ASRock DeskMini 110 mini-STX PC Review

Concluding Remarks

The ASRock DeskMini 110 gave us the opportunity to check out what is possible with the mini-STX form factor and a high-TDP Skylake CPU. It is quite clear that Intel's current marketing angle with the mini-STX form factor is affordability. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why almost all vendors have gone in for a H110 chipset-based design for their mini-STX offerings. That said, ASRock has put in a couple of good differentiating aspects in the DeskMini 110: support for 65W TDP CPUs and a M.2 PCIe slot for SSDs directly connected to the CPU's PCIe lanes. This works around the issue of the H110 chipset having only PCIe 2.0 lanes

The pricing is very competitive - $130 for the all-metal chassis, 120W power adapter and cord, and the H110 motherboard. While the assembly is not as easy as that of a NUC, it is acceptable for the DIY market.

In terms of scope for improvement, a bundled WLAN adapter would be very welcome. Sourcing one that can fit in with the chassis design will be a challenge, as most M.2 PCIe WLAN modules are either meant for NUCs, or for notebooks. The DeskMini's all-metal chassis makes it difficult to get a suitable placement for the flat antennae that come with such WLAN adapters. I think it would be better for ASRock to bundle / pre-install a WLAN module and antennas for a slight increase in the price of the product. The DeskMini could also do with some additional I/O (say, a SD card reader).

It is great to see the mini-STX form factor getting broad vendor support. We would like it more if vendors were able to differentiate their offerings. ASRock has tried out a few things differently in the storage subsystem and chassis design with the DeskMini 110. We look forward to seeing what other differentiation aspects come out in the future iterations in this product line.