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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[SFFMunkee]

I've already got a 'mining' M.2 adaptor and a tiny GT730 that ends at x8 length so it looks all to scale .)

Probably worse than the onboard iGPU though

 

[Jorrit]

Probably worse than the onboard iGPU though

Yes indeed. And when AMD releases Strix point APUs for AM5 there will be no need for dedicated graphics any more in low power rigs.

 

[Alucard]

Yes indeed. And when AMD releases Strix point APUs for AM5 there will be no need for dedicated graphics any more in low power rigs.

Is there any information about the performance of these APUs?

 

[Gingerbeer]

Yes indeed. And when AMD releases Strix point APUs for AM5 there will be no need for dedicated graphics any more in low power rigs.

Yeah, it'd be nice if that was the case, but not likely. It's always "the next gen APUs will be great" and they never quite live up to expectations.

 

[Jorrit]

Yeah, it'd be nice if that was the case, but not likely. It's always "the next gen APUs will be great" and they never quite live up to expectations.

Strix Point Halo will have 16 cores and 40CU RDNA3.5 - That is not going to disappoint anyone.
And power between 70w and 130w so with a bit of luck it can run on the x600 if ASRock will allow it...

 

[k0n]

Strix Point Halo will have 16 cores and 40CU RDNA3.5 - That is not going to disappoint anyone.

...lots of ways it could be disappointing. The 12CU's of the 8700G first appeared in January 2022 with the 6800U.

It might never come to Desktop, might not be supported by the X600, or just take a very long time.

The situation with the X600/8700G is that I already saw a Minisforum NUC like with 6400Mhz 32GB and 6800U (or maybe it was 7800U) for 400€... Wifi6 and 512GB included.

 

[Gingerbeer]

Strix Point Halo will have 16 cores and 40CU RDNA3.5 - That is not going to disappoint anyone.

You're doing exactly what I just said: this time, it's going to be awesome.

We've all been there, several times, and experienced the meh at launch.

However, this time, I hope I'm very wrong and will happily accept whatever slurs and ner-ners that are directed at me, should that be the case.

I too want awesome APUs. I still own a 5600G and it's a great little chip in its own right, but APUs always seem to make great strides and still manage to fall way short of even fairly modest dGPUs.

 

[Jorrit]

You're doing exactly what I just said: this time, it's going to be awesome.

We've all been there, several times, and experienced the meh at launch.

However, this time, I hope I'm very wrong and will happily accept whatever slurs and ner-ners that are directed at me, should that be the case.

I too want awesome APUs. I still own a 5600G and it's a great little chip in its own right, but APUs always seem to make great strides and still manage to fall way short of even fairly modest dGPUs.

Sure Strix Halo might never make it to AM5
But I can guarantee you that at least one company will make a very cool mini with the mobile version of that monster

 

[milesvw]

APUs always seem to make great strides and still manage to fall way short of even fairly modest dGPUs.

You need memory bandwidth. Soldered DDR5 can get you part of the way, but until the bandwidth can get up to 200-500GBps we are going to be better off with discrete.
Maybe with CAMM2 AMD will grace us with a quad-channel APU? Use two dual channel modules. About time I say.

Minisforum HX99G/HX100G with 6600 was a decent compromise, all the low end CPU models sold out, stuck with the poor price/performance top CPU model.

 

[SFFMunkee]

You need memory bandwidth. Soldered DDR5 can get you part of the way, but until the bandwidth can get up to 200-500GBps we are going to be better off with discrete.
Maybe with CAMM2 AMD will grace us with a quad-channel APU? Use two dual channel modules. About time I say.

Minisforum HX99G/HX100G with 6600 was a decent compromise, all the low end CPU models sold out, stuck with the poor price/performance top CPU model.

Interestingly - Lunar Lake from Intel is using on-diepackage LPDDR5x so could be significantly better than previous gen.

 

[Gingerbeer]

Wendell has a review up