Call it a tale of two mini PCs. In many ways, the MSI Cubi 5 10M (starts at $509; $629 as tested) is the opposite of the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5i we tested just before it. The Lenovo offers an attractive design complete with fabric top panel; the Cubi 5 looks like an OEM part that MSI grabbed off the shelf. The IdeaCentre uses a Core i5 processor from Intel’s desktop series; the Cubi’s Core i5 is a mobile chip. To keep its CPU cool, the Lenovo relies on a fan that whirs nonstop. With a more efficient laptop processor, the MSI is able to keep its thermals in check with much less fan noise. Unless you need a mini PC for media editing, the Cubi 5 is the better pick for office work. It’s smaller, quieter, and more than capable of providing a smooth Windows 10 experience for basic productivity tasks. Its advantages in size and acoustics also make it the better pick for a living-room media streamer.
A Mini Among Minis
Our Cubi 5 test configuration clocks in at $629 and features a Core i5-10210 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid-state drive. If you’re eyeing it as a media streamer only, either of MSI’s $509 models should fit the bill with a Core i3 CPU, the same amount of memory, and either a 1TB hard drive or a 256GB SSD. The top-end model costs $860 and combines a Core i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM with the 512GB SSD.
All of the processors are mobile parts from Intel’s 10th Generation “Comet Lake” series, and each model features the same generic enclosure. The system is matte black with a small silver MSI logo on the top panel and a glossy black stripe on the front panel where the front ports and power button are located. The top and sides are made from a single piece of plastic, and the bottom panel is metal. MSI includes a mounting plate that you can attach to the bottom panel to secure the system to a wall or the underside of a desk.
While it won’t win any design awards for its appearance, the Cubi is not without its charms. It’s vented on five of its six sides—all but the front panel—to help keep cool without an overreliance on the cooling fan. The fan spins while the system is active, but its whir is soft and quiet; you have to be sitting right next to the system to hear it. The fan kicks off when the system is idle and goes into sleep mode.
Whether you use the mounting plate or not, you should have no trouble finding a spot for the Cubi 5. It’s petite even among mini PCs, measuring 2.1 inches high by 4.9 inches square. The rival Azulle Byte4 is more compact, at 1.5 by 5.1 by 3.8 inches (HWD), but it’s an underpowered gadget with a Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM meant for media streaming rather than a full Windows 10 experience. The fabric-faced Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5 is larger (1.6 by 7.6 by 7.2 inches), while the HP Slim Desktop mini-tower looks positively huge by comparison at 0.6 by 3.7 by 11.9 inches.
Expansion Inside and Out
When not mounted, the MSI rests on four small rubber feet. Inside each foot is a screw, which you can remove to access the system’s interior. That there is any expansion room at all in such a tiny PC is impressive.
In our test system, one of the two laptop-style SO-DIMM slots is filled with an 8GB RAM module, leaving a free slot for easily doubling the system’s memory. The lone M.2 slot is occupied by the 512GB NVMe SSD (a standard-size 80mm-long drive), but there’s a free SATA port for adding a 2.5-inch SSD or hard drive. MSI includes the requisite cables should you want to expand the Cubi 5’s storage capacity that way. A 2.5-inch drive would mount on the inside of the bottom cover.
Despite its trim dimensions, the Cubi 5 does not skimp on ports. It supplies both USB Type-A and Type-C ports, as well as HDMI and DisplayPort connections.
On the front panel sit two USB 3.2 ports, one Type-A and one Type-C, along with separate headphone and microphone jacks.
Around back, you’ll find two more USB-A 3.2 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, the HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs, and an Ethernet jack. A flash memory card slot for quick storage expansion would have been nice, but didn’t make the cut.
Two other things that didn’t make the cut are a keyboard and mouse; you’ll need to supply your own input peripherals for the Cubi 5.
Performance Testing: Small But Relatively Mighty
As mentioned, our MSI Cubi 5 10M is based on Intel’s Core i5-10210U, a quad-core mobile CPU with a base clock speed of 1.6GHz and max turbo frequency of 4.2GHz. With a TDP of only 15 watts, this efficient chip is a great fit for a compact mini PC. (See more about how we test desktops.)
For our performance charts, we stacked up the Cubi against other budget mini desktops and one mini-tower PC. The other minis are the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5, which eschews a mobile chip for a 35-watt desktop Core i5-10400T; the Azulle Byte4, which features a humble mobile Celeron processor; and Apple’s Mac mini, which features the M1 processor also found in the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and 24-inch iMac. We included the Mac mini even though it’s the priciest of the bunch at $699, and it won’t appear in every benchmark chart. (It’s incompatible with our Windows-based tests.) Rounding out the charts is the HP Slim Desktop, a budget-priced compact tower with a dual-core AMD Athlon Gold mobile CPU.
Productivity, Storage, and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, Web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the system’s boot drive. Both benchmarks yield a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
The Cubi 5 finished just ahead of the HP Slim Desktop in PCMark 10, with the latter’s higher CPU clock speed largely offsetting the additional processing cores of the MSI’s Core i5. The Lenovo and its six-core desktop Core i5 led the way.
Next is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
The Cubi 5 was able to put its four cores and eight processing threads to greater use here. The IdeaCentre Mini 5i again had a clear advantage over the systems with mobile processors, but the Mac mini and its M1 chip took top honors even running a non-M1-native version of Cinebench.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing trial, another tough, threaded workout that’s highly CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads. In it, we put a stopwatch on test systems as they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video (the open-source Blender demo movie Tears of SteelTears of Steel) to a 1080p MP4 file. It’s a timed test, and lower results are better.
Here, the Cubi 5 again finished behind the IdeaCentre and Mac mini but clearly ahead of the HP Slim Desktop and the underpowered Azulle. The little MSI is capable of handling video-editing tasks, but its score indicates that you might not want to make them a regular practice.
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image, timing each operation and adding up the total. As with Handbrake, lower times are better here. The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed the process of applying filters, so systems with powerful graphics chips or cards may see a boost.
The Cubi 5 turned in an impressive result in our Photoshop test. It finished much closer to the Lenovo and Apple than to the HP, which illustrates that it can be a small but mighty photo-editing machine.
Graphics Tests
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.
All five systems here rely on the integrated graphics built into their CPUs, and their 3DMark scores fell well short of suitability for gaming.
Making the Right Mini PC Compromises
The MSI Cubi 5 10M strikes a near-optimal balance among size, performance, and acoustics for a mini desktop. It’s more capable than underpowered mini PCs meant to be hidden in your home theater to stream media and do little else. With its mobile Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM, our test configuration provides enough muscle for a smooth Windows experience for productivity apps and even occasional media editing. Yet it’s compact and quiet enough to operate as a home theater PC.
Acoustics play an outsize role in mini PCs, not only in the living room but also in office settings because they’ll likely be placed on or mounted under a desk rather than stashed on the floor and out of earshot. The Cubi 5 doesn’t offer the most attractive design, but trading a modicum of looks for better acoustics is an exchange most shoppers be happier with long-term. It’s not a silent, fanless system, but its fan noise is well within the acceptable range, even when it’s sitting right next to you. If you can get past its plain look, the MSI Cubi 5 10M will serve you well as a space-saving office desktop or a powerful addition to your home theater.
