ASRock’s X600 DeskMini – Finally – Again

Years ago, the SFF community waited with bated breath for the ASRock DeskMini A300. With AMD APU support, it offered a better balance than Intel chips between the CPU and GPU. This SFF Gem was the ideal Deskmini, and the SFF Network community rallied around it by creating custom 3D printed cases, BIOS updates, and more.
Now, the times have changed and AMD’s AM5 platform has arrived. Again, the SFF community waited. It felt like ages but ASRocks X600 DeskMini is finally here.
Asrock was kind enough to send a sample unit to Small Form Factor Network for testing and review. No review guidance was...

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[f666]

Decided to try fedora xfce first and all seems ok. tried Debian other spins and still has issues.

 

[opensesame]

My artifact problem turned out to be a defective CPU (AMD thread).

 

[phorize]

My artifact problem turned out to be a defective CPU (AMD thread).

I've experienced this with my 8700g with xmp 6400, but only on steam games. Bringing xmp settings to 5600 fixes it. Notably that's dropping the ram voltage down and the ram temperature difference is huge, down from 60 degrees to 40. I'd assumed the artifacts were a ram stability issue due to heat.

 

[phorize]

Ok, ridiculous question coming up. Bear in mind I've used Linux on all of mymachines for 20 years and have never installed a modern windows OS on a DIY pc. My x600 is running fedora 41. It's great with steam but I'd like to use a few titles that are best on windows. I have the latest windows 11 image but the install fails without unspecified drivers. I've tried booting it with ethernet connected (the bios driver support is enabled) but this doesn't help. I'm assuming I'm missing something obvious that a windows/x600 user will be able to point out!

 

[nirvana]

Ok, ridiculous question coming up. Bear in mind I've used Linux on all of mymachines for 20 years and have never installed a modern windows OS on a DIY pc. My x600 is running fedora 41. It's great with steam but I'd like to use a few titles that are best on windows. I have the latest windows 11 image but the install fails without unspecified drivers. I've tried booting it with ethernet connected (the bios driver support is enabled) but this doesn't help. I'm assuming I'm missing something obvious that a windows/x600 user will be able to point out!

I'd try Windows 10. I installed Windows 10 Pro on my x600+8700G few months ago (no internet connection) without any issues.

 

[SFFMunkee]

I’d redownload Windows image- I’ve had no problems at all with latest Win11 and Win11 Lite

 

[phorize]

I’d redownload Windows image- I’ve had no problems at all with latest Win11 and Win11 Lite

The checksum was fine but I'll do as you suggest. I did try and make a usb with the driver's but the installer does seem to handhe windows driver packages. Assuming it wants the binaries but asrock don't make those available and I can't figure out how to extract the driver binaries from the packages.

 

[SFFMunkee]

The checksum was fine but I'll do as you suggest. I did try and make a usb with the driver's but the installer does seem to handhe windows driver packages. Assuming it wants the binaries but asrock don't make those available and I can't figure out how to extract the driver binaries from the packages.

I usually just install the drivers direct from AMD website, not from ASRock. Hmm I wonder if that’s the difference?

 

[Phuncz]

I've had a few occurrences where the motherboard manufacturer's driver was needed to correctly install. Sometimes they have a weird configuration that doesn't work with the chip's default driver.

 

[phorize]

I’d redownload Windows image- I’ve had no problems at all with latest Win11 and Win11 Lite

Thanks, did just that and up and running. Interestingly I get screen blackouts on win 11 with ram set to xmp 6000 or 6400. Eagerly awaiting bios update!

 

[dacnick]

seems like asrock forgot this x600, no bios update for 4 months when others have moved far forward.
Poor choice of not using USB4, and no bios support.
Reviewer should dock points from this and not recommend the box.

 

[phorize]

Bb

seems like asrock forgot this x600, no bios update for 4 months when others have moved far forward.
Poor choice of not using USB4, and no bios support.
Reviewer should dock points from this and not recommend the box.

I'd definitely argue that the bios doesn't support the claimed ram specs.

 

[f666]

have still been struggling with ubuntu on the x600. seemed to be working, then was having issues booting and can't get ubuntu to install fresh any more, tried kubuntu and getting drivers errors.

have also memtested for 4 days, no ram errors.
trying out a new 4tb nvme also as want to rule out storage issues.

not been the best experience so far!

 

[phorize]

have still been struggling with ubuntu on the x600. seemed to be working, then was having issues booting and can't get ubuntu to install fresh any more, tried kubuntu and getting drivers errors.

have also memtested for 4 days, no ram errors.
trying out a new 4tb nvme also as want to rule out storage issues.

not been the best experience so far!

That's odd, Linux kernel after about 6.3 supports the x600 and it's cpus.

 

[Stoney]

i had stability issues with kernels older than 6.8.x(dunno remember exactly which version fixed it) with my ryzen 8000 iGPU. With old kernels only downclocking the iGPU to something like 2.2GHz helped.

 

[f666]

Kernal panic
Ubuntu latest version 24.10, new SSD, new ram.

 

[phorize]

Kernal panic
Ubuntu latest version 24.10, new SSD, new ram.

May want to try fedora 41, works brilliantly on the x600

 

[f666]

May want to try fedora 41, works brilliantly on the x600

thanks, I may well do that as one last try. I also have a new intel nuc 12 i5 coming, which was going to be my test rig, but I may well use that and put windows on the x600 and give that to my son.

 

[phorize]

So I upgraded the bios to 4.06 and set the ram to xmp 6400. I did get a crash eventually playing Valheim on win 11 + latest amd drivers and graphics set to quality but it took longer. The case was very hot at this point, reinforcing my belief this is down to ram temps. I may look at an akasa case with the lid off and a better cooler but TBH I don't feel like sinking more money into this. I did play around with voltages but ended up having to clear the cmos. Has anyone succeeded in running the fury ram at 6400 in the stock case without crashes?

 

[SFFMunkee]

So I upgraded the bios to 4.06 and set the ram to xmp 6400. I did get a crash eventually playing Valheim on win 11 + latest amd drivers and graphics set to quality but it took longer. The case was very hot at this point, reinforcing my belief this is down to ram temps. I may look at an akasa case with the lid off and a better cooler but TBH I don't feel like sinking more money into this. I did play around with voltages but ended up having to clear the cmos. Has anyone succeeded in running the fury ram at 6400 in the stock case without crashes?

Yep I’m running 8600G and Fury RAM at XMP 6400 haven’t noticed any crashes. I’ll have a look at BIOS etc tomorrow