Prebuilt [SFFn] ASRock's DeskMini GTX1080 Reviewed - Epic Performance Density

[confusis]

Written by Craig Babiuk with assistance from John Morrison

When I first laid eyes on ASRock’s Micro STX platform nearly a year ago, I like many others was absolutely gobsmacked at the amount of hardware that they had managed to fit into such a tiny package. Measuring a mere 188mm by 147mm, the primary innovation of this form factor was taking advantage of the ultra-compact MXM graphics cards that had traditionally been reserved for use in behemoth gaming laptops. Clever repurposing of these GPUs allowed ASRock to fit an entire gaming system onto a single board that is smaller in overall area than the reigning king of small form factor - Mini-ITX.

Read more here.

 

[Sean Crees]

Until you can buy aftermarket MXM graphics cards at newegg, and aftermarket cooling solutions for them or 3rd party MXM cards with better cooling solutions, then unfortunately this will never become mainstream. The lack of upgrade-ability is personally a non starter for me.

 

[Kmpkt]

3rd party cooling solution incoming! Also I'm pretty sure Aetina will sell MXM GeForce cards to the public and TUL/Powercolor will do so for Polaris cards (and hopefully its Vega based replacement).

 

[Phuncz]

Excellent review, good to finally see it in detail ! Did you also get to measure how much space there is between an M.2 SSD and the panel/frame so one could possibly install a heatsink if needed ?

 

[Kmpkt]

I believe you have around 2mm of space

 

[AleksandarK]

Really nice and well founded review as always.

This can become more common form factor, if there were more supported socket types(ex. AM4, LGA 1151v2) and the better overall availability of MXM graphics cards. But that is going be hopefully solved in the future.

 

[Halfdan]

Nice write up. Maybe also add a picture of you holding it in your hands to convey how small this thing actually is.

 

[Thehack]

A decent review. A word to the writers:

Be careful how you address "thermal throttling." GPU Boost 3.0 works by pushing clocks if given enough power or thermal room.

In some ways, it may always be "thermal throttling." For example, my 1070, if I keep boosting the fan up, it doesn't get cooler, it just gets faster due to the temperature target remaining the same.

 

[reiserFS]

Such a shame that the GPU fan is so noisy, would've been a great little unit like my Deskmini, which runs silent at any load. Hopefully there will be some aftermarket cooling solutions.

 

[Kmpkt]

Be careful how you address "thermal throttling." GPU Boost 3.0 works by pushing clocks if given enough power or thermal room.

I was able to get thermals up to TMax (85C) with the fan on a flat curve of 40% or less while all tests were done with the aggressive stock fan profile - throttling definitely wasn't thermals. The only reasonable explanation for throttling on this particular benchmark (and this occurred to me after writing the article) is that the CPU was pulling so much power off the brick (270W) that boost wasn't allowed to occur. Considering the CPU (7700K) could easily pull enough current to power throttle the GPU on the Firestrike test, this would make the most sense. I will retry the test for academic purposes with a 65W CPU and see if the boost engages on those tests. If it does then we have our answer.

Such a shame that the GPU fan is so noisy, would've been a great little unit like my Deskmini, which runs silent at any load. Hopefully there will be some aftermarket cooling solutions.

It's not really an issue if you take two minutes to go into BIOS and set your profile as I suggested in the article. Also I am developing an MXM cooler that will specifically work with this platform and should GREATLY improve both acoustics and performance.

 

[Cuzza]

Nice review bro. Interesting device and love the performance for the size, but ye gods that price! Add import costs to NZ and.... well you get the drift. Merry Christmas dude.

 

[EdZ]

The lack of boost in the Firestrike Ultra test seems to be an inexplicable anomaly, as at no time were temperatures anywhere near the point where thermal throttling should occur.

GPU-Z's 'Perfcap Reason' graph should show you what the card is reporting as the reason not to continue boosting.

 

[Kmpkt]

GPU-Z's 'Perfcap Reason' graph should show you what the card is reporting as the reason not to continue boosting.

Going to do a much more in-depth follow up review at some point in the future on the Deskmini platform. This will be super useful to me. Thanks @EdZ

 

[reiserFS]

It's not really an issue if you take two minutes to go into BIOS and set your profile as I suggested in the article. Also I am developing an MXM cooler that will specifically work with this platform and should GREATLY improve both acoustics and performance.

That's amazing, looking forward to that cooler! What about idle noise? Does the fan actually turn off like on some full sized counterparts?

 

[Kmpkt]

My heatsink with simply be an 115x/AM4 heatsink with swappable baseplates. If you swap in the MXM baseplate and mounting kit, you should be able to just hook up and go. I plan to use an approximately 15mm high 92mm fan.

 

[Mortis Angelus]

Until you can buy aftermarket MXM graphics cards at newegg, and aftermarket cooling solutions for them or 3rd party MXM cards with better cooling solutions, then unfortunately this will never become mainstream. The lack of upgrade-ability is personally a non starter for me.

Didn't I read some rumors somewhere that Nvidia is going to stop making MXM cards all together?


@confusis Great review as always man!

 

[Kmpkt]

I'd like to think that would depend on market demand. If MXM based systems take off then they'll likely make more. With BGA GPUs getting better all the time (ie. lower wattage 1080s), the necessity for MXM's beefy power systems and stuff is probably decreasingly relevant for a lot of OEMs like Sager, Clevo and Alienware.

 

[confusis]

Didn't I read some rumors somewhere that Nvidia is going to stop making MXM cards all together?


@confusis Great review as always man!

@Kmpkt did 95% of the writing!

 

[Kmpkt]

The only part of the writing that John did was that "Written By John Morrison" part at the top...


Jokes, jokes, jokes

 

[ASRock System]

Very Nice review.

We are glad to see there are lots of feedback from small form factor enthusiasts, no matter positive or not.
The MXM GPU price is totally controlled by NVIDIA, so we are keeping communicate with Intel and NVIDIA...
We hope MXM GPU market could be opened in the future.
Although it will spend around two or more years for seeing ramp up.

About default MXM fan curve

Due to we did complete system loading test in 35C chamber.
Therefore we set curve more aggressive than Kmpkt's setting.
But we are welcome everyone fine tunes it according to your situation and so on.