Mid-Range Meteor Lake Processors: 65W Power, Performance, and Efficiency

Compact computing systems have come a long way in the past decade. Advances in processor performance per watt have made it possible to swap out bulky desktop PCs for ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) and small form-factor (SFF) machines. Intel’s Meteor Lake Processors series is the latest offering to cater to this market. It’s been a slow rollout since the initial info dropped in September 2023, but we’re finally getting our hands on some of these systems.

ACEMAGIC sent us their F2A 125H mini PC around the time we were wrapping up our review of the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-155H and ASUS NUC14RVHv7 UCFF systems. The F2A has a larger footprint compared to those systems, which allows for a better thermal solution. This means the internal processor (Core Ultra 5 125H) can be operated with a sustained power limit (PL1) setting of 65W.

This review dives deep into the features and performance profile of the ACEMAGIC F2A 125H. We’ll also explore the optimal operating power setting for the MTL-H processors.

The F2A system measures 147 mm x 147 mm x 52 mm, which is larger than the NUC14 Pro+ (144 mm x 112 mm x 41 mm) and the tall 4″x4″ NUC14 Pro (117 mm x 112 mm x 54 mm). The packaging includes a 120W power adapter, a geo-specific power cord, a HDMI cable, a user manual, and a mounting plate with screws. The external packaging is heavy on AI features, which is also reflected in the marketing collateral.

The F2A comes with 32 GB of DDR5-5600 SODIMMs and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD. Windows 11 Home is pre-installed, but we always recommend wiping the drive and installing your own OS after getting the key from the original installation. Our sample came with Kingston SODIMMs and a Kingston Design-In OEM SSD (BiCS5 TLC NAND behind a Silicon Motion SM2267XT DRAM-less controller).

Accessing the SSD and SODIMM slots requires removing four screws from the underside of the system. We were pleasantly surprised to find a fan attached to the underside, which should result in good thermal performance.

The full specifications of the review sample are listed below.

… (table content remains the same)In the next section, we’ll take a closer look at the system setup and follow it up with a detailed platform analysis.