ASRock Brings Zen 2 NUC : 4X4 BOX-4800U Renoir Mini-PC Reviewed
by Ganesh T S on November 25, 2020 11:00 AM ESTConcluding Remarks
NUCs such as the 4X4 BOX series from ASRock Industrial have enabled AMD to participate in the burgeoning UCFF PC market. ASRock Industrial has quickly learnt from its mistakes in the 4X4 BOX-V1000M - the 4X4 BOX-4000 series brings support for M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs (compared the M.2 2242-only support in the previous generation). The WLAN component is also the best that is available in this particular form-factor (2x2 Wi-Fi 6 compared to the 1x1 Wi-Fi 5 card in the previous generation). Reducing the physical footprint of the system is also welcome. The fan curve / noise profile has also improved.
The key face-off for the 4X4 BOX-4000 series is against systems based on Comet Lake-U. Tiger Lake-U is on the way, but no UCFF system based on TGL-U is currently available for purchase. To get a good idea of how Renoir compares against Comet Lake, we went back to our Frost Canyon NUC sample and revamped its internals to match the ASRock-suggested 4X4 BOX-4800U configuration. We replaced the 16GB DDR4 SODIMMs with 64GB DDR4-2666 SODIMMs (maximum supported frequency in CML-U) and the 256GB Kingston A1000 with a 1TB Crucial P5 SSD. On the pricing front, the two systems end up costing almost the same when the storage and RAM are also considered. The preceding pages presented benchmarks that are essentially apples-to-apples comparison.
The user experience with SFF desktops relies on multiple pillars - single-threaded performance, multi-threaded performance, energy efficiency, and last, but not the least, driver/software support. In the last few years, Intel has stalled a bit in delivering improvements in these pillars from one generation to the next. With the first-generation Ryzen, we saw AMD tackling the multi-threaded performance aspect with aplomb. Zen 2 has delivered updates across the first three of those pillars - single-threaded performance improvement is good enough to actually challenge CML-U across a large number of workloads within the power envelop dictated by the form factor of NUC-like systems. The 7nm fabrication process has delivered power efficiency gains, though it still doesn't match Intel's when it comes to race to idle (as shown by the gulf in the idle power numbers for the Frost Canyon NUC and the 4X4 BOX-4800U). It is in the drivers/software segment that AMD gives us cause for complaint. For example, we faced issues playing back YouTube HDR content in MS Edge (with Windows 10 20H2 and the latest AMD drives), and madVR usage resulted in playback issues. Both of these might well turn out to be application bugs over which AMD may not have control. But that is scant consolation for the end-user. It is an unfortunate fact that most QA is done on Intel-based systems, leaving the experience with AMD systems a little less than ideal. Hopefully, with AMD gaining market share, these types of software compatibility issues become a thing of the past.
On the pricing front, the barebones version of the 4X4 BOX-4800U is available for $600 - it pretty much matches the launch price of the Frost Canyon NUC10i7FNH. For the same price, the Renoir NUC surpasses the CML-U system by including support for NBASE-T with a 2.5 Gbps LAN port (backed by the Realtek RTL8125BG controller), native support for DDR4-3200 without overclocking, and support for four simultaneous 4Kp60 display outputs. Intel will be playing catch-up with TGL-U here, but at the moment, the 4X4 BOX-4000 series wins the features-per-dollar battle. Given the benchmark numbers we have just seen, the performance-per-dollar metric is also firmly in favor of the 4X4 BOX-4800U. On the performance-per-watt front, there is still scope for improvement. Overall, the ASRock 4X4 BOX-4800U has given us the opportunity to finally evaluate an AMD NUC that can go head-to-head against Intel's current flagship in the same market segment. This has been a remarkable turnaround for AMD. The renewed competition in this market is also excellent news for consumers.
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Stoinis MO - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
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deil - Thursday, November 26, 2020 - link
About ram it depends on how you work, I have 32GB and it daily goes above 24GB used, while browser/slack/spotify/30tabs on ff and few other things that I just never close take ~6GB. (I am on linux, it does use ram way more conservative that windows) When I last time used windows for work it did abuse all 32GB and started to slow down.its up to what you do and on 16GB it mostly work, but at least in my case 2-3 times a day I need a bit more, and like once a week 16GB is just not enough.
as It costs just like 70$ once, and it saves me few minutes daily, I think it paid for itself in my health at least.
damianrobertjones - Thursday, November 26, 2020 - link
Plus there's also SUperfectch that caches various duties. A lot of people forget that.Spunjji - Friday, November 27, 2020 - link
"...I've had more crashes in a month than in years of Intel/Nvidia systems. I've lost more time to lost work than when I was using Windows 98..."I'm calling bullshit on that. My understanding is that the APU driver situation isn't as good as discrete components (which I'm currently running without issue), but I can't believe that it's *worse than Windows 98*.
philehidiot - Monday, November 30, 2020 - link
Bullshit? Perhaps because you've just made assumptions about the set up? Read properly before accusing people of lying.Thanks.
at_clucks - Thursday, December 3, 2020 - link
I guess they were saying it's PEBKAC. Which it is. Having even 2 or 3 crashes in a month is already too much to be caused by AMD, their hardware, or their drivers, or else tens or hundreds of thousands of people would be affected and you'd hear about it. Not saying their drivers are perfect but if your PC is constantly crashing *you* have a problem. You probably don;t really know what's happening in there but you heard a rumor...I lost count of how many acquaintances had rootkit encrusted PCs, full of every garbage known to man after clicking on everything that fell under their mouse, everything running with hacks, cracks, and other torrented junk, from the OS image to the "security" software. They had no idea what's going on but all had some form of (ridiculous) theory based of stuff they heard from someone, or read on the internet but probably neither them nor their source understood it.
Fix your stuff, stop blaming the tools. Also having at least a decent meal before drinking helps.
Radhouse - Friday, November 27, 2020 - link
Interesting experience. I've been using an ASUS PN50 R5 4500 system for 2 months as my entertainment computer without a single crash, and typically keep 25+ web pages open in Chrome. It is configured with 32 GB 3200 MHz Crucial memory and an 500 GB EV0 970 Plus SSD running Windows 10 Pro 20H2. (Initially installed V 2004) In addition to Chrome, I'm a heavy user of the following Apps; Netflix, Amazon, & Hulu.I'm not sure where the source of your problems, but I've been also running a PN50 R3 system as a workstation without any issues.
Targon - Friday, November 27, 2020 - link
No problem with AMD drivers for my X370 based motherboard, Ryzen 9 3900X CPU, or Vega64 reference model video card(yes, I need a 6800X or 6900X, just waiting on the 6900X to be released at this point). People who claim to have this or that problem may be encountering problems between components that in turn cause their issues with Radeon cards. Looking for what is in common between people who have a problem and then looking at those without problems to see what the differences are is something that most people don't seem to understand.QA process: Reproduce problem, identify source of problem, figure out workaround or fix for the problem.
philehidiot - Monday, November 30, 2020 - link
Your set up is very close to mine. 3900x, vega64, but I'm on the x570 mobo.What is very strange is these crashes are happening at low load (as is when working). No crashes during games or when I'm hammering it. It is unlikely to be a dodgy background application as it's a fairly new install and I routinely avoid installing bloat, etc. Only stuff required to make it go is enabled on start up to this end.
I'm on the verge of shifting to Linux but for one major issue - I have a decent sound card which is not supported in Linux. I'm unwilling to unplug and ditch a few hundred quid worth of kit. Hopeful Linux drivers will emerge but creative aren't exactly helpful.
damianrobertjones - Monday, November 30, 2020 - link
Shift. Do it. Go to linux. You might then appreciate Windows a little more. Maybe. Both platforms have issues.