Small form-factor machines have emerged as a very significant chunk of the PC market. Building on the success of the UCFF NUCs, Intel introduced the mini-STX platform in 2015. We have seen multiple mSTX PCs from vendors such as ASRock (DeskMini 110), ECS (LIVA One), and MSI (Cubi 2 Plus). ASRock took things a bit further by introducing the micro-STX form factor in early 2017. Compared to the 5.4" x 5.8" mini-STX board, ASRock's micro-STX comes in at 7.4" x 5.8". The extra width (2") allows for a MXM GPU slot and two additional M.2 slots. The DeskMini Z270 was introduced last year, and the Z370 version with support for Coffee Lake was announced at CES 2018.

Introduction and Product Impressions

Gaming PCs have maintained growth despite a significant slowdown in the general PC market. Small form-factor machines have also seen a lot of success. Many vendors have tried to combine the two, but space constraints and power concerns have ended up as performance-limiting factors. ASRock was an early player in this market with the NVIDIA-based Vision 3D and AMD-based Vision X mini-PCs that combined a mobile CPU and a discrete mobile GPU in a compact system. However, in the last three years, ASRock started focusing on the UCFF form-factor with the Beebox lineup. The micro-STX form-factor brings ASRock back into the SFF gaming PC market.

The DeskMini Z370 systems address some of the usual complaints that users have when comparing an off-the-shelf compact gaming PC to a custom build with a mini-ITX board. Unlike pre-built machines like the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS series or the Intel Hades Canyon NUC, the DeskMini Z370 comes with a LGA 1151 socket, allowing the system builder to choose the CPU best suited for his/her needs. Display outputs are available from the discrete GPU as well as the integrated GPU in the LGA 1151 processor. On the flip side, the supplied chassis is utilitarian. The hardware components (the WLAN module's antennae and the SODIMMs) are somewhat difficult to install, compared to the gaming mini-PCs from other vendors.

ASRock sent over the DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 with a pre-installed Intel Core i7-8700 and a GTX 1060 MXM card. The review kit also came with DDR4 SODIMMs and a M.2 NVMe SSD from the Team Group. The barebones version comes with the MXM card and the WLAN module. The CPU, SODIMMs, and the M.2 SSDs need to be sourced by the end-user to complete the build. The specifications of our ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 review configuration are summarized in the table below.

ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 Specifications
Processor	Intel Core i7-8700 Coffee Lake-S, 6C/12T, 3.2 GHz (Turbo 4.6 GHz), 14nm++, 12 MB L2, 65W TDP
Memory	Team Group TED48G2400C16 DDR4 SODIMM 16-16-16-39 @ 2400 MHz 2x8 GB
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5)
Disk Drive(s)	Team Group Cardea Zero TM8FP2240G0C111 (240 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Toshiba 15nm; MLC)
Networking	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps) 1x Intel I219V Gigabit LAN
Audio	3.5mm Headphone Jack Capable of 5.1/7.1 digital output with HD audio bitstreaming (HDMI)
Miscellaneous I/O Ports	2x USB 2.0 5x USB 3.0 (Type-A) 1x USB 3.0 (Type-C)
Operating System	Retail unit is barebones, but we installed Windows 10 Pro x64
Pricing (As configured)	$1350
Full Specifications	ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 Specifications

The ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 kit doesn't come with any pre-installed OS, but does come with a CD and a read-only USB key containing the drivers. In any case, we ended up installing the latest drivers downloaded off ASRock's product support page. In addition to the main unit, the other components of the package include a 220 W (19V @ 11.57A) power adapter, a US power cord, the WLAN module and associated pigtail connection wires, a couple of 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz antenna for the Wi-Fi feature, a driver CD, SATA cables, user's manual and a quick-start guide.

The gallery below takes us around the chassis and I/O features in the unit.

The components need to be installed after sliding out the top cover. The gallery below shows the internals of the system.

The BIOS of the system is a joy to use. In terms of overall appeal, th Intel VIsual BIOS is hard to beat. However, the ASRock GUI comes a close second. In terms of available features, only the NUCs have more flexibility. The BIOS allows graphical setting of the fan curves, control over the integrated graphics for enabling headless displays etc.

In the table below, we have an overview of the various systems that we are comparing the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 against. Note that they may not belong to the same market segment. The relevant configuration details of the machines are provided so that readers have an understanding of why some benchmark numbers are skewed for or against the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 when we come to those sections.

Comparative PC Configurations
Aspect	ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060	ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060Intel NUC7i7BNHSYSmark 2014 SE Calibration SystemZotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080**Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EK71080*ASRock DeskMini 110**Intel NUC8i7HVK (Hades Canyon)Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K**
CPU	Intel Core i7-8700	Intel Core i7-8700
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB)
RAM	Team Group TED48G2400C16 DDR4 SODIMM 16-16-16-39 @ 2400 MHz 2x8 GB	Team Group TED48G2400C16 DDR4 SODIMM 16-16-16-39 @ 2400 MHz 2x8 GB
Storage	Team Group Cardea Zero TM8FP2240G0C111 (240 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Toshiba 15nm; MLC)	Team Group Cardea Zero TM8FP2240G0C111 (240 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe; Toshiba 15nm; MLC)
Wi-Fi	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps)	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (1x1 802.11ac - 433 Mbps)
Price (in USD, when built)	$800 (barebones) $1350 (as configured, No OS)	$800 (barebones) $1350 (as configured, No OS)

Performance Metrics - I

The ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 was evaluated using our standard test suite for SFF gaming PCs. Not all benchmarks were processed on all the machines due to updates in our testing procedures. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same. In the first section, we will be looking at SYSmark 2014 SE, as well as some of the Futuremark benchmarks.

BAPCo SYSmark 2014 SE

BAPCo's SYSmark 2014 SE is an application-based benchmark that uses real-world applications to replay usage patterns of business users in the areas of office productivity, media creation and data/financial analysis. In addition, it also addresses the responsiveness aspect which deals with user experience as related to application and file launches, multi-tasking etc. Scores are meant to be compared against a reference desktop (the SYSmark 2014 SE calibration system in the graphs below). While the SYSmark 2014 benchmark used a Haswell-based desktop configuration, the SYSmark 2014 SE makes the move to a Lenovo ThinkCenter M800 (Intel Core i3-6100, 4GB RAM and a 256GB SATA SSD). The calibration system scores 1000 in each of the scenarios. A score of, say, 2000, would imply that the system under test is twice as fast as the reference system.

SYSmark 2014 SE also adds energy measurement to the mix. A high score in the SYSmark benchmarks might be nice to have, but, potential customers also need to determine the balance between power consumption and the efficiency of the system. For example, in the average office scenario, it might not be worth purchasing a noisy and power-hungry PC just because it ends up with a 2000 score in the SYSmark 2014 SE benchmarks. In order to provide a balanced perspective, SYSmark 2014 SE also allows vendors and decision makers to track the energy consumption during each workload. In the graphs below, we find the total energy consumed by the PC under test for a single iteration of each SYSmark 2014 SE workload and how it compares against the calibration systems.

As expected, the hexa-core Core i7-8700 equipped machine has no trouble emerging on top in almost all scenarios, despite the impacts of the Spectre and Meltdown fixes that don't impair some of the other machines. It comes a close second in the responsiveness scenario, only just beten by a configuration with an arguably better SSD and without the Meltdown / Spectre patches. In terms of energy consumption, the GTX1060 is greener than the GTX1080, and that helps the DeskMini Z370 to come in the middle of the pack.

UL PCMark 10

UL's PCMark 10 evaluates computing systems for various usage scenarios (generic / essential tasks such as web browsing and starting up applications, productivity tasks such as editing spreadsheets and documents, gaming, and digital content creation). We benchmarked select PCs with the PCMark 10 Extended profile and recorded the scores for various scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU and GPU in the system, though the RAM and storage device also play a part. The power plan was set to Balanced for all the PCs while processing the PCMark 10 benchmark. Here, we see that the lack of the Metldown / Spectre patch in the Zotac EN1080K helps it come out on top. The DeskMini Z370 doesn't have the power budget sharing between the CPU and GPU that is possible in the Hades Canyon NUC. These two aspects make the DeskMini Z370 appear in the top 3, yet, not on top in any workload.

Futuremark PCMark 8

We continue to present PCMark 8 benchmark results (as those have more comparison points) while our PCMark 10 scores database for systems grows in size. PCMark 8 provides various usage scenarios (home, creative and work) and offers ways to benchmark both baseline (CPU-only) as well as OpenCL accelerated (CPU + GPU) performance. We benchmarked select PCs for the OpenCL accelerated performance in all three usage scenarios. These scores follow the same pattern seen in the PCMark 10 results.

Futuremark PCMark 7

3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15

We have moved on from R11.5 to R15 for 3D rendering evaluation. CINEBENCH R15 provides three benchmark modes - OpenGL, single threaded and multi-threaded. Evaluation of select PCs in all three modes provided us the following results. Here, we see the hexa-core CPU come out on top, as expected.

Performance Metrics - II

In this section, we mainly look at benchmark modes in programs used on a day-to-day basis, i.e, application performance and not synthetic workloads.

x264 Benchmark

First off, we have some video encoding benchmarks courtesy of x264 HD Benchmark v5.0. This is simply a test of CPU performance. As expected, the hexa-core CPU helps the DeskMini come out on top in this multi-threaded workload. Recent releases of the x264 benchmark can show even more impressive gains, as they make use of the latest and greatest features of the modern Intel processors.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a very effective and efficient compression program, often beating out OpenCL accelerated commercial programs in benchmarks even while using just the CPU power. 7-Zip has a benchmarking program that provides tons of details regarding the underlying CPU's efficiency. In this subsection, we are interested in the compression and decompression MIPS ratings when utilizing all the available threads.

TrueCrypt

As businesses (and even home consumers) become more security conscious, the importance of encryption can't be overstated. CPUs supporting the AES-NI instruction for accelerating the encryption and decryption processes have become more widespread over the last few years. TrueCrypt, a popular open-source disk encryption program can take advantage of the AES-NI capabilities. The TrueCrypt internal benchmark provides some interesting cryptography-related numbers, and we graph the AES benchmark mean in the graph below. It gives an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature (core count) / clock speed based test, and it is no surprise that the hexa-core machine surpasses the other systems easily.

Agisoft Photoscan

Agisoft PhotoScan is a commercial program that converts 2D images into 3D point maps, meshes and textures. The program designers sent us a command line version in order to evaluate the efficiency of various systems that go under our review scanner. The command line version has two benchmark modes, one using the CPU and the other using both the CPU and GPU (via OpenCL). We have been using an old version of the program with 50 photogaphs in our reviews till now. The updated benchmark (v1.3) now takes around 84 photographs and does four stages of computation:

• Stage 1: Align Photographs (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
• Stage 2: Build Point Cloud (capable of OpenCL acceleration)
• Stage 3: Build Mesh
• Stage 4: Build Textures

We record the time taken for each stage. Since various elements of the software are single threaded, others multithreaded, and some use GPUs, it is interesting to record the effects of CPU generations, speeds, number of cores, DRAM parameters and the GPU using this software.

In the CPU-bound stages, the DeskMini Z370 comes out on top easily. In the other stages, it is only slightly edged out by the GPU acceleration from the GTX 1080-equipped PCs.

Dolphin Emulator

Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the new Dolphin Emulator (v5) benchmark mode results. This is again a test of the CPU capabilities, and the DeskMini Z370 comes out on top easily.

GPU Performance - UL 3DMark and VRMark

UL's 3DMark comes with a diverse set of graphics workloads that target different Direct3D feature levels. Correspondingly, the rendering resolutions are also different. The VRMark benchmark targets virtual reality specifically. Its workloads are termed as 'rooms', with each one being a piece of VR content designed to require a specific level of VR performance. We used 3DMark 2.4.4264 and VRMark 1.2.1701 to get an idea of the graphics capabilities of various systems. In this section, we take a look at the performance of the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 on a comparative basis across the different workloads.

3DMark Ice Storm

This workload has three levels of varying complexity - the vanilla Ice Storm, Ice Storm Unlimited, and Ice Storm Extreme. It is a cross-platform benchmark (which means that the scores can be compared across different tablets and smartphones as well). All three use DirectX 11 (feature level 9) / OpenGL ES 2.0. While the Extreme renders at 1920 x 1080, the other two render at 1280 x 720. The graphs below present the various Ice Storm worloads' numbers for different systems that we have evaluated.

UL 3DMark - Ice Storm Workloads

3DMark Cloud Gate

The Cloud Gate workload is meant for notebooks and typical home PCs, and uses DirectX 11 (feature level 10) to render frames at 1280 x 720. The graph below presents the overall score for the workload across all the systems that are being compared.

3DMark Sky Diver

The Sky Diver workload is meant for gaming notebooks and mid-range PCs, and uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The graph below presents the overall score for the workload across all the systems that are being compared.

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme

The Fire Strike benchmark has three workloads. The base version is meant for high-performance gaming PCs. Similar to Sky Diver, it uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The Ultra version targets 4K gaming system, and renders at 3840 x 2160. However, we only deal with the Extreme version in our benchmarking - It renders at 2560 x 1440, and targets multi-GPU systems and overclocked PCs. The graph below presents the overall score for the Fire Strike Extreme benchmark across all the systems that are being compared.

3DMark Time Spy

The Time Spy workload has two levels with different complexities. Both use DirectX 12 (feature level 11). However, the plain version targets high-performance gaming PCs with a 2560 x 1440 render resolution, while the Extreme version renders at 3840 x 2160 resolution. The graphs below present both numbers for all the systems that are being compared in this review.

UL 3DMark - Time Spy Workloads

The VRMark Professional Edition v1.2.1701 comes with three rooms. Each room can be run either in desktop or HMD mode, with varying minimum requirements for the same workload. The benchmark results include the average FPS achieved, and a score based on the FPS. A pass or fail indicator is also provided based on whether the average FPS exceeds the required FPS. In this section, we take a look at the performance of the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 on a comparative basis across the three workloads in desktop mode.

VRMark Orange Room

The Orange Room is meant to test the effectiveness of a system for handling the requirements of the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. The recommended hardware for both VR HMDs should be able to easily achieve the desired target FPS (88.9 fps). However, in the desktop mode, the target performance is 109 fps without any frame drops. Systems benching with an average FPS lesser than that are deemed to have failed the VRMark Orange Room benchmark. The graphs below present the average FPS and score for the different systems being considered today.

UL VRMark - Orange Room

VRMark Cyan Room

The Cyan Room sits between the Orange and Blue rooms in complexity. It is a DirectX 12 benchmark. Similar to the Orange room, the target metrics are 88.9 fps on HMDs and 109 fps on the desktop monitor. The graphs below present the average FPS and score for the different systems being considered today.

UL VRMark - Cyan Room

VRMark Blue Room

The Blue Room is the most demanding of the three workloads. At the time of introduction of VRMark in October 2016, no publicly available system running as sold was able to pass the test. The performance of a system in this benchmark is an indicator of its VR-readiness for future generation of HMDs. Similar to the other workloads, the passing performance metrics are 88.9 fps on HMDs and 109 fps on desktop monitors. The complexity of the workload is due to the higher resolution (5012 x 2880) and additional geometry making it necessary to increase the number of Direct3D API calls. The graphs below present the average FPS and score for the different systems being considered today.

UL VRMark - Blue Room

Overall, we find the DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 come behind the PCs equipped with the GTX 1080 in almost all of the workloads.

GPU Performance - Gaming Workloads

Our revamped SFF PC gaming test suite for 2018 involves six different games:

• Civlization VI (DX12)
• Dota 2
• F1 2017
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War
• Far Cry 5

Most system reviews take a handful of games and process them at one resolution / quality settings for comparison purposes. Recently, we have seen many pre-built systems coming out with varying gaming capabilities. Hence, it has become imperative to give consumers an idea of how a given system performs over a range of resolutions and quality settings for each game. With our latest suite, we are able to address this aspect.

Civilization VI (DX12)

The Civilization series of turn-based strategy games is very popular. For such games, the frame rate is not necessarily an important factor in the gaming experience. However, with Civilization VI, Firaxis has cranked up the visual fidelity to make the game more attractive. As a result, the game can be taxing on the GPU as well as the CPU, particularly in the DirectX 12 mode.

Civilization VI (DirectX 12) Performance

We processed the built-in benchmark at two different resolutions (1080p and 2160p), and with two different quality settings (medium and ultra, with the exact differences detailed here). The DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 comes behind the systems with the GTX 1080, but, manages to beat the Hades Canyon consistently across all tested settings.

Dota 2

Dota 2 has been featuring in our mini-PC and notebook reviews for a few years now, but, it still continues to be a very relevant game. Our evaluation was limited to a custom replay file at 1080p resolution with enthusiast settings ('best-looking' preset). We have now revamped our testing to include multiple resolutions - This brings out the fact that the game is CPU-limited in many configurations.

Dota 2 allows for multiple renderers - we use the DirectX 11 mode. The rendering settings are set to 'enthusiast level' (best-looking, which has all options turned on, and at Ultra level, except for the Shadow Quality set to 'High'). We cycle through different resolutions after setting the monitor resolution to match the desired resolution. The core scripts and replay files are sourced from Jonathan Liebig's original Dota 2 benchmarking instructions which used a sequence of frames from Match 3061101068.

Dota 2 - Enthusiast Quality Performance

At 720p, the game is CPU-limited across all tested systems, and the DeskMini Z370 with the Core i7-8700 comes out on top. At 1080p, the GTX 1080 / Core i7-7700 combo moves to the top, while, at even higher resolutions, the power budget sharing between the CPU and the GPU in the Hades Canyon, and the extra GPU power in the GTX 1080 make the DeskMini Z370 move further down.

F1 2017

Our gaming system reviews have always had a representative racing game in it. While our previous benchmark suite for PCs featured Dirt 2, we have moved on to the more recent F1 2017 from Codemasters for our revamp.

F1 2017 - Ultra Quality Performance

The supplied example benchmark (with some minor tweaks) is processed at four different resolutions while maintaining the graphics settings at the built-in 'Ultra' level. Here, the results follow the expected trajectory with the GTX 1080 coming out to be better than the GTX 1060, which, in turn, manages to beat the Hades Canyon GPU across all tested resolutions.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU. For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence.

Grand Theft Auto V Performance

We processed the benchmark across various resolutions and quality settings (detailed here). The results are presented above. The results across almost all tested resolution / quality settings are as expected, with the GTX 1080 beating the GTX 1060 comfortably. The 1080p Low case seems to favor the DeskMini Z370, but, not by much.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Middle Earth: Shadow of War is an action RPG. In our previous gaming benchmarks suite, we used its prequel - Shadow of Mordor. Produced by Monolith and using the new LithTech Firebird engine and numerous detail add-ons, Shadow of War goes for detail and complexity. The graphics settings include standard options such as Graphical Quality, Lighting, Mesh, Motion Blur, Shadow Quality, Textures, Vegetation Range, Depth of Field, Transparency and Tessellation. There are standard presets as well. The game also includes a 'Dynamic Resolution' option that automatically alters graphics quality to hit a pre-set frame rate. We benchmarked the game at four different resolutions - 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and 720p. Two standard presets - Ultra and Medium - were used at each resolution after turning off the dynamic resolution option.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War Performance

The results across almost all tested resolution / quality settings are as expected, with the GTX 1080 beating the GTX 1060 comfortably. The 720p Medium case sees the DeskMini Z370 slightly edge out the Core i7-7700HQ + GTX 1080 PC (Zotac EN71080), which could be attributed to some effect from the additional CPU power available in the Coffee Lake system.

Far Cry 5

Ubisoft's Far Cry 5 is an action-adventure first-person shooter game released in March 2018. The game comes with an in-built benchmark and has standard pre-sets for quality settings. We benchmarked the game at four different resolutions - 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p. Two preset quality settings were processed at each resolution - normal and ultra.

Far Cry 5 Performance

Except for the 720p cases, where the more powerful CPU helps the GTX 1060 to match / slightly outperform the systems with more powerful GPUs, we see the expected trends with the GTX 1060 coming out in the middle of the pack.

Overall, the results across almost all games / tested resolutions / quality settings are as expected, with the GTX 1080 beating the GTX 1060 comfortably. The GTX 1060 manages to outperform the Radeon RX Vega M GH in the Hades Canyon NUC. In terms of pure gaming prowess, the Zotac systems being considered are better, but, they obviously come with a significantly higher price tag.

GPU Performance for Workstation Workloads - SPECviewperf 13

The SPECviewperf benchmark from SPEC provides an idea of the capabilities of the GPU in a workstation from the perspective of different CAD, content creation, and visual data analysis tools. It makes more sense to process these benchmarks on workstations with professional GPUs, but, consumer GPUs are often the choice for machines that need to handle both gaming and professional workloads.

SPECviewperf 13 includes nine different workloads representative of graphics content and behavior of actual applications. They make use of the OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 12 APIs under Windows. SPECviewperf 13's workloads (termed viewsets) can officially be run only at two desktop resolutions (1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160), and need the dsplay scaling to be set to 100% (DPI of 96). The available viewsets are listed below.

• 3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
• CATIA (catia-05)
• Creo (creo-02)
• Energy (energy-02)
• Maya (maya-05)
• Medical (medical-02)
• Showcase (showcase-02)
• Siemens NX (snx-03)
• Solidworks (sw-04)

The 3ds Max and Showcase viewsets are available only when processing at 1920 x 1080. The rest are available at both resolutions.

We processed SPECviewperf 13 at both resolutions on the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060. The benchmark measures the frame rate at which the GPU renders the scenes in a viewset. Each viewset is composed of different scenes and rendering modes, and the composite score for the viewset is a weighted geometric mean of the FPS measured for the different scenes. In this section, we take a look at how its composite scores stack up against other systems targeting this market segment.

3ds Max (3dsmax-06)

The 3dsmax-06 viewset comprises of 11 different scenes. They have been created from traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 using the default Nitrous DX11 driver. Additional details are available here.

CATIA (catia-05)

The catia-05 viewset comprises of 14 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIA V6 R2012 application from Dassault Systemes. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: CATIA Viewset Composite Scores

The CATIA workload appears to have good performance with the Radeon GPU, though we have to test across more systems to confirm this. Otherwise, the results are along expected lines with the systems with the GTX 1080 outperforming the DeskMini Z370 with the GTX 1060.

Creo (creo-02)

The creo-02 viewset comprises of 16 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Creo 3 and Creo 4 applications from PTC. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: Creo Viewset Composite Scores

The Hades Canyon NUC was unable to complete this benchmark successfully at 3840 x 2160, and seems to perform poorly even at 1920 x 1080, but, otherwise, the results are as expected.

Energy (energy-02)

The energy-02 viewset comprises of 6 different tests based on techniques used by the OpendTect seismic visualization application. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: Energy Viewset Composite Scores

The Skull Canyon NUC was unable to complete processing this benchmark at either resolution, and the Hades Canyon NUC failed at 3840 x 2160, but, the results are as expected otherwise.

Maya (maya-05)

The maya-05 viewset comprises of 10 different tests based on traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk Maya 2017. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: Maya Viewset Composite Scores

Medical (medical-02)

The medical-02 viewset comprises of 8 different tests derived from 4 distinct datasets. Each test uses the ImageVis3D volume visualization program's Tuvok rendering core for 2D projections of 3D volumetric grids. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: Medical Viewset Composite Scores

Showcase (showcase-02)

The showcase-02 viewset comprises of 4 tests created from traces of the Autodesk Showcase 2013 application rendering a racecar model with 8 million vertices using different modes. Additional details are available here.

Siemens NX (snx-03)

The snx-03 viewset comprises of 10 tests created with traces from the graphics workload generated by the NX 8.0 application from Siemens PLM. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: Siemens NX Viewset Composite Scores

The Siemens NX workload appears to have very good performance with the Radeon GPU, though we have to test across more systems to confirm this. Otherwise, the results are along expected lines with the systems with the GTX 1080 outperforming the DeskMini Z370 with the GTX 1060.

Solidworks (sw-04)

The sw-04 viewset comprises of 11 tests created from traces of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 2013 SP1 application. Additional details are available here.

SPECviewperf 13: Solidworks Viewset Composite Scores

Overall, we find the DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 come in the middle of the pack with respect to the performance in the SPECviewperf 13 workloads. This is as expected, with the PCs equipped with the GTX 1080 providing more graphics horsepower for the tasks.

Networking and Storage Performance

Networking and storage are two major aspects which influence our experience with any computing system. This section presents results from our evaluation of these aspects in the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.

Almost all the systems scoring higher than the DeskMini Z370 have scores not impacted by the Spectre / Meltdown patches. Only the Hades Canyon NUC is better with the same patch status as the DeskMini Z370. This makes sense, given the responsiveness of the Optane stick in the NUC compared to the MLC NVMe SSD in the DeskMini Z370 GTX1060.

On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iperf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iperf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iperf and present the highest number in the graph below.

In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.

The 1x1 solution (AC3165) performs as expected, similar to the other 1x1 solutions in the Zotac PCs. Moving up the benchmark graphs requires a more capable WLAN module, a cost that ASRock understandably not want in this gaming-focused system. In any case, the WLAN module is easily replaceable, if the user needs better performance in this segment.

4K HTPC Credentials

The DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 comes with two fans with a noise profile that might be annoying for some users. Thankfully, the BIOS allows tweaking the fan curves, if needed. While the premium Zotac systems such as the ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K and EN1080 made for decent home-theater PCs with their liquid cooling system, the same can't be said for the DeskMini Z370. The unit is not for the discerning HTPC enthusiast who is better off with a passively cooled system. In this section, we provide a detailed analysis of the DeskMini Z370's 4K HTPC credentials. All the testing in this section was done with the PC hooked up to a TCL 55P607 4K HDR TV through a Denon AVR X3400H receiver using the system's HDMI 2.0 port driven by the GTX 1060. Even though the system comes with a HDMI port driven by the integrated GPU, it is limited to 4Kp30 rendering it unsuitable for 4K HTPC duties.

Refresh Rate Accuracy

Starting with Haswell, Intel, AMD and NVIDIA have been on par with respect to display refresh rate accuracy. The most important refresh rate for videophiles is obviously 23.976 Hz (the 23 Hz setting). As expected, the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 has no trouble with refreshing the display appropriately in this setting.

The gallery below presents some of the other refresh rates that we tested out. The first statistic in madVR's OSD indicates the display refresh rate.

It was trivial to create custom resolutions in the NVIDIA Control  Panel. This enabled us to test out 25 Hz and 50 Hz refrshes too.

Network Streaming Efficiency

Evaluation of OTT playback efficiency was done by playing back the Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video in YouTube using Microsoft Edge and Season 4 Episode 4 of the Netflix Test Pattern title using the Windows Store App.

The YouTube streaming test played back the 4K non-HDR version (VP9 video and Opus audio), while the Netflix one delivered the 16 Mbps HEVC HDR10 version (confirmed by the debug information)

The graph below shows the power consumption at the wall and the GPU loading parameters for streaming the YouTube video with the HDR mode on. In the steady state, the GPU core load is around 10%, while the decoder (VPU) load is slightly more than 20%. The GTX 1060 is the major contributor to the system power in this workload, taking up around 50W out of the 60W (approx.) at-wall power consumption.

A similar graph for the Netflix streaming case is also presented below. Manual stream selection is available (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S) and debug information / statistics can also be viewed (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D). Statistics collected for the YouTube streaming experiment were also collected here. An important point to note here is that the 4K streams are enabled only if the HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer app is installed from the Microsoft Store.

It must be noted that the debug OSD is kept on till the stream reaches the 16 Mbps playback stage around 70 seconds after the start of the streaming. In the steady state, the GPU loading (both core and VPU) is around 35%. The at-wall power consumption is around 75W, with the GTX 1060 being the major contributor (around 55W).

Decoding and Rendering Benchmarks

In order to evaluate local file playback, we concentrate on Kodi 17.6 and VLC 3.0.3 (for the casual user) and madVR (for the HTPC enthusiast). Under madVR, we decided to test out only the default out-of-the-box configuration. We recently revamped our decode and rendering test suite, as described in our 2017 HTPC components guide.

madVR 0.92.14 was evaluated with MPC-HC 1.7.16 (unofficial release) with its integrated LAV Filters 0.71-25. The suite was processed twice - once with the video decoder set to D3D11 mode and another time with the default DXVA2 (Native) setting.

We see the VP9 Profile 2 video getting played back without hardware acceleration (the at-wall power consumption is around 100W) in both modes. Other streams have no trouble in taking advantage of the GTX 1060's media decoding capabilities. The GPU power consumption ranges from the high teens for the 1080p24 AVC stream to the high 30s for the 1080i60 VC1 clip. The core / VPU loading numbers max out around 55% for the 4Kp60 HEVC 10-bit stream. The at-wall power consumption stays between 40W and 75W depending on the codec, resolution, and frame rate of the clip.

In general, we see the DXVA2 Native setting being slightly leaner on resources compared to the D3D11 mode. One of the cool features in both these modes (with madVR in default state) was the automatic switching to and back from HDR based on the content being played back. We don't have that with either Kodi or VLC on the PC platform currently.

Processing the same set of streams with Kodi 17.6 shows the GTX 1060 core load max out slightly south of 60% for the interlaced 60 fps streams. The VPU load, on the other hand, maxes out around 55% for the 4Kp60 HEVC clips. The at-wall power hits an average of around 90W for the software decode of the VP9 Profile 2 video. We see two distinct at-wall power consumption numbers - 40W for most streams, and around 55W for the 4Kp60 videos. The GTX 1060 accounts for around 40 - 50% of the at-wall number.

VLC's behavior differs from Kodi. The GPU load is high for streams that need to be upscaled after decoding (hitting as high as 50% for the sub-4K clips). The VPU load for the 1080p and lower resolution streams stays well below 20% (thogh the 1080p60 AVC clip makes it go slightly above 25%). For th 4K clips, the higher frame rate ones hit the 50% mark, while the others are around 25% to 40%. The at-wall power is around 90W for the non-accelerated VP9 Profile 2 video, and 40W to 55W for the others (similar to the Kodi case). The power consumption of the GTX 1060 is lower with VLC, compared to Kodi.

Moving on to the codec support, the GTX 1060 is a known quantity with respect to the scope of supported hardware accelerated codecs. DXVA Checker serves as a confirmation.

The only odd aspect is the absence of VP9 Profile 2 hardware decoding (used in the YouTube HDR streams).

The GTX 1060 does not have the protected AV path necessary for UltraHD Blu-ray playback. Even though the BIOS allows end users to enable SGX, the absence of PAVP is a disappointment for HTPC enthusiasts. The system also sports a HDMI output from the integrated GPU (which does have PAVP). However, it is restricted to 4Kp30, and is not a good fit for HTPC purposes.

Power Consumption and Thermal Performance

The power consumption at the wall was measured with a 4K display being driven through the discrete GPU's HDMI port. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 with other SFF PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran the AIDA64 System Stability Test with various stress components, as well as our power virus (Prime 95 and Furmark together) test and noted the maximum sustained power consumption at the wall.

Given the 65W Coffee Lake-S desktop CPU and a desktop GPU in the GTX 1060 (advertised with a 120W TDP, but, seemingly limited to 75W in the system), the idle power numbers close to 27W are as expected.

Our thermal stress routine starts with the system at idle, followed by four stages of different system loading profiles using the AIDA64 System Stability Test (each of 30 minutes duration). In the first stage, we stress the CPU, caches and RAM. In the second stage, we add the GPU to the above list. In the third stage, we stress the GPU standalone. In the final stage, we stress all the system components (including the disks). Beyond this, we leave the unit idle in order to determine how quickly the various temperatures in the system can come back to normal idling range. The various clocks, temperatures and power consumption numbers for the system during the above routine are presented in the graphs below.

ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 System Loading with the AIDA64 System Stability Test

The Core i7-8700 has a processor base frequency of 3.2 GHz, and a 65W TDP. We see that the thermal solution is able to maintain the 65W package power dissipation irrespective of the loading. In fact, the only time the package power goes below 65W for the CPU is when the GPUs are being stressed stand-alone. The GTX 1060 is also cooled appropriately and maintains its core frequency of 1.7 GHz easily throughout the stress test. That said, the MXM card seems to have a much lower power budget of 75W compared to a standard GTX 1060 desktop version at 120W. Temperatures max out at around 85C for the CPU package and 80C for the dGPU. Fan speeds range from 2800 RPM for the dGPU to 3200 RPM for the CPU.

ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 System Loading with Prime95 and Furmark

The custom stress test is more interesting - Running Prime95 for an extended duration causes the core frequencies to drop to around 3 GHz, but, the package power remains constant at 65W throughout the time the workload is active. In fact, the core frequency goes up after Furmark is added to the running Prime95 workload. This shows that the package power is a better measure of the effectiveness of the thermal solution, rather than the core frequency alone. Another interesting aspect is that the Furmark workload doesn't pull up the GTX 1060 to its maximum frequency - rather, it tops out at around 1.4 GHz (instead of 1.7 GHz). The GPU power consumption is at 75W throughout the active duration of the Furmark workload. Sub-80C temperatures are maintained throughout the stress test, pointing to a very effective (albeit, noisy) thermal solution despite the small form factor of the system.

Concluding Remarks

Our evaluation shows that the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 delivers great performance in a compact footprint. In fact, this is the smallest consumer PC that we have seen with support for a powerful hexa-core CPU. Despite the effects of various recent security patches, the CPU performance makes it come out on top in every CPU-centric benchmark. The GPU (GTX 1060) is more capable than the Radeon Vega M GH in the Hades Canyon NUC, but, it doesn't match up to the GTX 1080 in the Zotac MAGNUS units that we have evaluated before. That said, ASRock also has a GTX 1080 version of the DeskMini Z370, which will go head to head against the Coffee Lake ZBOX MAGNUS from Zotac when the latter comes to the market.

The Hades Canyon NUC is a technically more impressive product in terms of performance per watt and performance per unit volume. Moving to the slightly larger systems, we have the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS units - some of the models come with equivalent desktop CPUs, and integrate even proper desktop discrete GPUs (not user-upgradable, though). The industrial design and noise profile are also much better compared to the DeskMini Z370. That said, the DeskMini Z370 has some features that are lacking in the ZBOX MAGNUS units. These include:

• A user-friendly BIOS with a lot more features
• Easier access to the CPU socket (essential, since the DeskMini Z370 is barebones except for the pre-installed MXM GPU)
• Support for enabling the integrated GPU, and being able to drive a display using the native IGP
• Two additional M.2 slots with PCIe 3.0 x4 capability each

The micro-STX form factor has its pros and cons. It is particularly attractive to consumers used to buying components piecemeal and assembling their own systems. Most other SFF PCs cater to the plug-and-play crowd, with only the SODIMMs and SSDs being the configurable components. The DeskMini Z370, on the other hand, also leaves the CPU choice and installation to the end-user.

A number of choices for the SFF Gaming PC Enthusiast - (from L to R: the Intel Hades Canyon NUC8i7HVK, the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060, and the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K).

ASRock understandably promotes the DeskMini Z370 GTX1060's performance per unit volume and configurability, and we have to agree that the system hits the sweet spot in those aspects. Given the presence of the Z370 PCH, there are some board-level aspects that could have made the system even more attractive:

• Addition of a Thunderbolt 3 controller to provide two Thunderbolt 3 ports for expansion capabilities, or, at the least, one or two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports
• Addition of a LSPCon on the board for the native display output to be driven from the IGP's Display Port output (4Kp60 with HDCP 2.2 capabilities) instead of the current HDMI output (limited to 4Kp30)

The absence of Thunderbolt 3 in such a high-end PC is disappointing. The LSPCon / Display Port output from the native IGP could have enabled the system to play back UltraHD Blu-rays.

In fact the only real downside to the box right now isn't even its design, but rather its availability. While it has already hit the market in ASRock's native Taiwan, the box hasn't quite yet reached the shores of North America. So actually getting your hands on one is easier said than done, at least for the moment.

Overall, the ASRock DeskMini Z370 GTX1060 is a powerful product with a combination of flexibility, features, and performance not available in any other PC of its size. At its $800 barebones price, the product is very competitive when compared against other SFF gaming PCs in the market.