ASUS PN50 mini-PC Review: A Zen 2 Business NUC
by Ganesh T S on October 1, 2021 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- AMD
- Asus
- NUC
- UCFF
- Mini-PC
- Zen 2
- Ryzen Embedded
- Renoir
- Ryzen 4000
- Ryzen 7 4800U
Closing Thoughts
Wrapping things up, it's clear from the get-go that the ASUS PN50 has a SMB / SME focus. This is evident from the range of configurable options, as well as the bundled keyboard / mouse for ease of deployment. It brings out all the important features of AMD's Renoir APUs while maintaining a low system cost.
None the less, that doesn't mean the PN50 is no-frills. The system offers four display outputs (including two Type-C, and one HDMI and DisplayPort each), support for up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 SO-DIMMs, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C ports, and three USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) ports with well-balanced bandwidth distribution. Digital microphones in the front ensure painless usage of voice assistants like Cortana, while the HDMI CEC header / IR receiver can also enable some business use-cases such as digital signage in retail scenarios.
Further underscoring the business focus for the PN50, the system is part of ASUS's corporate stable model (CSM) program that ensures a 36-month stable supply guarantee. ASUS also subjects PN50 to a rigorous QA process involving vibration testing, drop testing, extreme temperatures / humidity operation testing, and line voltage / frequency variation testing. These are bound to increase the confidence of IT departments while deploying these systems. The presence of a hardware TPM 2.0 chip and DASH support for remote management using the Realtek NIC expands the target market for the PN50 even further.
On the technical front, ASUS's use of AMD's Renoir processor is likely to raise a couple of eyebrows, as the chips are coming up on two years old. But as we mentioned earlier in the review, this is ASUS making the best of the hand they've been given. Supply chain issues have meant that only the notebook market is receiving AMD's latest generation of processors. For the AMD mini-PC market, Renoir continues to be the go-to SoC for those machines – inside and outside of ASUS.
To that end, the PN50 is able to provide better performance compared to other Renoir-equipped mini-PCs. This is mainly due to operation of the SoC in 25W TDP mode for as long a time as possible. The thermal solution itself can sustain only a 20W TDP, though. The supplied review configuration was handicapped a bit on the storage side with the QLC SSD, making its performance for disk-intensive workloads less than ideal. However, those types of workloads are also uncommon in the business scenarios being targeted by the PN50.
With all of that said, actually getting some of these ASUS mini-PCs is proving easier said than done. The challenges in the electronics supply chain have meant that outlets selling these PCs at ASUS's suggested prices are significantly backordered Third-party sellers abound on various e-tailers do have stock, but they are charging a hefty premium - even for the lower-end models in the series (example: $550 for the R5-4500U model, while the first-party listing for the same model is $430, but out of stock).
The lowest price we have seen for the barebones version of the 4800U model is $630 on special order. The ASRock 4X4 BOX-4800U is available for $593. For the extra cost, the ASUS PN50 provides a microSDXC UHS-I slot at USB 2.0 speeds, and higher TDP support for better sustained performance. It's also worth noting that the PN50 model sold in the US retail channel doesn't have a 2.5 Gbps port that comes default with the 4X4 BOX-4800U.
It must also be noted that ASUS has a PN51 series based on the Ryzen 5000U series processors - these models use the Zen 2-based Lucienne SKUs - the 5300U, 5500U, and 5700U. The features of the PN51 are exactly the same as the PN50 otherwise - fulfilling AMD's promise of allowing their partners to reuse the board and system designs while retaining same ballpark performance. That said, the updates in Lucienne should result in better power efficiency and also show slightly better graphics performance for workloads that are not memory bound. The PN51 also seems to have addressed the SSD temperature issue with an additional heatsink.
Overall, the ASUS PN50 has some unique features that make the system stand out of the crowd in the Renoir mini-PC market. The feature set makes it very attractive for deployment in SMBs and SMEs, as well as scenarios like digital signage. The competition in the mini-PC market is good news for consumers, but the supply chain issues need to get resolved for the cost benefits to be realized by the end-users.
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deil - Monday, October 4, 2021 - link
I have R5700 version of this, and I can tell you that if you add thermal pad the chassis which is full aluminum, it doesn't throttle on 25W. This thing has more cooling than laptops with the same CPU.Mine is TV mounted, and then it's not running a fan at a level I can hear.
Toadster - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
isn't NUC an Intel name?Samus - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
Indeed, but it appears the NUC platform is slowly becoming an industry design blueprint instead of a product line. Quite frankly I'm glad this segment is crossing the business-application barrier because there are some substantial benefits to these over, say, an All In One.nandnandnand - Saturday, October 2, 2021 - link
Their fault for calling it "The Next Unit of Computing".evilspoons - Saturday, October 2, 2021 - link
It is, yeah. ASUS calls it a "4x4" as in 4 inch by 4 inch system, which is the generic term. Anandtech calling this a NUC is like referring to Scotties facial tissues as "Kleenexes".Threska - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
Hmmm. if I use a viewfinder I can hold this article up to my eyes for a stereo effect. :-Dabufrejoval - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
Ordered a 4800U based PN50 in Summer 2020, listed by the e-tailer as "due next week".It was to become a small low-power but "sprinty" hyperconverged server with a full complement of 64GB of RAM to complement the 8 cores and "max SSD", potentially in a cluster of three if it turned out any good.
Among the most important criteria was very low idle power and “unnoticeable” sound emissions under all loads.
Saw the delivery date slip further and further until it became "unknown".
Cancelled the order and got all three last generations of Intel NUCs within a couple of months (NUC8i7BEH, NUC10i7FNH and NUC11PAHi7), less by design than by market opportunity: they were the only kind available at each point in time and I seem to have been rather lucky with the prices, too (today they all have far higher listings and no availability).
I also got a Lenovo Ultrabook with the Ryzen 5800U as a point of reference, which unfortunately can't be strong-armed into server duty while off-duty as a laptop, for lack of RAM expansion, even if it was hardly more expensive than a similarly equipped PN51 would be, …if it were available: it's quite simply a crazy market!
They all confirm your benchmark findings, but it's rather unfortunate that you don't include power consumption figures for the benchmarks as well, because they are very informative in terms of chip technology and other side effects (noise and energy).
The best thing about the Intel NUCs is their configurability in terms of P1, P2, TAU and fan parameters: You can really tune these machines to your ratio of noise tolerance and performance, effectively making them fit anywhere in the 8-35TDP (sustained) range and matching turbos.
Throughout my own benchmarking I found that the IPC improvements of Tiger Lake vs. the 14nm Comet/Cannon Lakes had the Gen11 quad-core achieve the same multi-threaded performance as the Gen10 hexa-core, on turbo or even after fitting to the 15 Watt envelope on long running workloads.
At the same time Tiger Lake and the Ryzen 3 were also very much the same performance core-by-core when running at the same clock speeds. It’s just much easier to have the Tiger Lake NUC clock higher than a Ryzen U (or any Ryzen for that matter), which has it gain the single threaded crown, ...unless you regulate the power to cut noise.
Because when you force Intel’s CPUs and Ryzen 3 to the same Wattage (=source of noise), Tiger Lake’s single threaded lead is gone, while the older 14nm chips start to really show their age.
Since I wanted to have them run “unnoticeable” under sporadic and sustained loads, I played with the P1, P2, TAU and fan curves to give a bit of turbo leeway for sporadic or interactive loads, while I made sure that they’d clock down before having to rev up the fans too high.
That can be another important differentiator when you want to deploy these for long-term office (or light server) use: These small fans love to eat dust and clog the vent openings when they spin.
You can get a lot more CPU performance out of the 7nm Ryzen 3 for the same heat than from any current Intel.
What I really wanted was all of these in a Mini-ITX form factor with large slow Noctua fans, but that seems a niche even worse served than the NUCs with these low Wattage but speedy SoCs.
And while it’s nice to know that these nice passive cooling replacement chassis exist for Intel NUCs, a somewhat intermediate option (big slow fan, much lower price) is still missing.
Yes, the Xe iGPU beats the Vega8 significantly, even when both share identical DRAM bandwidth (~50GB/s on my systems) and actual power.
But all of these are just terrible at gaming, while they are all quite good for 2D at 4k Linux or Windows.
abufrejoval - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
I can't imagine that Ryzen 2 APUs are still being produced: They'd compete for the very same foundry capacities as Ryzen 3 APUs.So now that PN50's are finally coming, that means these are what's left over after nobody buys them in notebooks any more.
This means all theoretical long-term and mass deployment benefits of this form-factor, doesn't apply to this product any more.
Caveat emptor!
meacupla - Friday, October 1, 2021 - link
It takes money and time to retool foundries and half of the 5000U series still uses 4000U parts which are just renamed in bios.abufrejoval - Saturday, October 2, 2021 - link
Actually there was an article here by Ian which pointed out, that in fact the Lucienne chips were not just renamed Renoirs even if they share the same Zen2 cores and a very similar iGPU: There is supposed to be significant updates in power management, which may be somewhat more beneficial for battery operated devices.https://www.anandtech.com/show/16451/amds-ryzen-50...