ASRock DeskMini 110 mini-STX PC Review
by Ganesh T S on June 8, 2016 8:45 AM ESTPerformance Metrics - II
In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.
x264 Benchmark
First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0. This is simply a test of CPU performance. As expected, the Core i7-6770HQ in Skull Canyon is able to surpass the Core i5-6500 in the DeskMini.
7-Zip
7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.
TrueCrypt
As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. CPUs supporting the AES-NI instruction can accelerate the encryption and decryption processes. The Core i5-6500 has AES-NI support. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. The TrueCrypt internal benchmark provides some interesting cryptography-related numbers to ponder. In the graph below, we can get an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the ASRock DeskMini 110 and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test.
Agisoft Photoscan
Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:
- Stage 1: Align Photographs
- Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
- Stage 3: Build Mesh
- Stage 4: Build Textures
We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software.
Dolphin Emulator
Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the CPU capabilities, leaning more towards single-threaded performance. Therefore, the higher clock speed / TDP of the Core i5-6500 helps it to come out on top in this benchmark.
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r3loaded - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Yeah, MXM was invented to make life easy for OEMs, not consumers.Flunk - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
I think the ship has sailed on that idea, people want smaller and smaller notebooks, not huge ones with huge upgradability.CharonPDX - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Heck even a transverse (on a riser, across the top of the CPU,) half-height, short-length PCIe x16 slot would be nice, there are "decent", (although not "super powerful) video cards available for half-height, short-length slots.Valantar - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Thunderbolt 3 alongside similarly sized (stackable?) (MXM-based) external GPUs would be better. Want a small system with just what you need for office/HTPC duty? Skip the GPU. Want a compact gaming rig? Get the extra chassis and (given proper availability and firmware standardization) whatever MXM GPU you want. You could easily fit the "MXM+" GTX 980 (and thus 1080, whenever it's out) in a 5" by 5" form factor, and cooling would be a breeze with a heatsink filling two dimensions of the chassis fitted with a downward blowing 120mm fan.marc1000 - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
MXM has lots of issues.I believe if you wanna go this small, it is better to stick with NUCs. if you need some more power, go for mITX + standard GPU.
Calista - Sunday, June 12, 2016 - link
Problem is a mITX case could easily handle a 1000 watt system, going with a full-sized ATX PSU and a high-end GPU/CPU combo and a large bunch of drives. It would be noisy when going full tilt, but it would be doable. What people seem to be asking for is a <200 watt tiny system with interchangeable parts. A 200 watt TDP would allow for a small but efficient PSU to fit within a small case, a 65W CPU and a 100 watt GPU, meaning even a modern high-end GPU like the GTX 970.The mSTX form factor just sounds like the answer to a question no one has asked.
repoman27 - Friday, June 10, 2016 - link
The switch to HBM and stacking the memory and GPU on interposers will enable socketed GPUs in near future. Hopefully that becomes a thing.Namisecond - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
You'd have the same problems with MXM there as you do with them on laptops, with maybe marginally more volume for a cooling system.MXM was not designed to be a user serviceable interface. The sooner you realize that, the happier you'll be. :3
SeanFL - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Glad to see more vendors gearing up in the small space PC's. Have changed over to NUC's and other small form factors in the house and at work and they work fantastic for almost everything. The monster 6 core machine (i7-5930k) only gets used for video editing now.blackice85 - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Agreed, I'm glad that these have become pretty viable now. I'm looking to replace my big PC with a smaller machine as well, but would like to still do some medium-ish quality gaming on occasion. I'm hoping the new AMD Zen APUs next year fit the bill, I'll have to see how they review. It would just be cool if a discrete GPU wasn't really a requirement anymore.