrenaline.uol.com.br/biblioteca/analise/78...
the PS4 CPU runs at 1.6GHz,
1.5GHz quad core Jaguar scores 1.5
1.6GHz would probably be something around 1.6
8 core 1.6GHz Jaguar maybe around 3-3.2?
Q6600 at 3GHz achieves around 3.3
stock around 2.7"
A quick google instead of wasting my time... And that's the CBR11.5 score. Then if we take i7 2600K, it is over. At GN 4.7GHz @1.35v 2600K plays games at Ryzen 2700 Stock levels.
End of story.
8th gen console HW is utter garbage.
And using Cybertrash ? That is a horrible game and a horrible benchmark as well.
moozooh - Thursday, December 24, 2020 - link
> I found that this year my CPU just isn't cutting it.. except for in cyberpunk oddly enough.That's because it's written for four cores and doesn't use any modern instruction sets (except one instance of AVX which can be safely patched out to play on pre-SB hardware). Then again, the same is applicable to most modern games, still, sadly. It's almost 2021, and almost no game makes good use of more than four cores.
raystryker - Friday, December 25, 2020 - link
My Core 2 Quad 6600 and R9270 outpaced both consoles with no trouble...I wouldn't say "crushed" but yeah. I gamed on that combo through 2018....Hrel - Saturday, January 23, 2021 - link
The performance you're indicating is indicative of a bad overclock. Probably also throwing lost bits in memory like crazy. Your hardware is capable of FAR FAR more than you're getting.bunnyfubbles - Friday, March 26, 2021 - link
your 5820K @ 4.6GHz should be at least roughly equivalent to a Ryzen 2600 if not 3600 or modern, non K i5... if it really isn't cutting it when you appear to be setting yourself up for a GPU limitation with your choice of resolution, there is likely something critically wrong with your system.MetaCube - Friday, December 25, 2020 - link
"And that SB processor is still relevant even today can play a lot of games which came in 2020."Nice one.