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 for Workstation Workloads - SPECviewperf 13
The SPECviewperf benchmark from SPEC provides an idea of the capabilities of the GPU in a workstation from the perspective of different CAD, content creation, and visual data analysis tools. It makes more sense to process these benchmarks on workstations with professional GPUs, but, consumer GPUs are often the choice for machines that need to handle both gaming and professional workloads. Since the Radeon RX Vega 11 performs admirably for an integrated GPU in our gaming tests, we wanted to give the DeskMini A300 a go with the SPECviewperf 13 workloads also.
SPECviewperf 13 includes nine different workloads representative of graphics content and behavior of actual applications. They make use of the OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 12 APIs under Windows. SPECviewperf 13's workloads (termed viewsets) can officially be run only at two desktop resolutions (1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160), and need the display scaling to be set to 100% (DPI of 96). The available viewsets are listed below.
- 3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
- CATIA (catia-05)
- Creo (creo-02)
- Energy (energy-02)
- Maya (maya-05)
- Medical (medical-02)
- Showcase (showcase-02)
- Siemens NX (snx-03)
- Solidworks (sw-04)
The 3ds Max and Showcase viewsets are available only when processing at 1920 x 1080. The rest are available at both resolutions.
We processed SPECviewperf 13 at both resolutions on the ASRock DeskMini A300. The benchmark measures the frame rate at which the GPU renders the scenes in a viewset. Each viewset is composed of different scenes and rendering modes, and the composite score for the viewset is a weighted geometric mean of the FPS measured for the different scenes. In this section, we take a look at how its composite scores stack up against other systems targeting this market segment.
3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
The 3dsmax-06 viewset comprises of 11 different scenes. They have been created from traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 using the default Nitrous DX11 driver. Additional details are available here.
The DeskMini A300 is again the leading iGPU-only system, but, the Bean Canyon NUC's performance is quite close.
CATIA (catia-05)
The catia-05 viewset comprises of 14 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIA V6 R2012 application from Dassault Systemes. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: CATIA Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The DeskMini A300 and the Bean Canyon NUC are essentially tied in this workload.
Creo (creo-02)
The creo-02 viewset comprises of 16 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Creo 3 and Creo 4 applications from PTC. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Creo Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The Ryzen system is ahead at 1080p, but, falls slightly behind the Bean Canyon NUC at 2160p.
Energy (energy-02)
The energy-02 viewset comprises of 6 different tests based on techniques used by the OpendTect seismic visualization application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Energy Viewset Composite Scores | |
The energy-02 workload is a tough nut to crack for SFF systems, and the DeskMini A300 seems to have some trouble in completing the workload properly. At 2160p, all the systems that we are comparing the A300 against had trouble with the workload - hence, we do not have a graph for the workload at that resolution.
Maya (maya-05)
The maya-05 viewset comprises of 10 different tests based on traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk Maya 2017. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Maya Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The Bean Canyon NUC edges ahead of the DeskMini A300 for the maya-05 workload at both resolutions.
Medical (medical-02)
The medical-02 viewset comprises of 8 different tests derived from 4 distinct datasets. Each test uses the ImageVis3D volume visualization program's Tuvok rendering core for 2D projections of 3D volumetric grids. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Medical Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The medical-02 viewset represents a clear victory for the DeskMini A300 over other iGPU-only systems.
Showcase (showcase-02)
The showcase-02 viewset comprises of 4 tests created from traces of the Autodesk Showcase 2013 application rendering a racecar model with 8 million vertices using different modes. Additional details are available here.
The showcase-02 viewset sees the Bean Canyon NUC edge slightly ahead of the DeskMini A300.
Siemens NX (snx-03)
The snx-03 viewset comprises of 10 tests created with traces from the graphics workload generated by the NX 8.0 application from Siemens PLM. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Siemens NX Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The snx-03 viewset is similar to the medical-02 viewset in terms of the DeskMini A300 enjoying a clear lead.
Solidworks (sw-04)
The sw-04 viewset comprises of 11 tests created from traces of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 2013 SP1 application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Solidworks Viewset Composite Scores | |||
In this viewset, we see the Bean Canyon NUC come out on top, with the DeskMini A300 tussling it out with the Skull Canyon NUC for the second place amongst the iGPU-only systems.
Overall, for the SPECviewperf 13 workloads, we see that the DeskMini A300 is not a clear winner. There are a couple of viewsets in which the A300 performs significantly better, but, for the most part, the Bean Canyon NUC mounts an excellent challenge. The reasons for this could be two-fold - on one hand, the Radeon drivers for the RX Vega 11 might not be really optimized for these kinds of workloads. On the other, the Bean Canyon NUC employs an Iris Plus 655 GPU which comes with 128MB of eDRAM cache. It is likely that the eDRAM is beneficial for SPECviewperf 13 workloads.
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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...