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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[HydrAxx747]

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?

Hi, where did you get the BIOS "4.06" for DeskMini X600? Could you share it with us via a simple upload site, please?

 

[phorize]

Hi, where did you get the BIOS "4.06" for DeskMini X600? Could you share it with us via a simple upload site, please?

I emailed Asrock support and they sent it to me. I'll see if I can upload it, although I wouldnt advise installing a bios from an unknown person on the internet.

 

[phorize]

There are no cooling restrictions for a M-STX board if you use an Akasa case. And 180W settings are not new, my H470M-STX had them too.

Do you mind me asking what cooler that is and what your ram temps are under sustained full load?

 

[HydrAxx747]

I emailed Asrock support and they sent it to me. I'll see if I can upload it, although I wouldnt advise installing a bios from an unknown person on the internet.

Use this upload site, it's fast, simple, reliable and above all free! Thanking you in advance, I'm curious to see if they have fixed a number of BIOS sub-parameter bugs that I encountered and especially if they have updated the AMD AGESA AM5 firmware to a version higher than the "1.2.0.0a" which is starting to be a bit dated

UploadNow !

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[phorize]

Use this upload site, it's fast, simple, reliable and above all free! Thanking you in advance, I'm curious to see if they have fixed a number of BIOS sub-parameter bugs that I encountered and especially if they have updated the AMD AGESA AM5 firmware to a version higher than the "1.2.0.0a" which is starting to be a bit dated

UploadNow !

UploadNow is a free file storage and sharing service with no limits. Upload and transfer secure files.

uploadnow.io

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Here we are.

 

[HydrAxx747]

Download

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Here we are.

Thanks for sharing my friend, I won't forget it, but this is rather intriguing because I received an unsolicited email from ASRock support (they regularly send me test BIOSes or give me news quite regularly) and so today they sent me the test BIOS "4.04" and with just for "changelog" the upgrade to version "1.2.0.2a" of the AGESA ComboAM5PI firmware.

I notice that the BIOS "4.06" that you shared with me also contains the same version of the AGESA firmware as the BIOS "'4.04" that they sent me. So, did they tell you other changes, bug fixes or feature additions in the email with which they shared the BIOS "4.06" with you?

And one last thing, not having time currently to test the BIOS "4.04" that ASRock sent me and the BIOS "4.06" that you just shared with me (thanks again), are the DDR5 SO-DIMM voltage settings (VDD, VDDQ, etc.) available as in the test BIOS "4.03.MEM01"? Because they told me in a reply email (a few months ago now) that they would leave them available in the next BIOS versions after version "4.03", so it's just to know if they kept their word.​

 

[phorize]

You're welcome. 4.06 includes the voltage settings on the oc options menu. I'm still getting periodic crashes but they seem to be far less often. There was no changelog.

 

[nirvana]

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?

Not all CPUs can run 6400 MT/s in 1:1 mode (uclk=mclk). vdd_SOC is the most important voltage to achieve this and you shouldn't use more than 1.3v, but there are CPUs that need more than 1.3v vdd_SOC to run 6400 1:1 stable.

 

[phorize]

Bios 6.08 is released. Seems very stable at xmp 6400. Ram voltages can be changed and the settings for xmp 1 are different, including a lower soc voltage.

 

[HydrAxx747]

Bios 6.08 is released. Seems very stable at xmp 6400. Ram voltages can be changed and the settings for xmp 1 are different, including a lower soc voltage.

You mean version "4.08" instead?

 

[phorize]

You mean version "4.08" instead?

Yes. Lol

 

[mike349]

Bios 6.08 is released. Seems very stable at xmp 6400. Ram voltages can be changed and the settings for xmp 1 are different, including a lower soc voltage.

Even while playing ? I had problems when choose XMP 6400 and tried to game - about several seconds and the picture went black, but the game still worked. Only solution was to go by default ram settings in BIOS.

 

[phorize]

Even while playing ? I had problems when choose XMP 6400 and tried to game - about several seconds and the picture went black, but the game still worked. Only solution was to go by default ram settings in BIOS.

Yes, played Valheim and Alien Isolation through steam and it was fine. I had been using the 4.06 bios which did get the problems you were having (black screen crash but otherwise pc still operating). The main difference I can see between the 2 bios is the xmp 1 setting has soc voltage of 1.25 not 1.3. Are you using Kingston Fury ram?

 

[mike349]

Yes, played Valheim and Alien Isolation through steam and it was fine. I had been using the 4.06 bios which did get the problems you were having (black screen crash but otherwise pc still operating). The main difference I can see between the 2 bios is the xmp 1 setting has soc voltage of 1.25 not 1.3. Are you using Kingston Fury ram?

Okay, I'm going to update it also and then playing something.
Yes, Kingston Fury, this one: https://www.kingston.com/datasheets/KF564S38IBK2-32.pdf

 

[mike349]

So I updated BIOS to 4.08 and activated XMP 6400 - after about 1 h of playing - black screen. To I need to change something else ?

 

[phorize]

I'm assuming you are on windows 11. Do you have the latest service pack and amd drivers? There have been recent updates to both. I should say that on slightly more recent demanding games such as Valheim I have hyper-rx and use balanced quality settings in the game which seems to stress the GPU less. With this I get an average of 58 FPS in 1080p and the GPU runs at 90%ish most of the time. Perhaps if I really stress the GPU it will get it to misbehave. What games and GPU settings do you have?Also, what cooler and fan settings are you using. I use the noctua cooler set to performance mode.

 

[phorize]

OK, I put the ram setting up to 7000 with all other settings as per default xmp 1. Seemed fine and got about 10% FPS uplift in Valheim. Got scared and put it all back though. Then I found Ryzen master. Dare I ....

 

[SFFMunkee]

Note that I've had some stuttering issues on APUs and AMD GPUs when HyperRX or whatever the low latency thing is enabled along with FSR3 Framegen (primarily in Stalker2 with my 7900xt but I'm sure it's happened in others with the 8700G)

 

[woofaki]

For those who complain that the DeskMini X600 does not have an OcuLink port and that ASRock does not offer one (they should, it's true), well now a simple M.2 NVMe to "direct" OcuLink output adapter now exists, certified PCIe4.0 4x compatible and very thin and with a cable length of your choice, it can even be installed on the secondary M.2 NVMe port under the motherboard without any worries, and the OcuLink port even has fixing points(screws provided) perfectly compatible with the COM port slot with detachable metal cover on the original DeskMini case(normally intended for the ASRock accessory for 3.5mm stereo jack output for desktop speakers):​

(also compatible with other old DeskMini A300 and X300)

Link : aliexpress.com/item/1005007486714630.html

What length is suitable for deskmini? And is the bandwidth enough for a high end card?Lets say a 4070+