The Smallest Ryzen Yet: Asrock DeskMini A300 Review

The Asrock DeskMini A300 is a tiny PC that takes advantage of Ryzen processors. Near every custom designed mini PC that we've seen to date has used Intel inside and while Intel CPUs are very good, they aren't the best choice for this kind of system. At least if you want to game or do any kind of 3D work, for that AMD's Ryzen APUs are unrivaled.

And so later on dozens of Intel-based Beeboxes and DeskMini PCs, Asrock has finally developed an AM4 socket arrangement for Raven Ridge (and Bristol Ridge APUs). Ideally you want to throw in the Ryzen 3 2200G or Ryzen 5 2400G inside this system, our current height budget CPU picks that also happen to take more than decent integrated graphics capabilities.

With a contempo toll drop, for $135 the Ryzen 5 2400G is a cracking good processor and but those not in the know would buy the Core i3-8100 for $150 instead. We'll revisit the 2400G somewhen at this cost point every bit information technology brings SMT support, and so twice as many threads than the 2200G for an extra $forty. For now, we'll see how it performs in the new DeskMini A300, as this is the best APU you can pair with this meaty i.9L barebone.

The DeskMini A300 costs a very reasonable $150 and for that investment y'all get a custom case that measures 155mm broad, 155mm deep and 80mm tall. It's capable of housing two 2.5" storage devices and up to a 46mm tall CPU libation. Inside you'll find Asrock'south A300M-STX motherboard which measures merely 140 x 147mm.

As you might expect for such a tiny motherboard it'due south not exactly chock with features just y'all do get all the essentials. Front I/O includes a USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C port forth with a Blazon-A and effectually the dorsum there's an additional two USB ports, a 3.one Gen1 Blazon-A and a two.0 Type-A. At that place'southward a basic Realtek sound and Gigabit network solution, three M.ii ports, two for an SSDs and a third for a Wi-Fi module then two laptop-style memory DIMMs supporting up to DDR4-2933 with Ryzen APUs.

The display outputs include a single HDMI, DisplayPort and a legacy VGA port, and it's possible to use all iii simultaneously for triple monitor configurations.

There are two optional items, ane is a very basic air-libation which came with our review unit and the other is an M.ii Wi-Fi kit, this didn't come with our sample. There is a listing over on Newegg which doesn't include the cooler merely does come with the Intel Air-conditioning-3168 Wi-Fi kit for $150, so that's a great choice. Later all, you lot tin can apply the Wraith Stealth cooler that comes with your Ryzen APU, though be enlightened you'll have to remove the fan shroud, just the acme comprehend with the AMD logo, this reduces the cooler's height by a few millimeters and has no touch on the cooling performance.

Powering the DeskMini A300 is an included 120w power brick, it's a 19v, six.32A version and that's plenty of headroom for using something like the Ryzen 5 2400G.

That's the barebone. What you need to bring to the table is a CPU, we recommend either the 2200G or 2400G and so some kind of storage. I recommend something inexpensive such equally the WD Blueish 500GB which costs just $68 or if you can find the Plextor S2G 512GB at $55, either would work well for this build. You can fill up the two two.five" drive bays with larger mechanical hard drives or additional SSDs, your selection there.

We'll talk over more than hardware configurations towards the cease of the review, for now let'southward run into what kind of gaming operation the DeskMini A300 paired with the Ryzen five 2400G has to offer. We won't be delving into application functioning as nothing has changed since our review of this CPU. Gaming operation, on the other manus, has seen improvements through updated drivers.

For testing we used G.Skill'southward Ripjaws DDR4-2133 CL15 16GB for a simple reason: it's cheap at but $80. G.Skill'south DDR4-3200 retention costs upwardly of $130 and while it will offer a nice operation proceeds when using the Vega 11 GPU, nosotros can overclock the DDR4-2133 memory, and that's exactly what I did.

Setting the frequency to 2933 MHz reduced the timings to CL16-21-21-21-49. You could no dubiousness manually tune those timings for even better performance, but I wanted to test something that was closer to the out of the box experience.

Gaming Performance Impressions

Noon Legends

Kickoff up we accept Apex Legends and here nosotros were forced down to 720p with the lowest possible quality settings. At times the operation was deceiving equally frame rates went above 100 fps but others they would dip to one-half that. Still overall we were looking at around 60-70 fps and performance was consequent for the most part. Bumping the resolution upward to 900p was playable but the frame dips were far more noticable.

Battleground V

Moving on nosotros have Battlefield V and once more we were forced downwards to 720p in search of 60 fps, and this kind of frame rate is required if y'all hope to rack up a few kills in the multiplayer modes. With the depression quality preset enabled we typically saw around 60 fps with dips into the 50s, but overall a smoothen and enjoyable feel, certainly playable by entry level PC standards.

CS:GO

When testing potato-like gaming performance y'all've always gotta include CS:Become and for this i we were able to examination at 1080p using loftier quality visuals, though that's not maxim much. Frame rates dipped into the 40s but were frequently up effectually lx fps, needless to say with a few quality tweaks maintaining over 60 fps won't be an upshot.

Far Cry New Dawn

Using the 'normal' quality preset at 720p frame rates fluctuated betwixt 35 and 45 fps. At that place we're at times quite serious frame stutters but the game was still playable and I approximate y'all've sort of got to expect that kind of affair when gaming with integrated graphics.

Fortnite

Side by side up nosotros have Fortnite and for this one we went with the depression quality settings at 900p and that allowed for at to the lowest degree 75 fps though nigh of the time nosotros were looking more at 90-100 fps. Sadly though the feel was spoiled somewhat by fairly regular frame stuttering.

Rainbow Six Siege

I of the best experiences nosotros had was with Rainbow Half-dozen Siege, using the lowest quality preset the resolution was ready to 900p, though with TAA a 50% render calibration is set. The game looked very good and played buttery smooth, I couldn't arraign whatsoever missed short on frame stutters this time. Frame rates stayed to a higher place 60 fps at all times and generally hovered around 80fps, again it was a neat feel and a perfect case of the fun that can be had with this meaty system.

Rocket League

We fired up Rocket League and enabled the 'performance' preset at 1080p and this more often than not saw frame rates hovering between 70-80 fps assuasive for smooth highly playable performance. As we saw with CS:Get it'south possible to play these less demanding, but still highly popular titles, at very respectable quality settings.

Power & Temps

Equally mentioned before the DeskMini A300 comes with a 120w power supply which is fine for apply with the Ryzen 5 2400G provided you lot don't go crazy with overclocking. Really, you won't be able to overclock anyway as you'll be limited past thermals.

In its stock configuration using the 2400G with a pair of 1TB mechanical HDDs and a 2TB SSD, the DeskMini A300 consumed 82 watts in our Blender stress test and 102 watts when playing Battlefield V multiplayer. So there actually isn't much headroom left for overclocking.

Looking at operating temperatures using the optional libation the Ryzen 5 2400G hit 78 degrees under load in our Blender stress exam, but idled at just 33 degrees. This is a reasonable operating temperature and surprisingly this little cooler didn't brand much racket. Replacing the base cooler with the Wraith Stealth only dropped the load temperature by four degrees, though the DeskMini A300 was basically silent now. And then if y'all have a Stealth libation and you're happy to have off the top encompass so I recommend using information technology in the A300.

Endmost Remarks

Asrock's new DeskMini A300 is everything we hoped information technology would be and nosotros're glad they finally released a mini PC that supports Raven Ridge APUs. The gaming performance won't blow your socks off, but you tin can at to the lowest degree play in some chapters, this only wasn't possible across flash-based games on previously seen Intel models.

If y'all're subsequently a compact gaming rig and y'all don't want to purchase a console for gaming, a fully operation PC like the DeskMini A300 can fit the pecker nicely. We practice recognize this is a very niche product, you have to be in the market for an extremely pocket-sized PC that can handle some light 3D piece of work.

If you're simply after a toll-effective gaming rig then this isn't it. Even though the barebones is priced modestly, the A300'south inability to back up a discrete graphics card makes your simply upgrade option here a Zen 2-based APU.

Budget Build Options

Alternatively you could build your own Ryzen 5 2400G organization in a larger MicroATX case for a few dollars more than and this gives you the power to snap upward something like a Radeon RX 560 or perhaps even one of those insanely cheap RX 570 models and this $100-150 discrete graphics card upgrade will meliorate gaming operation tenfold.

Or for a slight price premium it'south also possible to build a Mini-ITX organisation, again with the ability to support discrete graphics cards. But in the cease, if you seek a super compact Mini PC then we feel there is no better choice right now than the DeskMini A300.