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The 3D graphics workstation is supposed to be big, black and expensive, like the Green Hornet's gadget car. But YOYOTech clearly hasn't read that particular script with the M-Cube WS. The model we were sent was not only about half the size of the average workstation, but half the price and mostly red … although more sober colours are available.
Despite its small size, the YOYOTech M-Cube WS packs in a choice selection of components for its intended audience of 3D content creators. With a quad-core Intel Core i5, liquid cooling, professional AMD FirePro graphics, and a 10,000rpm industrial-strength hard disk, it ticks the necessary boxes if your 3D needs are professional rather than entertainment oriented.
The good news is that the price won't force you to apply for a business loan.
YOYOTech M-Cube WS Specifications:
- Intel Core i5-4670K @ 4.3GHz
- 8GB GeIL DDR3 @ 2133MHz
- ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT Motherboard
- 1TB Western Digital VelociRaptor SATA III 6Gb/s 10,000rpm HDD
- 4GB GDDR5 AMD FirePro W7000 Graphics
- Corsair Hydro Series H100 Liquid Cooler
- Seasonic 650W PSU
- Aerocool Dead Silence DS Cube Case
- Windows 7 64bit
- 3 Year Warranty
Price: £1,249 inc VAT & Delivery
Central to the YOYOTech M-Cube WS is its Core i5-4670K processor, which comes from Intel's latest Haswell range. There are five different versions of the 4670, which quite misleadingly have very varied frequencies and features.
The K variety, as we have come to know, is the top-end unlocked model of Intel processors. So the 4670K runs at a nominal 3.4GHz, with a 3.8GHz Turbo Boost 2.0, but YOYOTech has taken full advantage of the unlocked capabilities, and permanently pushed the processor to 4.3GHz across all four cores.
Being a Core i5, though, there is no Hyper-Threading on hand to turn the four physical cores into eight virtual ones.
Amongst gamers, the M-Cube WS would be called an overclocked system. But workstation manufacturers prefer terms that don't imply pushing hardware beyond its limits, because stability is much more important in a mission-critical professional activity like 3D animation.
So a term like “frequency enhanced” is generally preferred. YOYOTech keeps the side effects of the M-Cube WS's frequency enhancement under control with a Corsair Hydro Series H100 Liquid Cooler.
YOYOTech has partnered the processor with 8GB of Geil 2,133MHz DDR3 SDRAM, in the form of two 4GB DIMM modules, which is a little miserly for professional usage, although shouldn't cause any particular problems. The ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT motherboard has a couple more DIMM slots free, though, so you can always upgrade when 8GB feels limited.
The ASUS motherboard uses Intel's Z87 chipset, but has a Mini-ITX form factor, so only offers a single 16-lane PCI Express slot. The board provides four USB 2.0 and four USB 3.0 ports on the backplane, plus a couple more of each on headers, which YOYOTech has routed to the top of the chassis.
Graphics acceleration is taken care of by an AMD FirePro W7000. This is the entry point for AMD's high-end graphics selection, and is a very cost-effective option. It sports 1,280 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR5 memory, with 154GB/sec bandwidth.
Support is available for DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.2 and OpenCL 1.2. We have found NVIDIA's Kepler Quadros to be superior in performance, but the AMD FirePro W7000 still provides a lot of performance for the money. It's also relatively low in power consumption, requiring less than 150W.
Normally, the chassis a 3D workstation comes in doesn't warrant much attention. However, its small size and colourful disposition mean that the M-Cube WS's Aerocool Dead Silence DS Cube case does require a few sentences.
Our sample had a window, which is an option that some professionals might not want. But the interior is tidy and compact, so not unattractive. As mentioned earlier, the top has a couple of USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, plus audio connectivity and the power and reset buttons.
We reviewed this chassis back in October 2013. You can read this in depth analysis, over here.
The front has space for single 5.25in and 3.5in drives, although neither were installed on our test sample. We would have liked at least a DVD rewriter, and a mult-format memory card reader is always a useful inclusion. Inside, there's space for two 2.5in or 3.5in drives, plus a tray for a further two 2.5in drives.
YOYOTech has supplied a single 1TB Western Digital VelociRaptor SATA III conventional hard disk. This is a 10,000rpm drive with a five-year warranty and a minimum 600,000 load / unload cycles, so it's built to last. However, we normally expect workstations to sport a solid state disk for operating system and applications, with a lesser conventional hard disk for general data storage.
The chassis sports a Seasonic 650W PSU, which will be adequate for the components, if not exactly over specified.
The YOYOTech M-Cube WS system is built around the latest Intel Haswell Core i5-4670K processor. These can run hot, but YOYOTech keeps things under control with water cooling. YOYOTech isn't stressing the CPU unduly, though.
The 4.3GHz clock will pay dividends in performance across the board, without causing any cooling or noise issues. The frequency enhancement is also fully backed by the three-year warranty, so customers can enjoy the benefits with full confidence.
The CPU-Z readouts provide an overview of the system that we have discussed earlier in the review. The Core i5-4670K Intel Haswell processor is running at 4.3GHz. The GeIL Memory is running at 2,133MHz with timings of 10-11-11-2T. CPU-Z shows the AMD FirePro W7000 has a 950MHz core and 1,200MHz memory.
GPU-Z shows confirms the 950MHz core and 1,200MHz frequencies for the AMD FirePro W7000.
Software:
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
PCMark 8
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cinebench R15
SPECviewperf 11
SPECviewpert 12
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
SiSoft Sandra
PCMark 8 is the latest version in our series of popular PC benchmarking tools. It is designed to test the performance of all types of PC, from tablets to desktops. With five separate benchmark tests plus battery life testing, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance. PCMark 8 is the complete PC benchmark for home and business.
The YOYOTech M-Cube WS scores 5,674 points in PC Mark 8, showing good general utility for everyday tasks.
The SPECgpcSM project group's SPECviewperf 11, released in late June 2010, was totally new graphics performance evaluation software when it first arrived. Among the major changes were a new GUI, fully updated viewsets traced from newer versions of applications, larger models, and advanced OpenGL functionality such as shading and vertex buffer objects (VBOs).
The YOYOTech M-Cube WS posts some impressive scores in SPECviewperf 11, with particular highlights in maya-03, lightwave-01, and sw-02, implying that its 3D animation and product design modelling abilities are extremely high.
SPECviewperf 12, released by SPEC's Graphics Performance Characterization group (SPECgpc) on December 18, 2013, is an all-new version of the worldwide standard for measuring graphics performance based on professional applications. SPECgpc members at the time of release include AMD, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Lenovo, NEC and NVIDIA. SPECviewperf 12 measures the 3D graphics performance of systems running under the OpenGL and Direct X application programming interfaces. The benchmark’s test files, called viewsets, represent graphics content and behavior from actual applications.
This benchmark has only just been released, and this is the first workstation we have tested with the new software, so we have no comparisons. We will refer back to these results in future workstation reviews.
CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.
Cinebench's CPU rendering test is fully multi-threaded, so the Core i5-4670K's four, non-hyperthreading cores are at a disadvantage compared to Core i7, six-core, and multi-socket workstations. But the 4.3GHz clock means the result of 7.37 is still very respectable.
On the other hand, AMD FirePro graphics are at major advantage with the OpenGL test, and the W7000 provides one of the fastest results we have seen.
CINEBENCH 15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested.
CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards.
We have yet to analyse a lot of hardware with the latest release of Cinebench, but the results in R15 appear to parallel the abilities with R11.5, showing good CPU rendering for a quad-core and excellent OpenGL.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
- Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
- Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
- Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
- SMP – Multi-Processor
- MC – Multi-Core
- SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
- MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
- GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
- NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
- AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
- IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
Arithmetic scores are mildly below what we would expect for this processor, but nothing to worry about. Memory bandwidth from the GeIL 2133MHz DIMMs is excellent for a dual-channel configuration, however.
Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSDs. We are using V3.0.3 x64. We use this program to test the onboard Western Digital hard disk.
The Western Digital Velociraptor has nothing like the performance of a solid state disk, but it has plenty of bandwidth for a hard disk, thanks to its 10,000rpm rotational speed.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
The ATTO results bear out those of CrystalMark, with reads and writes around the region of 180MB/sec.
Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The YOYOTech M-Cube WS isn't particularly noisy. It certainly won't be noticeable in a studio.
YOYOTech's M-Cube WS is mostly a well considered workstation from a company better known for its no-expense-spared gaming rigs.
The price is reasonable for a professionally oriented system, and the compact, colourful chassis bucks the trend in this area for huge cases that dominate your workspace like the black monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
YOYOTech's frequency enhancement gets the most out of the quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, without taking things too far and risking instability.
You need to be aware if the packages that you're likely to run are more impacted by the raw speed of your CPU or the amount of parallel processing capability available. The AMD FirePro W7000 graphics provide good performance for the money.
We would have preferred twice the memory, to keep the system future proofed for longer, and a combination of solid state disk and larger hard disk rather than the single hard disk (even if the 10,000rpm Western Digital VelociRaptor model YOYOTech supplies is extremely quick in its class).
We would also have liked some removable storage facilities. But overall this is a competent, reasonably priced workstation with an attractive, satisfyingly small chassis.
Pros:
- Good price for a professional workstation
- FirePro W7000 is a good performer at this price point
- Frequency enhanced processor provides decent rendering abilities
- Compact and bijou
Cons:
- Only 8GB RAM
- Single hard disk
- No removable storage
- No SD/CF card reader
- No Blu-Ray/DVD
KitGuru says: The YOYOTech M-Cube WS is a capable, attractive workstation for the money. It has limitations in terms of memory and disk storage, but these can be easily remedied when you purchase. If you're looking for a professional graphics solution in an affordable system, then it's Worth Considering.
