REVIEW: Vorke V1 Plus a mini PC with Intel Celeron J3455, 4GB RAM and 64GB SSD

Today, thanks to the collaboration of the Vorke brand, we present the analysis of the new Vorke V1 Plus mini PC, a model that evolves over the previous Vorke V1 that gave us good results. This device has interesting features that allow us to have a full desktop computer and a 4K multimedia center thanks to its HDMI 2.0 video output. As an engine, we have an Intel Celeron J3455 Quad Core processor from the Apollo Lake family designed for desktop use and manufactured in 14nm. Inside this mini PC we have integrated 4GB of DDR3 RAM, we have 64 GB in a mSATA storage disk that can be extended thanks to the fact that it allows to mount a 2.5″ SATA3 disk in its internal dock. A mini PC that we will test as usual in our usual detailed review.

SPECIFICATIONS

CONTENT DESCRIPTION

Package content

The box of the Vorke V1 Plus mini PC as we see is made of plastic, the upper area we have the logo of the brand, at one end we have the power button that is illuminated with a white LED. In the front area we have two USB 2.0 ports and the microSD card reader, we also have an IR receiver but it is not functional

Product Details

The box of the Vorke V1 Plus mini PC as we see is made of plastic, the upper area we have the logo of the brand, at one end we have the power button that is illuminated with a white LED. In the front area we have two USB 2.0 ports and the microSD card reader, we also have an IR receiver but it is not functional

In the two sides we have a series of ventilation slots that allow air flow, inside as we know we have a blower fan that blows air to the side.

In the rear area we have the main connectors, we have a power input, HDMI 2.0 video output that allows video 4K@60fps, VGA port to connect two monitors at once, Gigabit Ethernet connector, two USB 3.0 ports and audio jack in / out

In the lower area we have the round lid that mounts two pieces of rubber anti-slip, to remove it you have to remove a small side screw and turn the lid.

Inside the Vorke V1 Plus we have the SATA 3 connector for the 2.5″ disk, in this area we can mount the unit by means of the parts that come as standard.It is possible to disassemble the top cover by removing three screws, two external and one inside.

If we remove the top cover we can see the rest of the components, the semi-passive fan on the CPU and the 4 GB of LPDDR3 memory soldered to the motherboard, the wifi + BT card and the mSATA FORESEE disk.

CONNECTING THE DEVICE

Startup

To start up the Vorke V1 Plus we press the power button, in seconds the Windows configuration assistant appears. Initially we only have English as default languages, the steps are very simple and in a few minutes we complete them.

• Startup time: 20 seconds

As we see the installed system is Windows 10 Home 64bit properly activated and perfectly detects the Intel Celeron J3455 Quad Core with its speed of 1.5 GHz, the system comes with the previous version of Creators update with what we need to wait almost one hour to be updated completely, a process that has not given us any problem.

User Experience

This Vorke V1 Plus mini PC, as we have been able to verify, moves the Windows 10 Home system to 64bit with agility using the Intel Celeron J3455 Quad core processor. We only notice how it is logical a drop in to the performance in very heavy applications or when browsing in many open websites at the same time, the 64GB FORESEE mSATA disk as we will see is quite fast which makes everything run without delay besides the 1866 MHz memory also collaborate. For normal desktop use, browsing the internet, watching videos and using office applications, this hardware is sufficient for the vast majority of users.

BIOS

Boot the system BIOS by pressing the ESC or DEL key repeatedly while restarting the miniPC, the system BIOS is the classic AMI with the text mode menus through which we can navigate using the keyboard. The advanced settings are very complete and we can touch all aspects of performance, something we do not recommend as we can leave the system unusable. Pressing the F7 key we can select the boot unit.

Within the options of Chipset we find an operating system selector that gives us the option to change between different options, if we select Intel Linux we can boot this type of OS without problems as we will see.

Brand Support

This brand has an official Vorke website with all its products, we have a contact email and different files with information about its products and downloads area for drivers or firmware, we have the Vorke V1 Plus drivers available for download for example, although Windows 10 detects all components automatically.

Remote control

To remotely control the Vorke V1 Plus we can install Intel Remote Keyboard Host on the the mini PC, and then we can use our mobile or tablet to control it installing the Android or iOS app. We can use tactile gestures, virtual mouse or remote keyboard, we just have to have both devices on the same Wi-Fi network.

Linux

It is possible to install and run any Linux that we need, in our case we have tested Ubuntu 17 that has worked without problems detecting all the main components, the limitations are the classic ones of this system with the Intel processors and its integrated GPU at the video level.

Hardware specifications

Processor

Integrated in the Vorke V1 Plus Mini PC we have the Intel Celeron J3455 Quad core processor manufactured at 14nm working at 1.5 GHz speed and 2.0 GHz turbo mode, with a consumption of 10W TPD. Integrated in the processor we have an Intel HD Graphics GPU 500 witch has 12 EU (execution engines) that allows us to run simple 3D games with out next gen effects.

RAM

Integrated into the Vorke V1 Plus board we have 4 GB of 1866 MHz LPDDR3 RAM memory configured in Dual Channel, the figures we have good enough for that speed as we can see.

The speed in Dual Channel as we see in the figures are correct and we reach 1866 MHz, a speed that is appreciated and the system moves more smoothly the information and use of the programs.

Storage and ports

Inside the miniPC Vorke V1 Plus we have assembled by default a FORESEE mSATA disk of 64 GB that is quite fast. If we want it is possible to improve the overall performance by installing another M.2 unit or SSD 2.5 “with better figures but this is optional.

As we see in the comparison of the internal mSATA disk against a SSD SATA3 disk we see that this unit defends itself quite well, if we want we can add an SSD disk to improve the speed and increase the available space.

eMMC interna	SSD disk on dock SATA 3

Temperatures and noise levels

We perform our usual battery of thermal tests on the Vorke V1 Plus and verify that the temperatures are correct. In our test we have discovered that we are facing a semi-passive device, this causes the internal fan to be stopped when we are at the desk doing nothing but we have verified that it jumps quite easily even when we play a movie without using the CPU a lot.

• The fan turn on at 50ºC at a somewhat slow slow speed and returns to stop at 42ºC, then at 60ºC it accelerates and is noisier.

Temperature and noise level

We performed a series of thermal tests on the Vorke V1 Plus and verified that the unique thermal design of this model continues to work perfectly with the new Intel Apollo Lake SoCs. As we see the numbers are kept at values much lower than those of the competition, something that in the long run surely involves less problems.

• Average measurement temperature 25°C

In our extreme performance tests with CPU and GPU at 100% and the system rises the temperature to 64 ºC, the processor is maintained at a maximum speed of 1.69 GHz without jumping into turbo mode, which is common in these products.

In those kind mini PCs we usually do thermal test using games, as we have proven are the best performance tests that exist since in this type of processors of low consumption push them to the maximum performance in use of CPU as in GPU. As we see in the data playing DOTA 2 we arrive until the 66 ºC and we do not rise of that temperature, the turbo mode jumps to 2.3 GHz punctually.

Power consumption

During our consumption tests Vorke V1 Plus we have quite low values, in the line of similar models, in normal use the system remains very contained and we only reach a maximum of 18 W when we put the GPU to work at maximum. Values that also depend on the connected components, in general a normal scenario.

Wi-Fi, Ethernet and Bluetooth

We ran our tests to check the network performance on the Vorke V1 Plus mini PC, we found that for the wireless connection we have an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 chip that also integrates the 4.0 Bluetooth adapter. With this Wi-Fi chip we get a speed of 46 Mbps in the 2,4 GHz band and 56 Mbps in the 5 GHz band. The Realtek Gigabit Ethernet connector gives us results of 623 Mbps, some correct figures although they could be better in the 5GHz band. This device also have Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity with which we have no major problems when it comes to detecting other devices in general.

We also ran tests on the network adapters for streaming using the iPerf measurement tool with which we have the maximum connection speed in each type of network. With this figure we have how far we can reach using the available connections, the final performance will depend on our internet provider, the contracted speed, the distance of our Wi-Fi network and other factors. The results are pretty good on the Ethernet adapter although the Wifi adapter does not seem to improve much.

PERFORMANCE TEST

At performance level, the Vorke V1 Plus mini PC achieves quite good figures thanks to the Intel Celeron J3455 processor, we also have memory working on Dual Channel at a speed of 1866 MHz, which squeeze this processor a bit more. This additional power seems to get something more graphic performance with the Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU, generally at the CPU level we find similar results to other products in its range and in GPU we get some better data.

Benchmarks

PCMark 8

With this test we can see the performance of the device in an office environment and common desktop use.

3DMark

Graphic performance test where we can see the gross performance capabilities in this environment and compare the performance of GPU’s historically.

Geekbench 4

This benchmark in SoC offers a fairly reliable numbers of CPU’s working in a single core or multiple cores ate the same time, it also has a section of GPU computing that gives us an overall result of the processing capacity.

Cinebench

A brute force tests on both CPU and GPU, this benchmark always help us to see a very clear reference of power.

Games

As we check on our tests on the Vorke V1 Plus the results are the usual in this type of products, we can use the miniPC for titles with simple 3D effects like those we have in Android or several previous generations of PC, although it is possible that some modern games surprise us as a rule we can not use titles that require modern 3D instructions.

Test environment

• GTA V, Low settings, 720p resolution
• Overwatch, Low settings, 720p resolution
• DOTA 2, Low settings, 1080p resolution
• Minecraft, Medium settings, 1080p resolution
• World of Tanks, Medium settings, 1080p resolution

We performed our special test with DOTA 2 o with a screen resolution of 1920×1080, on the lowest settings, the system stays at only 28 fps , a somewhat low number to have a completely fluent experience.

As we see, with this hardware it is advisable to play simple titles such as those found on Android phones by downloading them from the Microsoft Store. Also indie 2D titles or have a basic load in 3D, emulators are also feasible but at most we are in some simple Wii titles.

VIDEO AND AUDIO TEST

Video format test

At the level of video playback the Vorke V1 Plus mini PC gives us quite good results, the integrated Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU gives us an excellent quality in H.264 video playback with 1080p or 4K resolution, and we also have acceleration of video for HVEC / H265 codecs but as we see in some HDR files we have some jump.

• If you are interested only in KODI you can try the LibreELEC system for PC

In this model we have HDMI 2.0 video output with the maximum resolution of 4K@60fps, an ideal solution if we have this type of TV in our living room. We also have VGA connector which allows us to have two screens at once, something that will increase the productivity of this mini PC.

Test results

• The MKV, Blu-ray ISO and BDRemux formats are only containers, inside we can have different codecs, resolutions, audio channels, chapters or subtitles. To play the Blu-ray format menus we need KODI or a compatible program.

Audio format test

Testing the Vorke V1 Plus using a Yamaha RXV-577 AV receiver we checked that this mini PC supports 7.1 DD and DTS pass through sound. We recommend as always update to the latest all drivers with Windows Update before connecting the device to our AV receiver. In the Vorke V1 Plus like the other Apollo Lake products we need to use directshow filters like the LAV to have multi-channel audio like for example with MPC-HC, the normal KODI version will not work we need to use KODI DSPlayer.

Test results

• PCM – Stereo downmix from DD or DTS
• Core – Only the core of the format Dolby / DTS is played
• * Our AV receiver does not support these native formats but we check that it does downmix fine

STREAMING

Youtube

We play streaming for test some content on the Vorke V1 Plus in the usual channels like YouTube or other sources and we verified that we have no problems when playing videos. In YouTube we can play content with the VP9 codec quite correctly up to 4K with a 50% CPU usage, although if we look for better performance it is best to use another codec.

Streaming services with subscription

We check the most common streaming services playback various contents and we verified that all work properly, the power of this device is more than enough to see any kind of content with them. In Netflix we get to FullHD quality without complications, in the rest of services we get the maximum resolution possible.

CONCLUSIONS

Opinion

As we have seen throughout the review of Vorke V1 Plus we are facing a mini PC that behaves correctly, a model that integrates a few points quite positive about the competition. In this model we have an HDMI 2.0 port that allows us to have video at 4K@60fps and at the same time we can connect another screen through its VGA port. We must also highlight the speed of the integrated RAM memory LPDDR3 to 1866 MHz and the mSATA 64 GB disk mounted that certainly has a good speed, we also have the possibility to attach a 2.5″ disk in the internal bay SATA 3 that has at the bottom.

In the Vorke V1 Plus mini PC as we have seen we have an internal fan that works semi-passively although it jumps quite easily and we will hear it at low revolutions in a usual way although we are making light use, when performance is required, it is much more audible although I do not bother. On the other hand the Wifi adapters behave normally but the performance of the 5GHz band could be better. In general we have an interesting mini PC for the price, with many application options and that is perfectly valid for desktop use, surfing the internet or use applications at medium level within its capabilities, a product that can fit us perfectly thanks to his specifications.

WHERE TO BUY

Vorke V1 Plus

7.8

DESIGN AND CONNECTIVITY

7.5/10

HARDWARE

8.5/10

SOFTWARE

8.5/10

SUPPORT

7.0/10

PRICE/QUALITY

7.5/10

Pros

• HDMI 2.0 and VGA
• Optional 2,5" disk
• Compact design
• Fast mSATA and RAM
• Low price

Cons

• Fan somewhat sonorous to the maximum