ASRock M8 Barebones Review: My Steam Box
by Ian Cutress on January 2, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Barebones
- Intel
- ASRock
- Motherboards
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Z87
Due to the high end level of the systems that Dustin has benchmarked, our M8 configuration does not appear to fair too well on some of the synthetics – however frame rates in modern games are more than applicable and should systematically beat any console title if settings were equilibrated between the systems. For the price difference, one would hope so! Given that these are all tested against laptops, we see that while our low powered CPU may not be as fast as we had liked, the gaming frame rates are still at the high end.
PCMark 7
3DMark Fire Strike
Cinebench R11.5
x264 5.0 HD Benchmark
Bioshock Infinite
Grid 2
Sleeping Dogs
Tomb Raider
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wperry - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
With cases like this, where size is a major factor, I'd love to see it photographed with a commonplace item so that we have a better sense of scale. Even something as simple as a soda can would suffice.IanCutress - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Here it is next to my Bitfenix Prodigy: https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/397329549631...Gigaplex - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
That comparison shot actually makes it look pretty big. I've got a Prodigy and it's not a small case. This M8 looks taller.IanCutress - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
M8 is a few mm taller, and the bulk goes all the way up. The M8 is almost square, but again, half the width due to the PCIe riser. Compared to all my regular PC cases, the Prodigy is small and mobile - the M8 even more so, for something with a big GPU.Johnmcl7 - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
Agreed, I was disappointed not to see it beside the likes of an Xbox 360 and AW X51.pierrot - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I like the riser card design for a flatter size but jeez its uglyXpl1c1t - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
With the industry's clear trend towards mitx and potential future adoption of picoitx, it puzzles me why there aren't reference GPU cards with any sort of gaming potential that are built on the half-height PCI standard. Palit's GTS 450 and AMD's 7750 were release years apart and yet remain in the same performance category.Utilizing cards meant for full atx chassis and with lengths exceeding that of a mitx board effectively limits the capabilities of system builders to increase the performance/square-inch factor without resorting to expensive designs requiring special mounting and riser cards... (pointing finger at the recent Mac Pro design, while cool, is a brick in the face of the enthusiast system builder who cannot and will not have the ability to upgrade using market components).
Now, if laptops can run a GTX 880M with sufficient power and cooling... that same chip should as sure as hell me able to be integrated onto a half height card without exceeding the width of a mitx board. Please, add a few more layers on the pcb to accomplish it, we'll still end up saving money via not needing to utilize these sorts of compromising cases.
DanNeely - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
Probably because sales for those two cards were too poor to justify creating newer cards on the same form factor.bobbozzo - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Hi, what does the KNOB do?thanks!
IanCutress - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Top of page 2:The circular device in the centre is akin to the i-Drive button seen on certain BMW cars – this is the button to turn the PC on. It also shows the date and time, and when in the OS (with the appropriate drivers installed) can be used to adjust the OS volume, implement different power modes, or turn the machine off.