Zotac Zbox Plus ID45 Review

x264 Benchmark

Video conversion is an extremely strenuous ordeal for a processor, but it’s something that a HTPC may very well be tasked with. As such, the x264 Benchmark gives a great insight into how each processor would deal with such a work load.

Video conversion seems to be one of the areas the ID45 struggles the most. At only just over half of the scores of the other three processors, if you’re planning on using this for any form of video rendering, you’re probably better looking elsewhere. The mobile processors just can’t compete in areas such as this, and again, considering how common a task for HTPCs video rendering is, in some aspects this isn’t particularly suitable.

wPrime

wPrime is another incredibly popular benchmarking tool for processors.

The poor i3 3227U struggles yet again with wPrime, taking nearly twice the time of its desktop brother to compete the tasks. We’re still on the same problem that we’ve had from the start of our array processor tests, and there’s now very little hope of the little i3 picking itself back up on the CPU side of things. The temperatures are great, and there’s no reason why Zotac couldn’t have put a slightly more powerful mobile i5 or possibly even a mobile i7 into the ID45 which would most likely have been enough to bring up the scores to the realms of our desktop competitors.