The ASRock DeskMini A300 Review: An Affordable DIY AMD Ryzen mini-PC
by Ganesh T S on April 26, 2019 8:00 AM ESTHTPC Credentials - Local Media Playback and Video Processing
Evaluation of local media playback and video processing is done by playing back files encompassing a range of relevant codecs, containers, resolutions, and frame rates. A note of the efficiency is also made by tracking GPU usage and power consumption of the system at the wall. Users have their own preference for the playback software / decoder / renderer, and our aim is to have numbers representative of commonly encountered scenarios. Towards this, we played back the test streams using the following combinations:
- MPC-HC x64 1.8.5 + LAV Video Decoder (DXVA2 Native) + Enhanced Video Renderer - Custom Presenter (EVR-CP)
- MPC-HC x64 1.8.5 + LAV Video Decoder (D3D11) + madVR 0.92.17 (DXVA-Focused)
- MPC-HC x64 1.8.5 + LAV Video Decoder (D3D11) + madVR 0.92.17 (Lanczos-Focused)
- VLC 3.0.6
- Kodi 18.1
The thirteen test streams (each of 90s duration) were played back from the local disk with an interval of 30 seconds in-between. Various metrics including GPU usage and at-wall power consumption were recorded during the course of this playback. Prior to looking at the metrics, a quick summary of the decoding capabilities of the Radeon RX Vega 11 is useful to have for context.
While the NVIDIA and Intel GPUs support decoding of 8K streams also, AMD has decided to limit support to 4K. 8K is mainly of academic interest right now, and the range of supported codecs is more important. Fortunately, the driver reports supports for MPEG2 (up to 1080p), H.264, HEVC (both 8b and 10b), VC1 (up to 1080p), and VP9 (both 8b and 10b).
All our playback tests were done with the desktop HDR setting turned on. It is possible for certain system configurations to have madVR automatically turn on/off the HDR capabilities prior to the playback of a HDR video, but, we didn't take advantage of that in our testing.
VLC and Kodi
VLC is the playback software of choice for the average PC user who doesn't need a ten-foot UI. Its install-and-play simplicity has made it extremely popular. Over the years, the software has gained the ability to take advantage of various hardware acceleration options. Kodi, on the other hand, has a ten-foot UI making it the perfect open-source software for dedicated HTPCs. Support for add-ons make it very extensible and capable of customization. We played back our test files using the default VLC and Kodi configurations, and recorded the following metrics.
| Video Playback Efficiency - VLC and Kodi | |||
The key aspect to note here is that VLC is unable to take advantage of the hardware acceleration for VP9 Profile 2 videos. Instead, it relies on software decoding for that stream. Otherwise, we see the hardware decoder being used (with usage ranging from 18% for the 480i60 MPEG2 streams to as high as 75% for the 4Kp60 HEVC Main 10 video). D3D loading of up to 65% is triggered due to scaling requirements for non-4K videos. The at-wall power consumption is between 25W to 35W for the hardware accelerated codecs. Software decoding of 4Kp60 VP9 Profile 2 videos drops lots of frames, and the recorded metrics for that stream do not present any useful information. Kodi, on the other hand is able to play back all the videos in our test suite with hardware acceleration. We see the decoder usage go as high as 90% for the 4Kp60 10-bit encodes. The at-wall power consumption is between 30W and 35W for all the streams.
MPC-HC
MPC-HC offers an easy way to test out different combinations of decoders and renderers. The first configuration we evaluated is the default post-install scenario, with only the in-built LAV Video Decoder forced to DXVA2 Native mode. Two additional passes were done with different madVR configurations. In the first one (DXVA-focused), we configured madVR to make use of the DXVA-accelerated video processing capabilities as much as possible. In the second (Lanczos-focused), the image scaling algorithms were set to 'Lanczos 3-tap, with anti-ringing checked'. Chroma upscaling was configured to be 'BiCubic 75 with anti-ringing checked' in both cases. The metrics collected during the playback of the test files using the above three configurations are presented below.
| Video Playback Efficiency - MPC-HC with EVR-CP and madVR | |||
Similar to VLC, MPC-HC / LAV Video Decoder is unable to play back the 4Kp60 VP9 Profile 2 video with hardware acceleration. In fact, with the default configuration (EVR-CP), the video just shows a blank screen (and there is hardly a significant change in the at-wall consumption for the stream). With madVR as the renderer, and the LAV Video Decoder set to D3D11, we do manage to get the software-decoded (avcodec, as reported by LAV Filters) stream on the display. The madVR DXVA configuration works decently without dropping frames for 1080p and lower resolution videos. The 4K videos see significant frame drops, as evident from the D3D Load in the above graphs. For the Lanczos configuration, 1080p and higher resolution videos with a frame rate of more than 50 fps suffer from playback issues. These results are along expected lines for an integrated GPU. However, they are significantly better than the performance of madVR with Intel's integrated GPU.
Overall, we can recommend Kodi 18.1 as the playback software for local media on the DeskMini A300. Other open-source softwares such as VLC and MPC-HC / LAV Video Decoder do not play well with the current drivers for certain types of video streams.
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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 = $400INT $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.