The ASRock DeskMini A300 Review: An Affordable DIY AMD Ryzen mini-PC
by Ganesh T S on April 26, 2019 8:00 AM ESTGPU Performance - Gaming Workloads
Our revamped gaming test suite for 2018 involves six different games:
- Civlization VI (DX12)
- Dota 2
- F1 2017
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Middle Earth: Shadow of War
- Far Cry 5
Most system reviews take a handful of games and process them at one resolution / quality settings for comparison purposes. Recently, we have seen many pre-built systems coming out with varying gaming capabilities. Hence, it has become imperative to give consumers an idea of how a given system performs over a range of resolutions and quality settings for each game. With our latest suite, we are able to address this aspect.
Civilization VI (DX12)
The Civilization series of turn-based strategy games is very popular. For such games, the frame rate is not necessarily an important factor in the gaming experience. However, with Civilization VI, Firaxis has cranked up the visual fidelity to make the game more attractive. As a result, the game can be taxing on the GPU as well as the CPU, particularly in the DirectX 12 mode.
| Civilization VI (DirectX 12) Performance | |||
We processed the built-in benchmark at two different resolutions (1080p and 2160p), and with two different quality settings (medium and ultra, with the exact differences detailed here). At both resolutions and quality settings, we find the DeskMini A300 with a significant lead over other systems with integrated GPUs.
Dota 2
Dota 2 has been featuring in our mini-PC and notebook reviews for a few years now, but, it still continues to be a very relevant game. Our evaluation was limited to a custom replay file at 1080p resolution with enthusiast settings ('best-looking' preset). We have now revamped our testing to include multiple resolutions - This brings out the fact that the game is CPU-limited in many configurations.
Dota 2 allows for multiple renderers - we use the DirectX 11 mode. The rendering settings are set to 'enthusiast level' (best-looking, which has all options turned on, and at Ultra level, except for the Shadow Quality set to 'High'). We cycle through different resolutions after setting the monitor resolution to match the desired resolution. The core scripts and replay files are sourced from Jonathan Liebig's original Dota 2 benchmarking instructions which used a sequence of frames from Match 3061101068.
| Dota 2 - Enthusiast Quality Performance | |||
CPU-limited, or not, the same results of the DeskMini A300 being the best integrated GPU-system of the lot holds true for Dota 2 also.
F1 2017
Our gaming system reviews have always had a representative racing game in it. While our previous benchmark suite for PCs featured Dirt 2, we have moved on to the more recent F1 2017 from Codemasters for our revamp.
| F1 2017 - Ultra Quality Performance | |||
The supplied example benchmark (with some minor tweaks) is processed at four different resolutions while maintaining the graphics settings at the built-in 'Ultra' level. We don't see any surprises in this game's benchmarks.
Grand Theft Auto V
GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU. For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence.
| Grand Theft Auto V Performance | |||
We processed the benchmark across various resolutions and quality settings (detailed here). The results are presented above. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the DeskMini A300 again turns out to be the best iGPU-only system in our list.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
Middle Earth: Shadow of War is an action RPG. In our previous gaming benchmarks suite, we used its prequel - Shadow of Mordor. Produced by Monolith and using the new LithTech Firebird engine and numerous detail add-ons, Shadow of War goes for detail and complexity. The graphics settings include standard options such as Graphical Quality, Lighting, Mesh, Motion Blur, Shadow Quality, Textures, Vegetation Range, Depth of Field, Transparency and Tessellation. There are standard presets as well. The game also includes a 'Dynamic Resolution' option that automatically alters graphics quality to hit a pre-set frame rate. We benchmarked the game at four different resolutions - 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and 720p. Two standard presets - Ultra and Medium - were used at each resolution after turning off the dynamic resolution option.
| Middle Earth: Shadow of War Performance | |||
The relative numbers are no different from what was observed in the other games.
Far Cry 5
Ubisoft's Far Cry 5 is an action-adventure first-person shooter game released in March 2018. The game comes with an in-built benchmark and has standard pre-sets for quality settings. We benchmarked the game at four different resolutions - 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p. Two preset quality settings were processed at each resolution - normal and ultra.
| Far Cry 5 Performance | |||
Overall, the DeskMini A300 with the Ryzen 5 2400G emerges as a clear-cut winner for folks looking to game without a discrete GPU. Even the best iGPU that Intel can offer in the Iris Plus series is unable to approach the Vega 11 GPU integrated into the Ryzen processor.
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abufrejoval - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link
Very nice review!But surprisingly little relative change (relative to publicity...) from the previous (major) iteration, which I interpret as the Kaveri vs. Skylake Iris Plus that I own and tested, A10-7850k vs. i5-6267U.
Intel still seems to never use more than 15Watts for the CPU, yet manages scaling single to 4GHz at great IPC while it manages to sustain admirable Hertz even at multi-core constant loads, taking a nice sip of cool on every little stall. AMD seems to retain a much more linear efficiency curve where clocks and cores just eat power, while the difference at the wall plug is much smaller in this iteration (was 3:1 for exactly the same performance on my old systems).
The good thing is that on a device like this, peak power is much less important than on a notebook, so it’s ok, as long as maintains quiet on constant peak and (finally) reaches acceptable idle: Here I see a lot of progress on AMD's side, Intel has much less room to beat itself.
For graphics, bandwidth is so crucial and I wonder what the AMD could do with a bit of eDRAM, HBM or even a lower-power variant of GDDR5… but I guess the latency issues could kill browser performance and that is unfortunately a large chunk of what buyers would want these for…
Still dreaming of a way to put well-proportioned APUs in a scalable system with 1x/2x/4x configs… With storage and RAM no longer eating box space, 75/150/300 Watt configs could be relatively small yet remain quiet.
Speaking of idle power and quiet, this is where I get interested in the AMD. The NUC is great in everything but noise on peak load, but it would really only take a replacement top and a Noctua to make it great… There is so much space behind these giant 4k screens, nuc/NUC can become a little pointless.
Good Linux support is where I am getting concerned. Current reports praise AMD on their Linux vision… but progress seems a very different story and one where Intel (sorry Charly), really shines, even Nvidia seems better in practical terms (sorry Linus). I’m also somewhat disheartened by power management there: Not sure I’ll be able to reach 10 Watt of idle on CentOS or Ubuntu *and* Steam/Vulkan performance comparable to Windows (it’s actually gotten quite good on bigger Nvidia GPUs, even GPU pass-through to a Windows VM is kind of fun).
sor - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
As I mentioned probably as you were typing this, I ran Ubuntu straight out of the box and am getting nearly 50% better FPS than this review on Dota 2. Full vulkan support and max settings. Pleasantly surprised, I am used to having to tinker with drivers.Notably, I don’t think this would have been possible 8 months ago as only newer kernels have the good AMD support built in.
Pishi86 - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
This is not exactly a fair comparison. You are comparing a desktop AMD chip with and a mobile Intel chip. Its kind of like comparing an i3 8100 vs a Ryzen 5 3500u. AMD's Ryzen 5 3550H and Ryzen 7 3750H would have been more competitive. These chips are about as fast as the 2400G, but with an maximum TDP of 35w. There are some reviews on Notebookcheck and these chips are consuming just over 70w underload. This is with a 15.6 1080P screen and a power hungry Radeon RX 560X. The power consumption and battery life is actually better than an i5 8300H and 1050 combo with an identical. Check out the review below.https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-TUF-FX505DY-Ryz...
The truth is the onboard Vega on Ryzen is a very powerful iGPU held back by memory bandwidth. Unrestrained, its probably 80-90% as powerful as an RX 460. It has 640-704 Vega cores which are clocked higher (1.2-1.4GHz) than the 896 cores in the RX 460. Vega's IPC should be a bit above Polaris's.
I agree with you Linux support is spotty, I am a Linux user myself and I am in the market for a new laptop, but I may have to buy Intel despite its weak iGPU. Unfortunately, you can't find anymore Iris powered laptops these days (outside the macbook pro). Also, even though its improved AMD's video decode/encode is not as efficient as Intel's. I am not even sure if Nvidia is as efficient as Intel in video playback. Having that said I would not trust Intel's UHD graphics powering a 4k monitor, which is what I am in the market for.
Pishi86 - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link
Does anyone know if you could get a 3rd party power supply that's more than 120w? I mean 150w might be good, if AMD releases 95W APUs in the future. A 120W PSU might limit CPUs abover 65W.Lucky Stripes 99 - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
Yes, there are third party power bricks available that can supply more current. Just keep in mind that the power regulators on the motherboard may not be rated for that higher current and that you could shorten its life or run into stability issues if you attempted to use a more power hungry processor (assuming if the BIOS would even make it past POST with an unsupported processor).Haawser - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
Good luck buying one...Only EU retailers I could find seem to have sold out within hours. Still, will keep trying. As this is exactly the sort of SFF I've wanted since Ryzen APUs came out.ganeshts - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
On Amazon and Newegg, Computer Upgrade King seems to have lot of ready-to-go models with the DeskMini A300 ; Eg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9... (Just FYI - I have no idea about the reputation of this retailer. Just came up during my search on Google)Haawser - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
@ganeshts- Again, out of stock. Personally I think ASRock, Lenovo, HP, Zotac and everybody else that manufacturers SFF PCs have greatly underestimated the number of people looking to buy Ryzen APU based systems. And with the improved 3000 series (12nm Zen+ with soldered HS) soon available, the barebones will be even more sought after.ganeshts - Sunday, April 28, 2019 - link
Shows in-stock for me when I added to cart : https://i.imgur.com/YWbYlJ6.pngoliwek - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
For people in NL or BE, I bought mine from here, delivered promptly : https://www.megekko.nl/product/2321/237330/Barebon...