Sapphire EDGE HD4 Mini PC Review

For the review today we are testing the Sapphire EDGE HD4 Mini PC with a variety of synthetic, real world applications and an older gaming title.

The EDGE HD4 is not designed for gaming, and the onboard Intel HD graphics are not Direct X 11 capable either. This means you will not be able to run the latest games in DX11, even if the hardware was able to generate smooth frame rates.

It is worth pointing out again that the EDGE HD4 does not ship with a copy of Windows installed on the hard drive, so you need to budget in the extra cost of an operating system and either USB flash drive or external USB optical drive.

If you install from an optical disc you will need to press delete on first post to configure the BIOS, as it will be set to boot from the internal hard drive by default. After the operating system is installed, then all the drivers need installed from the supplied optical disc.

This really isn't an ideal situation for an inexperienced user. We would like to see Sapphire ship a version of these EDGE HD systems with a copy of Windows pre-installed with all the drivers already in place.

Incidentally, all of the software on the optical drive is available on the Sapphire support website, so I would recommend you check that you have the latest versions of each package.

Drivers are available for 32 bit and 64 bit Windows 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7 and 8. We are using Windows 7 64 bit for our review today.

Above, an overview of the hardware as shown in the latest version of CPUz. At the heart of the EDGE HD4 is the Celeron 847 dual core processor which runs at 1.1ghz. It is built on the 32nm manufacturing process and has 2MB of Level 3 cache on board. It is a 64 bit processor and has low power drain characteristics, rated for a maximum draw of 17W. Sapphire include 4GB of 1,333mhz memory in the shape of a single SO-DIMM. This is obviously only single channel.

The Windows Experience Index shows a final score of 3.9 points out of a possible 7.9 in Windows 7 64 bit. The Celeron processor drags down the overall score as this software doesn't correlate an average rating, just taking the slowest parameter as the final result.

Comparison processors:
AMD A8 3870K
AMD A8 3850
AMD Zacate E-350
Atom D525 @ 1.8ghz
Turion X64 X2 L510 @ 1.6ghz
Core i7 3610QM
Core i7 2960XM Extreme Edition (Mobile)
Core i7 2630QM
Core i7 2640M processor
Core i7 2360QM
Core i7 2600K
Core i5 2500K
Core i5 2410M
Core i3 2105 desktop processor.
AMD Zacate APU – E350 (HD6310 graphics)
Atom D525
Turion X64 X2 L510

Software:
3DMark Vantage
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark 2.0
Left4Dead2

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus BluRay Drive
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Calibrated Power Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

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