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

[Valantar]

My 4650G from hardwarestore2000 arrived over the weekend and currently posting from it. Bios update was a breeze and so was the updates etc. This is my current passmark results:

Link didn't seem to post: https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V10/display.php?id=130676517316

Running the 4650g with 32gb of 2600 RAM (I will be running VM's on this so top speed isn't an issue) and a 1TB M2 SSD. Hoping I can figure out a way to get more storage to the device other than a 1 or 2 TB laptop drive but that's for another day.

Here's my PassMark baseline for comparison. That's with a 4650G running on an ASrock B550M-itx/ac, 16GB of DDR4-3800 c16, 1900 FCLK, 2100MHz iGPU. All in all it's a tad higher, but not much at all. 3D graphics is the only major difference, which is explained by the fact that I've spent a few hours pushing both the memory and iGPU with that express goal. (Note: this is not on an A300, just showing it to compare performance on ITX vs. STX.)

On Lenovo Ideapad Slim 7 with Intelligent Cooling, 4800U pull about 25W, the Cinebench 15 score is about more or less the same with 4650G that pull about 88W.

On long time running, all cores in 4800U runs about 2.5 GHz, don't know, about 4650G, I guess the performance won't different a lot, maybe 4650G faster about 10%-20%.

25W is the long term power draw, not the boost power draw (that can reach into the 40W range) - and as I said, Cinebench mostly finishes within the boost window. Just look at how dramatically performance drops off after the first few CB runs in NotebookCheck's review, starting at ~1620 but then dropping to ~1210. The 4650G has a base clock of 3.7GHz, so in workloads that aren't limited by anything but clock speed it should be ~25% faster. Of course the IdeaPad/Yoga Slim 7 also IIRC runs LPDDR4x-4233, which is significantly faster than any DDR4 you're likely to run on a 4650G. So if the workload responds well to memory bandwidth, that is definitely an advantage for the mobile chip.

My 4650G scores ~1510-1530 in CB15, but unlike a U-series laptop it can sustain that performance indefinitely. It's not hitting anywhere near 88W running these tests - the maximum CPU package power recorded in HWinfo64 is 55W. CB15 for me runs at a sustained ~4.11GHz all core btw.

 

[wesley8]

I think this 4000 series APU is a bit low on CPU performance compare to 4000 series mobile CPU.

On CB 15, 4800U on a notebook, with a limited cooling, is on par with 4650G, but it is a 15W TDP compare to 65W on 4650G.

My guest is, AMD limit this CPU performance on 4000 series APU and they will gradually increase its performance under new series.

Are u sure?

 

[rubicoin]

Are u sure?

nice! my 4650g @ 3200 mhz ram speed on P3.60S is so much slower (scored 3562/485 on 3.60R @ 3000 mhz):

and you are running X300 bios! obviously no ram speed issues there... 4266 mhz is freaking awesome (as seen in c20 results).

i'd have some questions for you: can you confirm that no AMD PBS option is present in advanced menu? i'm about to test my egpu setup once the adt-link m.2 adapter arrives. don't you have any kind of issues with this bios? what method did you use to flash it? could you revert back to beta A300? is perfomance improved with this bios? i would update to it and use c20 results above as a baseline for comparing if it was safe. thx for any info in advance!

 

[Valantar]

nice! my 4650g @ 3200 mhz ram speed on P3.60S is so much slower (scored 3562/485 on 3.60R @ 3000 mhz):

and you are running X300 bios! obviously no ram speed issues there... 4266 mhz is freaking awesome (as seen in c20 results).

i'd have some questions for you: can you confirm that no AMD PBS option is present in advanced menu? i'm about to test my egpu setup once the adt-link m.2 adapter arrives. don't you have any kind of issues with this bios? what method did you use to flash it? could you revert back to beta A300? is perfomance improved with this bios? i would update to it and use c20 results above as a baseline for comparing if it was safe. thx for any info in advance!

Two notes:
-My 4650G on B550 scores essentially the same as yours on the A300 (more or less the same as your previous results). Though interestingly, I don't see any threads loaded at 100% during the ST test, for some reason.
- ( 5000 / 16 ) * 12 = 3750. Add in the 4750G clocking a tad higher and you've got the entire performance delta accounted for.

 

[suta]

Two notes:
-My 4650G on B550 scores essentially the same as yours on the A300 (more or less the same as your previous results). Though interestingly, I don't see any threads loaded at 100% during the ST test, for some reason.
- ( 5000 / 16 ) * 12 = 3750. Add in the 4750G clocking a tad higher and you've got the entire performance delta accounted for.

For gaming performance do you recommend
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G or Ryzen 5 Pro 4650G?

 

[Valantar]

For gaming performance do you recommend
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G or Ryzen 5 Pro 4650G?

The 4650G is going to be faster by a decent amount, though there is of course the question of price - I paid nearly twice the price of a 3400G for mine. I haven't tested it that much in games yet, but with the GPU clocked to 2100MHz and RAM at 3800 I'm seeing 70-80fps in Rocket League at 1080p "Quality" settings (both render quality and detail settings) with MLAA. 1080p maxed out was more in the range of 50-55fps. I'm planning to test it out a bit in SW: Squadrons soon to see if it can handle that.

 

[rubicoin]

For gaming performance do you recommend
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G or Ryzen 5 Pro 4650G?

i checked several comparison videos on youtube before buying 4650g, but it's only slightly better than 3400g in igpu performance, simply does not worth the extra money. neither of these apus are suitable for high 1080p gaming: good fps only for old titles & only low/mid detail for more demanding games. but if ram speed and cpu performance for productivity is a priority, 4650g is a perfect choice for an sff pc! it's simply too powerful for the integrated gpu, i guess amd did not want/manage to raise gpu performance along with cpu performance too much (maybe reserved for cezanne). that's why i decided to give it a try and attach an egpu to it. stay tuned, will report my results in a couple of weeks

 

[pappl]

Installed BIOS 3.60S (Agesa V2) today.
I'm using A300 and Ryzen 3400G.
Game performance is better and finally the HDMI port is stable (no black screen from time to time).
I disabled Core Performance Boost for better thermals, but BIOS doesn't offer CPU voltage settings.
I'll stay with this BIOS, it works very well.

Edit: what happened to the modified 3.60S BIOS with enabled Voltage Settings? Did it work?

 

[rubicoin]

Installed BIOS 3.60S (Agesa V2) today.
I'm using A300 and Ryzen 3400G.
Game performance is better and finally the HDMI port is stable (no black screen from time to time).
I disabled Core Performance Boost for better thermals, but BIOS doesn't offer CPU voltage settings.
I'll stay with this BIOS, it works very well.

Edit: what happened to the modified 3.60S BIOS with enabled Voltage Settings? Did it work?

could you run Superposition Benchmark for comparison for Valantar? 4650g, same bios, 3200 mhz ram speed:

 

[Valantar]

could you run Superposition Benchmark for comparison for Valantar? 4650g, same bios, 3200 mhz ram speed:

Here's my ITX numbers (CPU stock, iGPU 2100MHz, RAM 3800C16). Also reminded me that I forgot to set my VRAM amount back after I reset the BIOS the day before yesterday.

Edit: Scored 2968 when set to 3GB. Definitely within run-to-run variance.

 

[rubicoin]

Here's my ITX numbers (CPU stock, iGPU 2100MHz, RAM 3800C16). Also reminded me that I forgot to set my VRAM amount back after I reset the BIOS the day before yesterday.

Edit: Scored 2968 when set to 3GB. Definitely within run-to-run variance.

sorry, my bad, wrote wrong username:

could you run Superposition Benchmark for comparison for suta?

but thx for your results it shows crearly how much ram and igpu oc matters and what we miss with A300.

 

[Valantar]

sorry, my bad, wrote wrong username:

could you run Superposition Benchmark for comparison for suta?

but thx for your results it shows crearly how much ram and igpu oc matters and what we miss with A300.

Yeah, it would be really nice if the X300 supported these things properly - then I wouldn't need to build this ITX rig in the first place. The X300 should be able to handle it, at least on the 4650G: my wall power meter maxed out at 110W running OCCT (AVX2) + Superposition, which while close to the 120W rating of the power brick is entirely within its capabilities (and it's not at all a realistic workload, after all, and it includes conversion losses from my PSU). If an ITX board with 2x 1.38V DIMMs at 3800MT/s and the iGPU running at 2100MHz peaks at 110W at the wall, an STX board with SODIMMs at the same or lower voltage ought to consume less power than that. They could just implement a firmware amperage cap that forced VRM throttling above a certain level of power draw and allow users to configure it beyond that.

 

[rubicoin]

Yeah, it would be really nice if the X300 supported these things properly - then I wouldn't need to build this ITX rig in the first place. The X300 should be able to handle it, at least on the 4650G: my wall power meter maxed out at 110W running OCCT (AVX2) + Superposition, which while close to the 120W rating of the power brick is entirely within its capabilities (and it's not at all a realistic workload, after all, and it includes conversion losses from my PSU). If an ITX board with 2x 1.38V DIMMs at 3800MT/s and the iGPU running at 2100MHz peaks at 110W at the wall, an STX board with SODIMMs at the same or lower voltage ought to consume less power than that. They could just implement a firmware amperage cap that forced VRM throttling above a certain level of power draw and allow users to configure it beyond that.

i guess it would take nothing to swap 120 W power brick with a 150 W one for asrock and give more room for oc. if internal dc-dc can handle 120 W then 150 W should be ok as well. also it could be a big bonus for cezanne (i guess they are planning X300 support for it), maybe amd will raise igpu performance for the last AM4 apu and additional power would really count in 2021.

 

[gustav]

Installed BIOS 3.60S (Agesa V2) today.
I'm using A300 and Ryzen 3400G.
Game performance is better and finally the HDMI port is stable (no black screen from time to time).
I disabled Core Performance Boost for better thermals, but BIOS doesn't offer CPU voltage settings.
I'll stay with this BIOS, it works very well.

Edit: what happened to the modified 3.60S BIOS with enabled Voltage Settings? Did it work?

Unfortunately, I did not work any further on this. I thought maybe @Danlopez1222 sharing a guide with us enabling BIOS options? (As he offered this, in the A300 BIOS Crowdfunding thread)

 

[A300]

Hi guys,

I will trying to get 4650G.

Currently, I am on 2400G with BIOS 3.40. What are the steps required to update from 2400G to 4650G?

 

[rubicoin]

Hi guys,

I will trying to get 4650G.

Currently, I am on 2400G with BIOS 3.40. What are the steps required to update from 2400G to 4650G?

good question i'd flash official 3.60 first and beta 3.60S next. if flashing official 3.60 failed for some reason, i'd try 3.50 first

after bios is updated, just swap cpu and enter bios setup. make all changes needed and start os. update drivers if needed.

 

[A300]

good question i'd flash official 3.60 first and beta 3.60S next. if flashing official 3.60 failed for some reason, i'd try 3.50 first

after bios is updated, just swap cpu and enter bios setup. make all changes needed and start os. update drivers if needed.

Thanks for your hints, unfortunately, I failed to got this 4650G. The seller, kind of slimy, so I canceled the order.

I guess I have to wait until it became official.

 

[Valantar]

Thanks for your hints, unfortunately, I failed to got this 4650G. The seller, kind of slimy, so I canceled the order.

I guess I have to wait until it became official.

Where are you located?

 

[dj_Duff]

hey guys, I am looking for building small PC. I am now thinking to go with A300 - or with X300
Could someone describe what the benefits of X300 compared to A300?
Except exterior look..
(And I am not planning to overclock)

 

[rubicoin]

hey guys, I am looking for building small PC. I am now thinking to go with A300 - or with X300
Could someone describe what the benefits of X300 compared to A300?
Except exterior look..
(And I am not planning to overclock)

hi, besides oc X300's biggest benefit is definitely bios functions and updates. if you wan't support for the last am4 apu-s (cezanne) and official bios for series 4000 (renoir), A300 is probably not for you. but for picasso without oc, you'd better going with A300 and official 3.40/3.50/3.60 bios, it's also cheaper. i guess X300 will be the only option soon as A300 will be discontinued, so it's now or never to build an sff pc on a budget.