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 casesBIOS 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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Bleepgat

Cable Smoosher
Jan 14, 2025
10
0
It peeves me that ASRock don't include a good fan with the Mini. I shouldn't have to buy a better fan to get adequate cooling. I also dislike only 4 USB ports and no wifi.
 

game9370

Cable Smoosher
Feb 29, 2024
10
3
hello everyone!
i have put together and used my x600 with a 9800x3d and an oculink egpu for about two weeks now and everything is going absolutely perfect. i've been using an x47 as I ordered it before getting the mini pc and I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to use the original case or make a custom one. turns out I'm going to build a custom one since I would've had too much to cut out the old one to make sense, so I stuck with the orignal plan of replacing the x47 with an x53 since those extra mm's wouldn't bother me too much and temps would definitely enjoy it.
now to the actual question, this was my first amd cpu, my first modern cpu installation and overall my first cpu install in a couple of years, so I'm not too confident in my thermal paste game. I'm attaching the pictures I've taken of my thermal paste application when I removed the x47 and I'd like to know if there's something wrong with it or if it's fine, since it does look rather thin to me. also, the installation of the cooler wasn't that easy and I'm debating whether it was me, something wrong or just how it's suppoed to be.

 

nirvana

Trash Compacter
Apr 24, 2020
41
58
hello everyone!
i have put together and used my x600 with a 9800x3d and an oculink egpu for about two weeks now and everything is going absolutely perfect. i've been using an x47 as I ordered it before getting the mini pc and I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to use the original case or make a custom one. turns out I'm going to build a custom one since I would've had too much to cut out the old one to make sense, so I stuck with the orignal plan of replacing the x47 with an x53 since those extra mm's wouldn't bother me too much and temps would definitely enjoy it.
now to the actual question, this was my first amd cpu, my first modern cpu installation and overall my first cpu install in a couple of years, so I'm not too confident in my thermal paste game. I'm attaching the pictures I've taken of my thermal paste application when I removed the x47 and I'd like to know if there's something wrong with it or if it's fine, since it does look rather thin to me. also, the installation of the cooler wasn't that easy and I'm debating whether it was me, something wrong or just how it's suppoed to be.


Looks perfect to me. Eventhough it may look very thin that is how it is supposed to be. You can also see on the cooler that there was overflow. The space between the heatsink and the CPU should be extremely small if the correct amount of mounting pressure was applied, and the thermal paste is supposed to be there just to fill the microscopic gaps.

There is no harm in applying more thermal paste than necessary (as long as it is not electrically conductive). I also like to apply enough for it to overflow to be sure there is enough. Never had a problem that way (and I've also replaced thermal paste of GPUs which are much more sensitive to not having enough due to direct die cooling)
 
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game9370

Cable Smoosher
Feb 29, 2024
10
3
Looks perfect to me. Eventhough it may look very thin that is how it is supposed to be. You can also see on the cooler that there was overflow. The space between the heatsink and the CPU should be extremely small if the correct amount of mounting pressure was applied, and the thermal paste is supposed to be there just to fill the microscopic gaps.

There is no harm in applying more thermal paste than necessary (as long as it is not electrically conductive). I also like to apply enough for it to overflow to be sure there is enough. Never had a problem that way (and I've also replaced thermal paste of GPUs which are much more sensitive to not having enough due to direct die cooling)
thanks for the answer. I noticed too the overflow on the side of the heatsink which made me think that it was alright, but the pattern on it looks almost like it's too tight perhaps? it was a pain to get the x47 to screw on, the threaded rods (the long ones) were barely poking out and I had to push quite hard the cooler down (guess I was squeezing down the rubber rings that are on the rods themselves) in order to have any thread on the other side. I'm going to watch some installation videos since I just did number research prior, just to see other people's experience on that. came here mainly because I know a lot of people are running this very cooler and I remember coming across someone complaining about the installation too.
 

nirvana

Trash Compacter
Apr 24, 2020
41
58
thanks for the answer. I noticed too the overflow on the side of the heatsink which made me think that it was alright, but the pattern on it looks almost like it's too tight perhaps? it was a pain to get the x47 to screw on, the threaded rods (the long ones) were barely poking out and I had to push quite hard the cooler down (guess I was squeezing down the rubber rings that are on the rods themselves) in order to have any thread on the other side. I'm going to watch some installation videos since I just did number research prior, just to see other people's experience on that. came here mainly because I know a lot of people are running this very cooler and I remember coming across someone complaining about the installation too.

Each cooler mounting system is different, but there should always be a good amount of mounting pressure. This is also required for the CPU to make good contact with the pins in the socket.

Your pattern looks very good (not talking about the wrinkles, that is just an artifact of the thermal paste moving to fill the voids when the cooler is removed). In a perfect world the contact between the base of the heatsink and the CPU should be so perfect that there is no space for any thermal paste to be in there. The areas with almost no thermal paste are areas with very good contact, that is a good sign, not a bad one. That is how it is supposed to be.

There are always areas of high pressure and low pressure. Eventhough it seems that there is a massive difference (due to areas with no thermal paste and other areas with thermal paste), in reality those areas are almost the same. It is extremely hard to manufacture a perfect contact between the heatsink and the CPU. What you are seeing are microscopic gaps. I would consider a problem if there would be no areas with almost no thermal paste (many things could cause that, like not enough mounting pressure or heatsink base not mating the top of the CPU properly due to shape and/or flatness mismatch).

I recommend you to watch this video to understand this topic in more detail

 
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game9370

Cable Smoosher
Feb 29, 2024
10
3
Each cooler mounting system is different, but there should always be a good amount of mounting pressure. This is also required for the CPU to make good contact with the pins in the socket.

Your pattern looks very good (not talking about the wrinkles, that is just an artifact of the thermal paste moving to fill the voids when the cooler is removed). In a perfect world the contact between the base of the heatsink and the CPU should be so perfect that there is no space for any thermal paste to be in there. The areas with almost no thermal paste are areas with very good contact, that is a good sign, not a bad one. That is how it is supposed to be.

There are always areas of high pressure and low pressure. Eventhough it seems that there is a massive difference (due to areas with no thermal paste and other areas with thermal paste), in reality those areas are almost the same. It is extremely hard to manufacture a perfect contact between the heatsink and the CPU. What you are seeing are microscopic gaps. I would consider a problem if there would be no areas with almost no thermal paste (many things could cause that, like not enough mounting pressure or heatsink base not mating the top of the CPU properly due to shape and/or flatness mismatch).

I recommend you to watch this video to understand this topic in more detail

makes perfect sense, thanks!
 

mike349

Average Stuffer
Mar 28, 2017
65
53
hello everyone!
i have put together and used my x600 with a 9800x3d and an oculink egpu for about two weeks now and everything is going absolutely perfect. i've been using an x47 as I ordered it before getting the mini pc and I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to use the original case or make a custom one. turns out I'm going to build a custom one since I would've had too much to cut out the old one to make sense, so I stuck with the orignal plan of replacing the x47 with an x53 since those extra mm's wouldn't bother me too much and temps would definitely enjoy it.
now to the actual question, this was my first amd cpu, my first modern cpu installation and overall my first cpu install in a couple of years, so I'm not too confident in my thermal paste game. I'm attaching the pictures I've taken of my thermal paste application when I removed the x47 and I'd like to know if there's something wrong with it or if it's fine, since it does look rather thin to me. also, the installation of the cooler wasn't that easy and I'm debating whether it was me, something wrong or just how it's suppoed to be.


Can you take a picture of your X600 with eGPU over oculink. What are you exactly using ?
 

game9370

Cable Smoosher
Feb 29, 2024
10
3
Can you take a picture of your X600 with eGPU over oculink. What are you exactly using ?
unfortunately I'm still waiting for the cooler so it's torn apart at the moment. also, I'm still waiting to get a 4080 so I'm using my old trusty 1070 and an atx psu, other then that it's just your standard oculink setup. I got mine off AliExpress, literally done nothing besides connecting the display port to the card and installing drivers. I didn't even need to disable the radeon graphics as of now. if you have any other questions feel free to ask.
 

Juanpecan

What's an ITX?
New User
Jan 29, 2025
1
0
I'm looking to install a 9800x3D in my X600 Deskmeet, cooled by a thermalright x67 (swapping in an SF600 SFX PSU to make it fit). Anything I need to do other than have the most recently updated BIOS?