This article was published in the September 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here.
at a glance
(+) Cube
Huge amount of expandability; relatively cheap alternative to Intel’s NUC; looks gorgeous.
(-) Noob
Can be a bit challenging to get to work on certain monitors; SATA ribbon port feels flimsy.
Fantastically small home theater PC in a box
If the MSI Wind Box was really just a tub of hot air, then the Cubi is a hurricane. A very good-looking hurricane. Sleek and small, with a clean design, our review sample is a treasure trove of golden hardware. It’s everything the Wind Box should’ve been.
Around 1mm taller than Intel’s latest NUC, the Cubi’s slightly sloped, edgy physique gives it a much more arresting and elegant look than its rival. It’s almost a shame that it’s VESA-mountable, meaning most will be slapped to the back of a TV, as the pristine, glossy-white chassis really does look quite at home on our desk.
Clearly, because of the size of this thing, it’s not a powerhouse when it comes to performance. With a Cinebench score of 199 (almost double what its gusty cousin can produce), it loses out to the Intel NUC5i3RYK we tested in our June issue, but only by 20 points. However, it makes up for this by running as silently as the grave. Idling at around 50 degrees Celsius and peaking at 70. Under load it’s almost impossible to hear any noise from the Cubi without physically slamming your ear next to the small little box of joy.
The storage situation is also far better than its little brother. Our review sample came with 120GB of internal flash storage by default (107GB left over after a quick install of Windows 10). But with access to an additional 2.5-inch drive, via an mSATA adapter, the Cubi can accommodate up to 1TB of additional SSD space, if you require it. This does increase the height of the Cubi by 12mm or so, but all in all, it’s completely worth it for that expandability.
Well-Connected
Speaking of expandability, it also includes two SoDIMM slots, allowing up to a total of 16GB of RAM. Couple that with a Broadwell Core i5 and you have yourself one seriously boast-worthy work or home theater PC, one that you can fit into the palm of your hand, no less, and one that runs on an impressive 65W power supply.
I/O is handled by a positive menagerie of connectivity, with the back featuring two USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, and power. The front also houses a four-pole input for headphone and microphone combos, plus an additional two USB 3.0 ports. It even comes with Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0, which is a must in today’s modern age of high-speed gaming and streaming.
And did we mention this thing streams 4K? Because yep, although we guess that’s not as impressive as we’d all like to think nowadays, there are still a lot of people out there using laptops that stutter playing 720p videos on YouTube. It’s an impressive PC rolling in at $280 for the barebones Core i3 model, or $350 for Core i5 version.
The MSI Cubi comes in at a very attractive price point and performs admirably in competition against the Intel NUC and its own little brother, the Wind Box. For price to performance, you’re not going to get any better any time soon.
All up, MSI seems well on the way to cracking the algorithm that will hopefully deliver the perfect, all-round Steam, office, and home-streaming box. It’s not 100 percent there yet, but it certainly looks promising for the future of micro-PCs.
$280, MSI
| Benchmarks | ||
| MSI Cubi | Gigabyte Brix S | |
| Cinebench R15 (index) | 199 |
252 |
| PCMark v8 (index) | 1,781 | 2,049 |
| Idle Temperature (°C) | 49 |
53 |
| Load Temperature (°C) | 70 | 69 |
| Idle Power Draw (W) | 9 | 10 |
| Load Power Draw (W) | 20 | 24 |
| 1080p Video Power Draw (W) | 18 | 19 |
Best scores are bolded.
| Specifications | |
| SKU | Cubi |
| CPU | Intel Core i3-5005U 2GHz |
| Memory | Up to 16GB DDR3L 1,600MHz |
| Storage | 1x 2.5-inch, 1x mSATA |
| Network | 802.11 ac WiFi card, Gigabit Lan |
| Video | 1x HDMI, 1x Mini DisplayPort |
| I/O | 4x USB 3.0, 1x 3.5mm headphone/mic |
| Dimensions (D x W x H) | 115 x 111 x 35mm |
From maximumpc
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