I have two Intel NUC systems:
2.4 GHz i3-7100U (2.40 GHz - 3MB Cache - 2 Cores - 4 Threads)
4 GB DDR4 at 2133 MHz (1× 4 GB)
250 GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD
I bought the first one last year and it is performing quite well. I've had the second for a few days now and performance is much worse.
To eliminate all variables for testing, I've booted up both systems with the same live flash drive (Pop!_OS), and run Minetest. The older system gets 60 fps while the new one gets only 20. As far as I can tell, bios settings are the same.
What could cause such a difference in graphics performance?
Update - I've added information from dmidecode
From the old system (purchased last year):
Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: Intel Corp.
Version: BNKBL357.86A.0057.2017.1122.1550
Release Date: 11/22/2017
Address: 0xF0000
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 8192 kB
Characteristics:
PCI is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
UEFI is supported
BIOS Revision: 5.6
Firmware Revision: 8.12
Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes
Base Board Information
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Product Name: NUC7i3BNB
Version: J22859-308
Serial Number: GEBN730007PT
Asset Tag:
Features:
Board is a hosting board
Board is replaceable
Location In Chassis: Default string
Chassis Handle: 0x0003
Type: Motherboard
Contained Object Handles: 0
From the new system:
Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: Intel Corp.
Version: BNKBL357.86A.0057.2017.1122.1550
Release Date: 11/22/2017
Address: 0xF0000
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 8192 kB
Characteristics:
PCI is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
UEFI is supported
BIOS Revision: 5.6
Firmware Revision: 8.12
Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes
Base Board Information
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Product Name: NUC7i3BNB
Version: J22859-312
Serial Number: GEBN809003J5
Asset Tag:
Features:
Board is a hosting board
Board is replaceable
Location In Chassis: Default string
Chassis Handle: 0x0003
Type: Motherboard
Contained Object Handles: 0
Update 2
I ran a simple ram speed test found at https://www.pcsuggest.com/benchmarking-linux-systems-with-simple-command-line-tools/
the script:
mkdir ramtest
sudo mount tmpfs -t tmpfs ramtest/
cd ramtest
dd if=/dev/zero of=data_tmp bs=1M count=512
dd if=data_tmp of=/dev/null bs=1M count=512
cd ..
sudo umount ramtest
results on the old system:
512+0 records in
512+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB, 512 MiB) copied, 0.225257 s, 2.4 GB/s
512+0 records in
512+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB, 512 MiB) copied, 0.0939961 s, 5.7 GB/s
results on the new system:
512+0 records in
512+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB, 512 MiB) copied, 1.28991 s, 416 MB/s
512+0 records in
512+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB, 512 MiB) copied, 0.602888 s, 890 MB/s
uname -a
andgrep 'model\|stepping\|microcode\|bugs' /proc/cpuinfo
.