The ASRock DeskMini A300 Review: An Affordable DIY AMD Ryzen mini-PC

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• BigMamaInHouse - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  Comparing 2400G with Real iGPU vs $431 i7-8559U - I'd say it performs Great!.

• Irata - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  To be more specific, on the "productivity benchmark", the A300 has 89% of the A310's score with 86% of its power consumption, so for office type tasks, it is actually a bit more efficient.

• ganeshts - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  Ah, the pitfalls of saying ProdA scores X% of ProdB in metric M at Y% in metric N, when M and N are not linearly correlated!
  
  Extending it the same way, if I were to build the DeskMini 310 system with the same original review components at the current prices, I am going to splurge : 162 (DeskMini 310 board with Wi-Fi compared to DeskMini A300 without Wi-Fi) + 139 (Core i3-8100) + 76 (DDR4-2400 2x8GB SODIMM) + 78 (PCIe 3.0 x4 240GB NVMe SSD - Corsair Force MP510) = $455 ; Let me look up the table for the DeskMini A300 cost without Wi-Fi - tada, it is $465 - oh oh oh!!!! Does the lower upfront cost for the AMD system (as claimed in the article in the same BAPCo section) evaporate into thin air? No!
  
  The reason is that when you are looking at SYSmark 2018 scores and SYSmark 2018 energy consumption numbers, you compare against systems that score approximately the same in those particular metrics.
  
  For the overall SYSmark 2018 scores, the DeskMini A300 is approximately the same as the Baby Canyon NUC - then, let us look at the energy consumption numbers for those two - the Baby Canyon consumes lesser energy.
  
  For the energy consumption numbers, the A300 and 310 are approximately in the same ball park - and there, you see the the 310 with a higher score.
  
  As for accusations that 'Intel CAN"T be shown in anything other than their best light' - take a chill pill - the PCMark 8 numbers back up SYSmark 2018. And, in the gaming section, we show that AMD outperforms the best that Intel can offer. As an impartial reviewer, my aim is to present the facts as-is and provide my analysis - if you come with pre-conceived notions that one product / vendor is better than the other, then, no amount of facts will convince you otherwise.

• Irata - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  Replying to two different comments with one reply is a bit unfortunate as another poster made the "Intel can't be shown in..." comment.
  
  As for the price, if you check Newegg, the $150 A300 does include a Wifi kit.
  Looking at Newegg prices, I get the following:
  
  Desk Mini 300: $150
  Desk Mini 310: $168
  Ryzen 2400G: $150
  Core i3-8100: $142
  Memory: 100 (for the AMD system) vs. 80 (for the Intel based one)
  note: I had a hard time finding the exact memory so I was looking at Team Group memory with roughly the same specs
  WDS500G1B0C: $78
  Corsair FORCE MP500: $130
  
  When possible, in stock retail items with free shipping were chosen.
  
  This gives me a total of $ 478 for the Desk Mini 300 (including WiFi) and $ 520 for the 310. But calling the price even would be OK, considering how prices can fluctuate.

• MASSAMKULABOX - Monday, December 9, 2019 - link

  AMd 150 + 150 +100 = $400
  INT $168 + 142 + 80 = $ 390 ... makes Intel cheaper , ..altho at this late date you can get the 2400g for $120 or less

• Irata - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  Second reply as I wanted to keep things separately.
  
  As I stated below, the comment regarding Intel having to be shown in the best light was made by another poster. Why could (she) have said this ?
  
  For one, Intel is a client of your parent company Purch. They even mention this on their web site under "experience", stating "We’re focused on serving our action-oriented audience, as well as elevating the sponsor’s brand with that audience. We tailor the Native content that runs across our sites to better suit each environment, while keeping the integrity of the sponsor’s original content and brand."
  
  In addition, you are using Bapco Sysmark, a benchmark that - given this "organization's" history - leaves a rather bad taste.
  
  Now, I am not attacking your personal or journalistic integrity, however you must admit that the though AT may not be impartial does cross ones mind.
  
  And this does not have to be overly obvious shilling (as that would be counter productive), but can be small nuances or tones, stressing one thing while leaving out another.
  
  Do I have a pre-concieved notion of which one is better ?
  
  Besides seeing the Intel iGPU as inferior (with the exception of video encode / decode) not really, but I admit that I do not particularly like Intel as a company

• Ryan Smith - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  "Now, I am not attacking your personal or journalistic integrity, however you must admit that the though AT may not be impartial does cross ones mind."
  
  Above all else, I think people vastly overestimate both how much work vendors are willing to put in, and how much they actually care about AnandTech. Being underhanded is a lot of work, especially for as small an audience as AnandTech has.
  
  To be sure, there is a significant editorial firewall up between ad sales and editorial. I honestly couldn't even tell you about our (former) publisher's comments, because none of that ever involved AnandTech. It was probably a campaign that ran on Tom's Guide or such.
  
  But regardless, we don't do shenanigans, and I won't stand for them. Vendors don't get to see articles early, we don't let vendors buy preferential treatment, and any sponsored content is going to be very clearly labeled as such. All AnandTech has its its honesty; so to sacrifice that would cost us everything.
  
  Which, to loop back to the discussion of Sysmark, Ganesh uses it as part of his mini-PC evaluations. It's a pretty useful benchmark, especially for the energy efficiency metrics. It works well for what Ganesh needs, and the workloads seem reasonable. At the same time we're well-aware of the controversy surrounding it, and we'd never trust a single benchmark for a review - and certainly not Sysmark. Which is why we run many benchmarks, to look at different workloads and get different points of view on performance.

• Irata - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link

  Thanks for the clarification Ryan. I still think that Sysmark is a no-go, but that's just my personal opinion.

• Smell This - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  *As an impartial reviewer*
  _____________________
  
  I snorted.

• BPB - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

  I have one of these, and really like it. My problem is I bought this to replace an older NUC, and the older NUC runs Windows 8.1. I use the older NUC for WMC. Obviously the DeskMini doesn't support 8.1, but I thought I could get it to run 7. I can't. I noticed that ASRock has a utility for installing Windows 7 on AM4 motherboards, and I was given the impression that ASRock would update the DeskMini BIOS so I could install Windows 7. Then I found out the 2400G is only Windows 10 compatible. I don't know how I missed that when I did my research... So, my son gets nice little PC to replace his older one. This is a nice little setup, I just wish Windows 10 had something even 80 percent as good as WMC.