Prebuilt [SFFn] ASRock's DeskMini A300 - Finally!

[alles_alles]

wow, thanks for the info, gonna try ASAP!

i hope TSME gets a disable option as well. also wondering what "Disable : SOC-Voltage, Infinity and Dividers" could mean? options disabled or an option to disable adjusting?

update:
i can see original german description now, this means options added and removed. sad if true

1. Core Boost Performance und TSME eingefügt
2. SOC-Spannung, Infinity-Fabric-Frequency und Dividers entfernt

ChangelogEN:
- Add Core Boost Performance and TSME
- removed enteries : 1) SOC-Voltage, 2) Infinity-fabric clock and Dividers

Not disabled but removed Entery .

 

[yosoywilson78]

running P3.60S without problems.

So am I. Did it slow your boot time down? Its nothing major but its noticeably slower to get to desktop from BIOS.

 

[maximumzero]

Glad to see folks so enthusiastic about the Deskmini. I keep getting tempted to nab a A300W and a 3400G and set it up but I'm doing my best to sit on my hands until the X300 and 4700G roll around. Gonna be the first computer I built for myself in the mid-2000s.

 

[yosoywilson78]

Glad to see folks so enthusiastic about the Deskmini. I keep getting tempted to nab a A300W and a 3400G and set it up but I'm doing my best to sit on my hands until the X300 and 4700G roll around. Gonna be the first computer I built for myself in the mid-2000s.

Yeah Im curious to see what the price point is for it. I just cant see the value in the x300 because its not going to bring much more in terms of performance. High speed laptop RAM is very expensive and theyre not going to offer more in terms of connectivity. I already have Renoir support and good RAM speed on the A300. But I guess I'll see.

 

[Weekly_Cow]

ChangelogEN:
- Add Core Boost Performance and TSME
- removed enteries : 1) SOC-Voltage, 2) Infinity-fabric clock and Dividers

Not disabled but removed Entery .

No IF Clock, Its a big Nerf....
btw, using 3.60R but cant set IF higher than 1800MHz....?

 

[rubicoin]

So am I. Did it slow your boot time down? Its nothing major but its noticeably slower to get to desktop from BIOS.

13 sec from boot promt to login screen, around the same as before. maybe it was only slower for the first time.

Weekly_Cow: though i never used IF clock/divider/SOC voltage options while being on 3.60R, it can be considered as a big nerf, especially if it remains this way in the final stable BIOS.

i guess these functions being removed could only mean one thing: all overclocking related options (other than XMP profile and DRAM voltage/timings) will be x300 exclusive. and this could be the answer to the "a300 or x300 to buy" question: as x300 hardware has not been improved and optimized for OC, no one would have reason to buy x300 if a new stable BIOS update gave a300 new, OC focused options (and these removed settings could be easily considered as such). of course x300 will still have CPU overclocking as a huge extra, but it could be a wise move not to tighten the gap between the two systems in OC capabilities.

i can also imagine that x/a300 systems are so similar that a300 was only the testing ground for these new x300 exclusive functions, which are just being phased out from a300 in new beta BIOS versions.

 

[asrock_mini_stx]

A first time poster but a few weeks lurker here.

So, I've been having the idea of using my ol NES as a case for a few months for an emulation PC and having done the measurements and looking around at price (around £500 i would be willing to spend) and specs (1080/1440p machine) I think the 4700G with fast memory would be good and the mini-stx that Asrock provides.

A few questions (having read most of the thread's last pages)

• Do we think (without knowing) that the X300 will be much more expensive and as with A300 would it only come as barebone system (whole case and not the motherboard for sale)?
• Would the benefit of such an updated MB be large if we can get fast DDR-4000mhz mem (or at least 3600mhz) working on the A300 with correct CAS settings?
• If I get hold of the A300 (presumably used as i seen a few around) and wanted to update the bios with the new CPU, all I need to make sure is that it had a previous CPU on the motherboard, is that correct assessment, or do I have to have an old cpu in the system when upgrading BIOS?

Looking forward to your answers above

 

[yosoywilson78]

A first time poster but a few weeks lurker here.

So, I've been having the idea of using my ol NES as a case for a few months for an emulation PC and having done the measurements and looking around at price (around £500 i would be willing to spend) and specs (1080/1440p machine) I think the 4700G with fast memory would be good and the mini-stx that Asrock provides.

A few questions (having read most of the thread's last pages)

• Do we think (without knowing) that the X300 will be much more expensive and as with A300 would it only come as barebone system (whole case and not the motherboard for sale)?
• Would the benefit of such an updated MB be large if we can get fast DDR-4000mhz mem (or at least 3600mhz) working on the A300 with correct CAS settings?
• If I get hold of the A300 (presumably used as i seen a few around) and wanted to update the bios with the new CPU, all I need to make sure is that it had a previous CPU on the motherboard, is that correct assessment, or do I have to have an old cpu in the system when upgrading BIOS?

Looking forward to your answers above

If youre interested in CPU/GPU overclocking then X300 will be the direction you will need to go. RAM speed is good on the A300 I have 3400 CAS 16 running fine just from a simple scroll in the BIOS. 3600 shouldnt be an issue its just about what youre willing to spend on your RAM. And yes to update the BIOS you just need a 2200/2400/3200/3400g to update and youre good to go.

 

[rubicoin]

A first time poster but a few weeks lurker here.

So, I've been having the idea of using my ol NES as a case for a few months for an emulation PC and having done the measurements and looking around at price (around £500 i would be willing to spend) and specs (1080/1440p machine) I think the 4700G with fast memory would be good and the mini-stx that Asrock provides.

A few questions (having read most of the thread's last pages)

• Do we think (without knowing) that the X300 will be much more expensive and as with A300 would it only come as barebone system (whole case and not the motherboard for sale)?
• Would the benefit of such an updated MB be large if we can get fast DDR-4000mhz mem (or at least 3600mhz) working on the A300 with correct CAS settings?
• If I get hold of the A300 (presumably used as i seen a few around) and wanted to update the bios with the new CPU, all I need to make sure is that it had a previous CPU on the motherboard, is that correct assessment, or do I have to have an old cpu in the system when upgrading BIOS?

Looking forward to your answers above

• a300 msrp is $150/€150. atm it starts at €127 in the eu (JZ has it for €138). here in hungary it was around the same €127 on sale last week, but now it's back to €145-150, and stocks are usually very hectic. i've been keeping an eye of it's local availability since last december: the lowest ever price was €123 in january (just when i purchased, luckily), and the highest was €170+ (after the covid-19 outbreak) and sometimes it was completely out of stock for weeks. i guess a300 will be discontinued soon and x300 will be the only am4 deskmini option remaining, so it's price could be the chepest now (and it'll probably rise when it goes out of stock permanently). x300 price: it could remain around it's probably €20-30 higher msrp for a couple of weeks/months after its launch, but it could become cheaper easily when no a300 exists on the market anymore.
  
  a standalone x300-stx board is very unlikely to happen if you ask me (deskminis have always been officially barebone only systems).
  
  
• i'd say it could not benefit from the actual hardware (which might be the same as a300) rather than an oc focused bios. if x300 would have a bios with proper ram oc settings (see recently removed SOC Vid adjustment in beta 360S for example, and its allegedly mysterious behaviour in older stock bios versions), it could easily mean that you should have x300 for 3600+ speeds.
  
  
• bios 3.50 brought support for ryzen 3000, and beta 3.60L for ryzen 4000. it means that if your a300 runs on bios 3.40 or older, you have to install a ryzen 2000 series apu in order to boot and update bios. if your a300 runs on bios 3.50 or 3.60, you have to install a ryzen 2000 or 3000 series apu in order to boot and update bios. if your a300 runs on beta 3.60L/N/R/S or newer (future) bios, you can run any ryzen apu (renoir, picasso, raven ridge) in a300.

 

[asrock_mini_stx]

Thank you all, I found some good prices on Ebay and trying to confirm with the seller what he bios he is running.

 

[Sputnik91]

Hello, just curious if anyone knew what the most stable bios was with support for the 4000 series. I currently have 3.60n and there have been some system hangs. Are there any other versions with support for Renoir that are more stable?

 

[Ardwin]

@Ardwin hello how did You install the 2004 build, if I may ask?
From an external storage device?
The point is, I do not get the 2004 via Windows Update suggested. It's not available for me. Also on newest Radeon, since I thought there may be a problem. Still not updating. I'm not a Windows Insider, so everything pretty official.

Sorry for the late reply. The Windows update 2004 was offered by the normal Windows Update process. There was a section in Windows Update for trying new features (a section below the "main" recommendation section). The update was never enforced, however. For some strange reason it seems like Windows updates are received at different times for different machines, some machines take longer than others. This may or may not have anything to do with the make/model of the machine.

Just to note here: I'm not doing overclocking: any problem I report here is observed with stock settings. The only thing I have updated manually is the BIOS but that is from the ASRock site. The reason I found this site (smallformfactor) was googling for "stuttering" for this hardware configuration. Some say the update 2004 was postponed for quality control issues but for me it is the first one working perfectly for this setup.

 

[Crackong]

Hello, just curious if anyone knew what the most stable bios was with support for the 4000 series. I currently have 3.60n and there have been some system hangs. Are there any other versions with support for Renoir that are more stable?

I used 3.60R and tested it with:

1. Folding (Full setting) in Windows for the whole weekend
2. Running ESXi then running Folding@Home in 2 VMs for another weekend.

SO far nothing happened.
I would call it stable enough.

 

[rubicoin]

no problems with 3.60S the (latest beta version from JZ) so far. i'd be surprised if the final version was too far away!

 

[Griffith499]

Does anybody has successfully running two 4k monitors with the A300?
As per documentation I would suggest it is possible, but I just cannot get it running properly with a 3200G.

 

[Quango]

Does anybody has successfully running two 4k monitors with the A300?
As per documentation I would suggest it is possible, but I just cannot get it running properly with a 3200G.

What do you mean with "properly"? With my personally disapponting experience with three A300 boards earlier this year (one DOA, two with HDMI flickering and coil whine), there is/was a flickering problem with 4K@60Hz over HDMI 2.0 (no problems over DP). FHD only users don't have such problems.

I somewhat hope the X300 has ironed this out.

 

[Griffith499]

1x 4k via HDMI or DisplayLink works fine, but when I connect the 2nd monitor with whatever connection is left, I have flickering issues on at least one monitor. But only half of it and when I move my mouse.

 

[Sputnik91]

I used 3.60R and tested it with:

1. Folding (Full setting) in Windows for the whole weekend
2. Running ESXi then running Folding@Home in 2 VMs for another weekend.

SO far nothing happened.
I would call it stable enough.

Thanks for the info! I'm actually using my deskmini for folding as well. I believe you posted somewhere that you use a Noctua L9a with A9x25. How are temps with Renior vs the older chips when folding?

 

[Crackong]

Thanks for the info! I'm actually using my deskmini for folding as well. I believe you posted somewhere that you use a Noctua L9a with A9x25. How are temps with Renior vs the older chips when folding?

Depends on which "old chip" you are referring to.
In my case I replaced the 2400G with 4750G.
In their default configuration (65W) They are mostly identical in thermals and power consumption.
I ran them in a room with AC (~22C), they topped out around 85C.

However the 4750G supports TDP configuration.
Now I run the 4750G in its 35W configuration.
In this setting the power consumption is halved (42W vs 88W) , max temp only 57C ,
Only 16% multi-core performance lost.
And single core performance is unaffected.

I am running my 4750G in the 35W configuration forever. ?

 

[Valantar]

Depends on which "old chip" you are referring to.
In my case I replaced the 2400G with 4750G.
In their default configuration (65W) They are mostly identical in thermals and power consumption.
I ran them in a room with AC (~22C), they topped out around 85C.

However the 4750G supports TDP configuration.
Now I run the 4750G in its 35W configuration.
In this setting the power consumption is halved (42W vs 88W) , max temp only 57C ,
Only 16% multi-core performance lost.
And single core performance is unaffected.

I am running my 4750G in the 35W configuration forever. ?

That is really cool! Any chance you could shed some light on how the TDP change affects iGPU performance? Even something as simple as comparative 3DMark runs would be great to see