ASRock M8 Barebones Review: My Steam Box
by Ian Cutress on January 2, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Barebones
- Intel
- ASRock
- Motherboards
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Z87
Due to the high end level of the systems that Dustin has benchmarked, our M8 configuration does not appear to fair too well on some of the synthetics – however frame rates in modern games are more than applicable and should systematically beat any console title if settings were equilibrated between the systems. For the price difference, one would hope so! Given that these are all tested against laptops, we see that while our low powered CPU may not be as fast as we had liked, the gaming frame rates are still at the high end.
PCMark 7
3DMark Fire Strike
Cinebench R11.5
x264 5.0 HD Benchmark
Bioshock Infinite
Grid 2
Sleeping Dogs
Tomb Raider
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
78 Comments
View All Comments
eanazag - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
I'd rather not talk about the AMD APU option till they release their new APUs. We are so close to the scheduled launch dates.PreciseInteli - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
These smaller builds are exciting. Just helped a friend build a Mini-ITX build with a 290x ... incredibly jealous ... still with a huge tower here.I'd like to see you guys push this slightly further with a card like the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X or 780. These cards thermal limit themselves anyways ... I think it could be interesting.
Babar Javied - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
I hear you man. I still have a Corsair 800D and though I do love the case, it is f*%$ing huge. I've been considering opting for an m-itx for sometime now.jhoff80 - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Love the design of the case, but as for the exterior, it looks terrible to me. I don't know why nobody is currently making a case in this layout that has a subtle exterior suitable for a living room (Silverstone's upcoming looks variant cheap and plasticy).These (in my opinion) gaudy gamer-style cases just don't really make sense for a Steambox alternative; even Valve themselves knew to use a subtle black case.
rocktober13 - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I just put together a Mini-ITX build with the EVGA Hadron Air and the ASRock Z87E-ITX. It ends up being less than $400 for a similar "barebones" setup as the M8. Also, I think the Hadron looks great (black and sleek), is smaller than the M8, and it's a really well put together considering it's EVGA's first case.jhoff80 - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
Agreed, that looks nice, but what I really want something is horizontal / component -style to fit in my TV stand.Temporarily, I'm using a Coolermaster Elite 120, but I'd rather something that looks like the Steambox (except maybe with a front LED that is MUCH dimmer than that one).
DARBYOTHRULL - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I agree, where the cases that don't say "I'm twenty-two years-old".patterson32 - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link
More like "I'm 10 and I'm cool!" It's really hard trying to find a nice looking case. They're either very cheap looking or they're made for 10 year olds. LEDs, case windows, bright colors, etc. are very ugly looking and screams "I'm a kool kid!" The only thing that looks nice about this thing is the matte finish.smartypnt4 - Friday, January 31, 2014 - link
I completely agree. Then you find a case that looks awesome and you find out it doesn't meet your specs that you would like. Specifically, apparently the combination of 11-12" GPU combined with a 650W PSU in a small mITX (read: EVGA Hadron Air or smaller) that looks halfway decent is impossible to find. I really like the SilverStone FT03-Mini, but it's limited to SFX power supplies. The EVGA Hadron Air is great, but 500W isn't enough for ideally what I'd want, nor does it allow for >10.5" video cards.C'est la vie, eh? Nothing is ever perfect for what I'd like.
SunLord - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
That power cord connector looks like the standard one that comes with most pc laptop power blocks for the last few years my three hp and one gateway all have that plug