ASRock Brings Zen 2 NUC : 4X4 BOX-4800U Renoir Mini-PC Reviewed
by Ganesh T S on November 25, 2020 11:00 AM ESTStorage and Networking Performance
Storage and networking are two major aspects which influence our experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the ASRock 4X4 BOX-4800U. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.
The 1TB Crucial P5 SSD in the Frost Canyon NUC manages to provide higher storage bandwidth compared to the 512GB DRAM-less Patriot P300 in the 4X4 BOX-4800U, but the storage subsystem scores are fairly close to each other.
On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear Nighthawk AX12 RAX120 configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 11 ft. away with a direct line-of-sight to the PC under test. A wired client (Zotac MI553, with an Akitio T3-10G NBASE-T Thunderbolt 3 adapter) is connected to the 5GbE port of the RAX120 and serves as one endpoint for iperf evaluation.
We first left the 5GHz network at default (meaning, no DFS), and the 4X4 BOX-4800U connected with the following parameters,
A script to run iPerf3 with 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 parallel streams between the 4X4 BOX-4800U and the Zotac ZBOX MI553 was processed - the first set for TX alone, followed by another set for RX, and finally a third set with bidirectional traffic.
The RAX120 can be explicitly configured to connect over a DFS channel. This works in the absence of any radar presence in the vicinity. In such a scenario, the 4X4 BOX-4800U connected with the following parameters,
The iPerf3 script was processed again and delivered the following result.
With DFS support, we can expected around 1.28 Gbps of best-case throughput via the AX200 in the 4X4 BOX-4800U. The table below presents the iPerf3 benchmark results obtained in the above testing scenario.
| Wireless Bandwidth - TCP Traffic (iPerf3 Throughput in Gbps) |
||||
| Stream Count |
80 MHz Wi-Fi 6 (Non-DFS) | 160 MHz Wi-Fi 6 (DFS) | ||
| TX | RX | TX | RX | |
| 1 | 0.897 | - | 1.259 | - |
| 2 | 0.893 | - | 1.242 | - |
| 4 | 0.868 | - | 1.286 | - |
| 8 | 0.862 | - | 1.299 | - |
| 16 | 0.876 | - | 1.294 | - |
| 1 | - | 0.695 | - | 0.908 |
| 2 | - | 0.697 | - | 1.027 |
| 4 | - | 0.698 | - | 1.154 |
| 8 | - | 0.701 | - | 1.211 |
| 16 | - | 0.701 | - | 1.262 |
| 1 | 0.652 | 0.153 | 1.183 | 0.045 |
| 2 | 0.612 | 0.208 | 1.020 | 0.185 |
| 4 | 0.451 | 0.342 | 1.089 | 0.152 |
| 8 | 0.207 | 0.541 | 0.940 | 0.298 |
| 16 | 0.403 | 0.383 | 0.815 | 0.421 |
The numbers presented above are slightly lesser than the average segment bandwidths noted, as the data in the graph is computed from the network interface's counters, while iPerf reports results based only on the traffic sent by it alone.
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damianrobertjones - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
Dangerous. People are not often the brightest and help lines would probably be called when owners try to plug in a crappy usb c charger.1_rick - Thursday, November 26, 2020 - link
If your GPU can detect you didn't plug in the PCIe power plugs and refuse to let the computer boot there's no reason they can't do the same here.damianrobertjones - Monday, November 30, 2020 - link
People buy cheap chargers for phones. Nothing will change in this case.dontlistentome - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
... Thunderbolt please. Can then power with it and have multiple 4K screens and peripherals hanging off 1 cable. Can then just swap the cable between this and my work PC when I work at home.timecop1818 - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
Alt mode HDMI is dead, there are literally zero devices which support or implement it. It only exists as a specification. There's very little point anyway because dp alt mode is superior in every way, such as being able to reduce lane count to share usb3hs. But with hdmi alt mode, you are using all 4 lanes just to transmit 1080p.SeanFL - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
Price is comparable to the Asus PN50 with the 4800U. Anyone have thoughts on which would be the one to buy?I've not been successful at finding the PN50 locally, Microcenter had a couple in stock then was sold out.
eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
Thanks Ganesh! The overall performance is decent, the problems with HTPC use unfortunate. One other piece of information I might have missed: just how noisy does this unit get, and how annoying is the fan noise? I am asking as especially smaller fans can be a lot more annoying than the simple dB(A) numbers suggest. Having had a laptop with this "feature", I now always ask about that before even thinking of buying.smilingcrow - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
It seems a major omission for a system that was reviewed for HTPC features and might end up in the lounge.spikebike - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
Nice, been waiting for a decent NUC like product with an AMD CPU. This looks quite competitive, but seems like waiting until CES in January will be worth it. The Zen3 is a killer upgrade and might well mean it's worth keeping for another year or two.grant3 - Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - link
Most hardware refreshes are annual, and you're willing to wait 2 years? With that mindset you'll never, ever buy anything because you know a better version will eventually arrive in that timeframe. Maybe 2 better versions.