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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Haawser - Sunday, April 28, 2019 - link
@oliwek That's the 310, it's an Intel barebones system, not Ryzen.sor - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link
If you sign up for Newegg notifications you’ll probably have one within a week. I got one of mine about three weeks ago and the other last week.yankeeDDL - Monday, April 29, 2019 - link
I'm just going to throw it as a suggestion.I understand the purpose and the rationale in comparing similarly priced models, and all relatively recent/available, however ... I think it would add an enormous value to "normal" users to be able to somewhat put things in perspective with slightly dated hardware.
I am not saying that we should be able to compare the Ryzen 5 2400G with an 80486, but, to give you an example, I have an A10-8700P and I have been considering an upgrade, but it seems really difficult to find a way to get an idea of just how much faster the 2400G is.
The A10-8700P is certainly not efficient, but it does have 4 cores, and a decent iGPU, already based on the GCN. There's no question that the 2400G will trounce it in efficiency, but is it a worth upgrade?
It is just an example, to indicate that having also 2-3 previous generations in the comparisons would not be such a bad idea, in my opinion. Just a thought.
Irata - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
If you are looking for this type of comparison, planet3dnow de has one between an Athlon 5350 (Jaguar) vs Athlon 200GE. It's in German but maybe you can get useable results using Google translate.They also did a review of the Hewlett-Packard 17-ca1004ng notebook with a Ryzen 5 3500U comparing it to its Bristol Ridge predecessor.
Both show just how far AMD has come with Ryzen.
mikato - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Ganesh, you didn't talk about noise at all. I feel like that should always be included in these mini PC articles. You have 3 pages on HTPC credentials and 1 page on Power Consumption and Thermal Performance but no mention of noise. How does it compare to the Intel NUC8i7BEH that you mentioned had a noisy fan with any load? Or the ZBOX CI660 which was fanless but had a dull whine and a strange grating sound though it wasn't noticeable beyond 10 feet? Did you think that optional CPU heatsink/fan they included was adequate?By the way, 10 feet isn't close enough. How about 6 feet? If you give one noise impression from 10 feet, you could move a few feet closer and check what it is at 6 feet as well... for future reviews.
If you keep doing these Mini PC reviews, I will keep reading them!
Lucky Stripes 99 - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
I was also puzzled at the lack noise testing. One of the reasons I'm looking at mini-STX and thin mini-ITX systems instead of a NUC is because of the fan noise many of those NUC systems suffer from.Some folks have been installing low-profile Noctua CPU coolers in their Deskmini systems and they report that they are "nearly silent", even while under heavy load. I'd really like to know how silent that really is.
werpu - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link
I have a ryzen 2400g mini itx system with the flat noctua, and it is very silent, even under heavy load it is almost not hearable. I however had to add 2 smaller noctuas later in my system because the vrm would get rather hot with my standalone noctua and the case I was using. Still a very silent system and definitely less noise than a nuc.mikato - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
At first I thought Bean Canyon was the best way to go for an HTPC with the performance and power efficiency. But with an idle power usage of 11.24 watts for this DeckMini A300 vs the 8.45 watts of the NUC8i7BEH with Bean Canyon - that difference is so little. As my HTPC, it would be left on and most of the time it would be idling. And the "as configured, no OS" prices in your reviews for these were $465 for the DeskMini A300 and $963 for the NUC8i7BEH...Let's see, your DeskMini A300 had:
G.Skill Ripjaws F4-3000C16D-16GRS 2x8 GB (newegg $100)
Western Digital WD SN500 500 GB (newegg $70)
While your NUC8i7BEH had:
G.Skill Ripjaws F4-3000C16D-32GRS 2x16 GB (newegg $185 - your review listed RipjawsV F4-3000C16-16GRS but I couldn't find that anywhere and the photos in your NUC8i7BEH review showed it was F4-3000C16D-32GRS instead so I think your specs table was incorrect)
Western Digital WD Black 3D NVMe SSD (2018) 1 TB (newegg $238 for the SN750, older 2018 one costs more)
Let's see... that's $185-100=85 and $238-70=168. 85+168=253
So your combined storage and memory choices for the NUC8i7BEH cost $253 more.
And the difference in your overall "as configured, no OS" prices was $963-465=498.
So if I remove the difference in your storage and memory choices, I calculate that the DeskMini A300 is still $498-253 = $245 cheaper!
Sure the A300 doesn't look as nice or compact as the NUC, but that is some solid money.
Irata - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
The Intel models are usually configured with higher end components vs. the AMD based models. Same for laptops where $600 AMD based notebooks go up against $1,600 Intel ones .I guess it's a hold over of the "AMD = budget" days.
mikato - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Well, it's not a laptop. What do you think might be a higher end component here? This is basically a case, motherboard, and power supply, right?