Xiaomi Mi Box 3 Enhanced / Pro (Mediatek MT8693) Benchmarks and System Info

Xiaomi Mi Box 3 Enhanced is the first TV Box I’ve tested with a processor featuring ARM Cortex A72 cores, so I’m very eager to see how its performs, and I’m expecting it to be quite faster than Rockchip RK3288, but still not quite matching Nvidia Tegra X1 processor found in Nvidia Shield Android TV box. But first let’s check the system information with CPU-Z app.

First, it looks like CPU-Z does not detect big.LITTLE processor very well, as it detect a six core ARM Cortex-A72, instead of a six core processor with two Cortex A72, and four Cortex A53 cores. The clock speed ranges between 507 MHz and 1.57 GHz, but that’s likely the number for the Cortex A53 core, as the marketing materials report the Cortex A53 cores run at up to 1.6 GHz, and the Cortex A72 cores up to 2.0 GHz. Antutu info reports the frequency ranges between 507 MHz and 1989 MHz.

The GPU is Imagination Technology PowerVR Rogue GX6250 with screen resolution set to 1920×1080, and the system has 1931 MB RAM, and 5.37 GB internal storage. The board, called kungfupanda, is running Android 5.1 on top of Linux 3.10.61+. The product is codenamed MiBOX3_PRO in the firmware.

Let’s run now Antutu 6.0.4.

So that’s 65,007 points, not bad for a $85 device, and as expected much better than the 35,000+ points in Amlogic S905 and Rockchip RK3368 platforms. I could not find results for Rockchip RK3288 processor and Antutu 6.0, but I’ll have a new set of data soon as I’m expecting a new RK3288 board in Raspberry Pi form factor very soon. That’s still about half of the 117,820 points achieved by Nvidia Shield Android TV box, but it’s not quite the same price point.

[Update: While resolution matters, video output usually does not. But it seems to have a significant impact on Mediatek MT8693 processor either because of some bottleneck of a firmware/driver bug. The test above is done with 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz video output and 1920×1080 frame buffer resolution, but I’ve repeated the test using 1080p @ 60 Hz video output and 1920×1080 resolution.

The newer score is significantly higher (71,562 points) because of a much better 3D score.]

Next is Vellamo 3.2.

2,010 points for Multicore, 4,159 points with Chrome Browser, and 2,392 points using the Metal benchmark. Since Vellamo scores are not quite as well known as Antutu, it’s probably a good idea to update my comparison chart. Bear in mind that I normally use the stock Browser with Vellamo, but since it is not available in Mi Box 3 Enhanced, I’ve installed Chrome instead. The downside is that it may skew that particular benchmark, and have added or removed a few hundred points.

Nevertheless, Mi Box 3 Enhancement is clearly ahead of the competition for all three Vellamo benchmarks, with other devices featuring Amlogic S905, Amlogic S812, Rockchip RK3368, and Hisilicon Hi3798M V100 processors.

[Update: Here are the results with 1080p60 video output, where the Browser score is a little higher.

]

The last benchmark I’ll run is 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme. The fastest smartphones and Nvidia TV box all max out that one at 60 fps.

The first result is using 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz video output and 1920×1080 frame buffer resolution.

The device did not max out the benchmark, but still achieved 5,987 points. That compares to 4,327 points for MINIX NEO U1 (Amlogic S905 with penta-core Mali-450MP GPU), and 7,513 points for Tronsmart Orion R28 (Rockchip RK3288 with ARM Mali-T764 GPU).

The second result is using 1920×1080 @ 60 Hz video output and 1920×1080 frame buffer resolution.

I’ll soon make a detailed side-by-side comparison between Rockchip RK3288 and Mediatek MT8693 processors.

GearBest provided the device for review, and they sell Xiaomi Mi Box 3 Enhanced TV box for $79.99 including shipping. Other shops selling the device include GeekBuying, and Aliexpress.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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