SKIKK Mini PCs are a favorite of computer enthusiasts, home workers and specialists who install specialized software and use Mini PCs for everything from home theater systems and edge devices to a means of using vSphere.
Despite being a favorite, Mini PC users have always missed out on something: more RAM, a more powerful CPU, storage-class memory and the option for full-fledged video cards. Fortunately, SKIKK has answered these calls with the latest generation of Mini PCs for the users who want "more", including the SKIKK Mini Pro and later this year the SKIKK Mini Extreme.
SKIKK Mini Pro
SKIKK classifies the SKIKK Mini Pro as a workstation and equipped it with the hardware to back up that claim. SKIKK has designed this new generation of systems to enable content creation, AI work, Edge analysis, data visualization and CAD / CAM work.
The SKIKK Mini we'll be reviewing is the Pro, which comes pre-configured with an eight-core Xeon processor, a discrete NVIDIA Quadro P2200 GPU, 64 GB of RAM, storage, and Windows 10 Home. It has multiple video outputs, multiple USB connectors, two PCIe slots, two 1 Gbps Ethernet ports and 2.4 Gbps WIFI 6.
SKIKK Mini Pro Specifications
Manufacturer: SKIKK
Model: Mini Pro
Form factor: small server
Operating system: Windows 10 Home or Pro
CPU: Intel Xeon E-2286M processor (16M cache, 2,40 GHz) (8 cores, 16 threads, 45W TDP, 16M cache, 2,4 to 5,00 GHz)
GPU: Intel UHD 630 GPU (up to 1,25 GHz and 24 EU's)
RAM: 2 x 32GB DDR4-2666 SO-DIMM RAM - Maximum memory 64 GB
Internal storage options:
2x M.2 PCIe X4-slots PCH (NVMe / SATA)
1x M.2 PCIe X4 slot CPU (NVMe)
Contains: 2x 1 TB SSD Nvme (2400 MB/R, 1950 MB/W)
SDXC-sleuf full size
RAID 2x M.2 SATA / PCIe SSD, SATA-header (RAID-0 RAID-1)
Dual wide PCIe X16 (CPU) slot shared with a PCIe X4 (CPU) slot; 8 ″ max. Card length
Display:
UHD 630: 2x Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 2.0a-support for 3 displays
Discrete GPU: NVIDIA Quadro P2200
CUDA-kernen - 1280
GPU-memory - 5 GB GDDR5X
Geheugeninterface - 160-bit
Memory bandwidth - up to 200 GB / s
Systeminterface - PCI Express 3.0 x16
Screen connections - DP 1.4 (4)
Power: 19V, 90W AC-DCinterne voeding
Poorts:
6 x USB 3.1 Gen 2
2 x Thunderbolt 3 (USB 3.1g2)
2 x USB 2.0
1 x USB 2.0 (intern)
Multimedia:
3,5 mm stereo headphone jack on the front
3,5 mm rear speaker / TOSLINK combo-aansluiting
Network connectivity:
2 x 1 Gb via Intel Ethernet-verbinding I219-LM en i210-AT
Intel Wireless-AX (Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200)
Supports 802.11a / b / g / n / ac / ax
Maximum transfer speedid tot 2,4 Gbps
Bluetooth v5
Intel vPro Technology - including Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) for out-of-band management
Operating systems: Windows 10, Windows Server 2019 and VMware ESXi
Physical dimensions: 238 x 216 x 96 mm (9,4 x 8,5 x 3,8 inch)
Color: blue grey
Compliant standards: the product complies with many safety, regulatory, EMC / RF and environmental standards
Contains: SKIKK Mini Pro, power adapter
Support for readily available PC technology, LAN Wake, Wake from USB, Wake from CIR, Microsoft Modern Standby and Intel Platform Trust Technology
Warranty: 2 year warranty
Design
Compared to the boxes of other Mini PCs, the SKIKK Mini Pro's box is large at 14 "x 11" x 7 ". The Mini PC is packed in a heavy cardboard box, with the device itself placed between two black foam blocks and packed in an electrostatic plastic bag.The box also includes a power cord, and quick start, regulatory, and safety guidelines.
Back:
On the back of the device there is an HDMI 2.0a port along with four 3.1 USB gen 2 ports, two Thunderbolt 3 type-C ports, two RJ45 ethernet ports, a 3.5mm audio out, an anti-theft lock, a vent for a small fan and a power inlet. The device we are testing has an NVIDIA Quadro P2200 and also four full-size DisplayPort 1.4 ports.
Front:
The front of the device has the power button / LED, two USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, a 3.5mm speaker / headset jack, an HDD LED and a full size SDXC slot.
The top and bottom of the device case are made of strong plastic with ventilation slots. The two sides are made of corrugated metal with perforated holes. Overall, the case is attractive and very durable; it must hold up well in a home, office, or data center.
The top of the case is secured with two captive Phillips-head screws. By removing these screws we were able to remove the top and then remove the two metal sides to see the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 GPU connected to a PCIe slot.
If you look at the SKIKK Mini Pro product specifications you will see that the shape of the motherboard is PCIe as it uses a Compute Element rather than a discrete socket mounted or soldered CPU. The other side of the case shows a well-constructed board to which the components are connected.
Compute Elemenet
The SKIKK Mini Pro is based on the Pro Compute Element. The Compute Element is basically a PCI Express card that contains a CPU and several important motherboard components; it ensures that the system has a smaller footprint and is easier to upgrade.
The Compute Element in the SKIKK Mini Pro has a single Intel Xeon E-2286M processor. This CPU is a 64-bit eight-core performance workstation x86 microprocessor with 512 KiB L1, 2 MiB and 16 MiB cache. It supports hyper-threading, which means that a total of 16 threads can be executed at any time. The processor operates at a normal speed of 2.4 GHz, with a Turbo Boost up to 5.0 GHz. It also has a TDP (Thermal Design Power) rating of 45W and 35 TPD down, and supports up to 64GB of dual-channel DDR4-2666 ECC memory.
The CPU has integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 operating at 350 MHz with a burst frequency of 1.25 GHz. The GPU has 24 Execution Units (EUs) and supports up to three 4K displays. The TDP and RAM are shared between the CPU and GPU.
The GPU card in the system is a PNY NVIDIA Quadro P2200. It has a Pascal GPU with 1280 CUDA cores, 5 GB GDDR5X internal memory and support for four 5K displays (5120 × 2880 @ 60Hz).
First time start up
For the first time boot and test of the SKIKK Mini Pro, we connected it via the DisplayPort on the Nvidia Quadro GPU to a Dell UltraSharp 32-inch 4K monitor (U3219Q). The Dell monitor has a built-in keyboard, mouse and video switch (KVM). The monitor's built-in KVM switch was very useful in our testing as we could switch between the computer and our laptop at the touch of a button. We connected a Dell wireless keyboard / mouse (KM636) dongle to the monitor's upstream USB port.
Windows 10 Home and all necessary drivers were already installed, fine, out of the box fully working and ready to use.
Performance
To evaluate the performance of the device, we performed a SPECworkstation 3 benchmarking test and compared the results with other SKIKK Mini PC systems.
SPECworkstation 3 is a specialized test designed to benchmark key aspects of workstation performance by using more than 30 workloads to test CPU, graphics, I / O and memory bandwidth. The workload falls into seven broad categories: media and entertainment, product development, life sciences, energy, financial services, general business, and GPU computing. We are going to list the results of the broad category that represent an average for all individual workloads in each category.
| NU87KE | Mini | Mini Pro | |
| M&E | 0.93 | 1.34 | 2.12 |
| ProdDev | 1.09 | 1.42 | 2.04 |
| LifeSci | 0.78 | 1.40 | 2.30 |
| Energy | 0.70 | 0.70 | 1.25 |
| Financial Services | 1.04 | 1.40 | 2.12 |
| General Operations | 1.38 | 1.38 | 1.82 |
| GPU Compute | Timed out | 0.46 | 1.63 |
Conclusion: The results of our tests indicate that the SKIKK Mini Pro (with an eight-core processor) had a significantly higher performance level than that of both the SKIKK Mini system (with an Intel i7-10710U six-core processor) and the SKIKK NU87KE system (with a four-core CPU). Overall, the results are in line with what we expected to see with this system.
We then ran the SPECviewperf 12 benchmark on the SKIKK Mini Pro. Considered as the global standard for measuring graphics performance based on professional applications, the SPECviewperf 12 performs 9 benchmarks called view sets representing graphic content and behavior of actual applications, covering categories such as: 3D Max, CATIA, Creo , Energy, Maya, Medical, Showcase, Siemens NX and Solidworks.
As shown in the table below, the SKIKK Mini Pro (with a separate GPU) was ten times better than the SKIKK Mini and five times better than the SKIKK NU87KE. While the SKIKK NU87KE and SKIKK Mini are very useful in normal day-to-day scenarios, the SKIKK Mini Pro's discrete GPU (video card) allows it to handle intensive graphics workloads such as video editing or CAD.
| SPECviewperf 12.1 | |||
| Viewsets | NU87KE | Mini | Mini Pro |
| 3dsmax-06 | 20.74 | 11.84 | 115.24 |
| catia-05 | 21.33 | 14.12 | 119.64 |
| creo-02 | 17.57 | 13.01 | 110.72 |
| energy-02 | 0.39 | 0.28 | 9.13 |
| maya-05 | 24.55 | 13.05 | 99.23 |
| medical-02 | 5.32 | 2.79 | 41.33 |
| showcase-02 | 12.68 | 7.16 | 54.65 |
| snx-03 | 2.96 | 2.75 | 106.68 |
| sw-04 | 35.13 | 22.44 | 128.45 |
SKIKK Mini VS SKIKK Mini Pro
Invariably, SKIKK's new Mini Pro is compared to the SKIKK Mini even though all of these Mini PCs are inherently designed for different usage situations. Below is a comparison of the major hardware components of these systems. Both are excellent devices but for different audiences
| Feature |
SKIKK Mini |
SKIKK Mini Pro |
|
|
|
|
| Processor | i7-10710U 6 cores / 12 threads Clock speed 1.1/4.7 GHz MAX TDP 15W | Xeon E-2286M 8 cores, 16 threads, Clock speed 2.4 up to 5.00 GHz MAX TDP 45W |
| GPU | Intel UHD Graphics 620 | Intel UHD Graphics 630 |
| Discrete GPU | N/A | NVIDIA Quadro P2200 |
| RAM | 1 x 32GB DDR4 2666 MHz. | 2 x 32GB DDR4 2666 Mhz. (64GB) |
| Wi-Fi | Intel AX 201 Max speed 2.4 Gbps | Intel AX 200 Max speed 2.4 Gbps |
| Wired Internet | 1 x 1 Gbps | 2 x 1 Gbps w/ out-of-bound management |
Final conclusion
The SKIKK Mini Pro is the Mini PC that many users have been asking for; In addition to support for 64 GB RAM, it has a Xeon processor in the Element module, two 1 GB Ethernet ports, AMT for out-of-bound management and support for two PCIe cards, 1 of which is used for the PNY Nvidia Quadro P2200 video card. These features make it an extremely flexible platform and we can see many companies using it as a workstation for CAD / CAM, M&E or other situations requiring graphics intensive or compute intensive workloads. We also think enthusiasts will use it as a mini server, hypervisor platform and many other new applications.
Would you also like to purchase a SKIKK Mini PC? Click here.
