https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158064
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/asrock-deskmini-a300-big-pc-small-package
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/asrock-deskmini-a300-big-pc-small-package
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I was looking at this for a media streaming machine 
Single board stuff is just not cutting it.
So, can someone test if this motherboard would let you run headless? I have a spare Ryzen 7 1700X that would make a sweet virtualization server.
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That is a sweet machine! I would grab one but convincing the wife that I need a 2700X, 1700X, and 2400G would be hard. She’s barely believing that the 1700X is a “server”. Which it is, kind of… Oh I know! It’s for her!
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So the Ryzen 5 2400G is basically stable on Linux I take it. Wish it was like that for my 2500U laptop.
Yay! You got one! Was wondering if you were gonna get one after Hardware Unboxed got theirs.
For the optimization guide @wendell, I want to see Steam in-home streaming client optimization for streaming 4K 60p from a Windows machine (with the Windows machine using NvFBC) and outputting that using the HDMI 2.0 output to a Standard 4K TV. 2400G should be able to handle that as the endpoint thin client, I think.
I really like this size and specs. Is there a similar model where i can use 6 or 8 2.5" SATA drives or a PCIe SATA expansion board?
I have loads of HDDs from notebooks and would like to transition to an SATA SSD NAS when in the future. (Not for speed, but power usage and vibration.)
If you wanna go a bit diy you can break that m.2 out to pcie then do that with an x4 pcie and a disk shelf.
System76 has a nifty little open hardware 4up 2.5 drive stack you could pair with that
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The power brick is not over spec. My 2400G on B450 with SSD and 2 120mm fans runs past 110 watts with my most efficient power supply (past 120 with generic ATX PSU). I had to turn off a core to get it to 100 watts max under heavy gaming load, though to be fair, gaming while running 3 cores/6 threads doesn’t seem to be a bottleneck for me. That 65 watts TDP may be sort of accurate for the CPU heat dissipation, but no where near accurate for power consumption. I’d imagine powering the CPU+GPU causes the VRM’s to put off a fair amount of heat, burning off double digit watts of power. I’d like to see the results of a Kill-A-Watt or similar for the power consumption of the DeskMini w/2400G.
Also, chipset fail, although I understand why they chose it. Reviews say it doesn’t have the proper up-to-date UEFI/BIOS which can give RAM compatibility and possibly other issues? 4XX chipset or fail for Ryzen APU’s. This far along people shouldn’t have to jump through hoops or get a loaner CPU/RAM just to get a machine running, particularly if this is a new piece of hardware using an older chipset - no excuse to ship with out of date UEFI/BIOS.
I do love the STX form factor for mini PC’s. The 19V input means you can use an appropriately sized laptop car charger to run it in a car or using solar power without a wasteful power inverter. If you do much lower end gaming/no gaming then an undervolted Intel is far superior with power consumption in my experience, although I don’t know what kind of undervolting options are available with the newest low end chipsets. The “35 watt” Athlons might also be a good choice.
There is probably a lot of room to undervolt the 2400G and get lower power consumption, but I’d imagine most people don’t care. They may care about noise, but I just bolted in a massively overkill tower cooler and never hear the fans spin up. I plan on getting a different power supply soon (M4-ATX to replace the M3-ATX) so I can move to a 24V solar power system and would like to optimize the power consumption of the 2400G. It isn’t like the Intel’s where you just bottom out the CPU voltage and everything works.
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I found the InLine 66910 for 50€ which is a m.2 to 4x sata adapter. Do you have any opinion on this kind of adapter?
The combination of m.2 → pcie → sata is almost half as expansive.
Sadly i could not find the System76 shelf on their website. Can you provide me with a link? Or are you talking about the I/O board for the Thelio? Because that is not available as a standalone product AFAIK.
@wendell It wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the video if the CPU could be overclocked/undervolted from the BIOS with the Deskmini’s motherboard UEFI. Is this the case?
Either way, a SFF case, motherboard and power supply for $150 is a steal. Really hope the Zen 2 APUs will work with it after a BIOS update
You can overclock ryzen on any chipset using the ryzen master utility… but its for windows 
Thought that was locked down in the A320 chipset
My bad you are right ryzen master does not let you OC on A320.
But you can still overclock memory, correct…?.. Which seems so vitally important with Ryzen systems, particularly the APUs with shared memory between the processor and GPU. (note: I do not have a Ryzen system of any sort, so this is somewhat “out my ass”) On top of that I beleive that when they did the DeskMini for Intel based, they started out with a somewhat “entry level” setup, then bumped up the model, so it might be worth waiting, maybe a model with a better chipset is in the works if overclocking is a must. (out my ass again)
Memory speed is dependent on the the processor itself, the ryzen 2200G supports 2993Mhz so as long as you have memory that does 2993Mhz natively it should hit 2993 on any board any chipset. But if you want more than 2993Mhz or you have 2400Mhz memory that you want to overclock to 2993Mhz, than that is dependent on the motherboard. Some motherboards have geart memory support some not so much.
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Thank you.
I’m looking at deploying these to some of my business clients, can anyone vouch for the reliability/failure rates? Especially @wendell, or anyone who has deployed these (or the previous Intel models) in quantity. My boss has had bad experience with ASRock and is hesitant to go with their product, however we have not found any other alternatives.
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This guy took the guts of a A300 and put it in a Gamecube, loaded Solus, and it runs Dolphin.
Haven’t used or talked anyone into multiple ASRock DeskMini models into major usage but the power supply is going to be a weak point if they’re pushed very hard while maxed out–I would suggest calculate the power usage of the storage devices being used, most pre-fab SFF systems tend to be configured with a SSD+HDD or dual SSD to keep the power within the PSU headroom. (I had problems with another SFF maker where it would randomly overheat or randomly never power on after a reboot–yes it was due to the power brick reaching its limit)
When it comes to mini desktops ASRock is one of the few which supports multiple storage options and they’re really the only “budget” option without attempting a DIY custom build.