Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/8406/visionx-420d-review-asrock-continues-to-impress




Introduction

ASRock has been one of the few motherboard vendors to focus on mini-PCs targeting the HTPC and portable gaming markets. Starting from the ION-based nettop days, they have consistently refreshed the mini-PC lineup in sync with Intel's product cycle. We have been reviewing members of their CoreHT lineup (rechristened as VisionHT last year) since the Arrandale days, but today, we are focusing on their mini PC targeting gamers. The VisionX lineup marked the departure from NVIDIA to AMD for the discrete GPU component, and their Haswell version, the VisionX 420D combines a Core i5-4200M with an AMD Radeon R9 M270X.

ASRock's VisionX 420D, like the previous generation mini-PCs from the company, comes barebones (no OS). It provides some flexibility to the end user in terms of upgradability (better RAM, SATA drives, addition of a mSATA drive etc.). The marked departure from the older versions is the absence of a SKU with Blu-ray ODD. The only VisionX Haswell model comes with a DVD rewriter. The configuration of our review unit is provided below.

ASRock VisionX 420D Specifications
Processor Intel Haswell Core i5-4200M
(2C/4T x 2.50 GHz (3.10 GHz Turbo), 22nm, 3MB L2, 37W)
Memory 2 x 4GB ASint SSA302G08-EGN1C DDR3-1600
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M270X (1 GB GDDR5 VRAM)
775 MHz (core) / 1125 MHz (memory)
Disk Drive(s) 1 TB HGST TravelStar 5K1000 2.5" HDD + Spare mSATA Slot
Optical Drive(s) Lite-On Internal Slim DVD+/-RW Drive (DL-8A4SH-01)
Networking 1 x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x2 802.11ac mPCIe
Audio Capable of 5.1/7.1 digital output with HD audio bitstreaming (HDMI)
Separate microphone and headphone jacks (front panel)
Analog audio out (2.1) (rear panel)
Optical SPDIF
Operating System

Barebones (reviewed after installing Windows 8.1 Pro x64)

Pricing (as configured) $860 on Superbiiz
$937 on Amazon
Full Specifications ASRock VisionX 420D Specifications

In addition to the main unit, the package includes a MCE remote (the same model that we have been seeing from ASRock for the last four years), a 120 W (19V @ 6.32A) adapter and screws / SATA data and power cables for the installation of an additional 2.5" drive. We also have a DVI-to-VGA adapter, driver and software CDs as well as a MHL cable.

Talking of the MHL cable brings us to one of the unique aspects of the VisionX 420D. The front face of the unit has a 'HDMI-In' port which allows for the connection of a smartphone supporting MHL specifications to it. The MHL functionality is fulfilled by the Silicon Image Sil 1292 MHL/HDMI-to-HDMI bridge. The gallery below takes us around the hardware in the unit.

Compared to the previous models, we find that ASRock has added an additional fan in front of the 2.5" drive. This fan could be of use in cases where the user decides to add another 2.5" drive. Even if that is not the case, anything that can keep the internal components at a lower temperature is always welcome. In our usage, we didn't find the noise levels to be much different from earlier ASRock mini-PCs.

In the table below, we have an overview of the various systems that we are comparing the ASRock VisionX 420D 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 VisionX 420D when we come to those sections.

Comparative PC Configurations
Aspect ASRock VisionX 420D
CPU Intel Core i5-4200M Intel Core i7-3720QM
GPU AMD Radeon R9 M270X (1 GB GDDR5) Intel HD Graphics 4000
RAM ASint SSA302G08-EGN1C
11-11-11-28 @ 1600 MHz
2x 4GB
Super Talent W1333SB4GH
9-9-9-24 @ 1333 MHz
2x 4GB
Storage Hitachi HTS541010A9E680
(1 TB, 2.5in SATA, 5400 RPM)
Intel® SSD 330 Series
(60 GB, SATA 6Gb/s, 25nm, MLC)
Wi-Fi Broadcom BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
(2x2 802.11ac - 867 Mbps)
N/A
Price (in USD, when built) $860 $1300

 



Performance Metrics - I

The VisionX 420D was evaluated using our standard test suite for low power desktops / industrial PCs. We revamped our benchmark suite earlier this year after the publication of the Intel D54250WYK NUC review) We reran some of the new benchmarks on the older PCs also, but some of them couldn't be run on loaner samples. Therefore, the list of PCs in each graph might not be the same.

Futuremark PCMark 8

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.

Futuremark PCMark 8

Futuremark PCMark 8

Futuremark PCMark 8

Miscellaneous Futuremark Benchmarks

Futuremark PCMark 7

Futuremark 3DMark 11

Futuremark 3DMark 2013

Futuremark 3DMark 2013

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.

3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15

3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15

3D Rendering - CINEBENCH R15



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.

Video Encoding - x264 5.0

Video Encoding - x264 5.0

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.

7-Zip LZMA Compression Benchmark

7-Zip LZMA Decompression Benchmark

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, till now, been the higher end SKUs. However, with Bay Trail, even the lowly Atom series has gained support for AES-NI. The Core i5-4200M in the VisionX 420D does support AES-NI. 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 to ponder. In the graph below, we can get an idea of how fast a TrueCrypt volume would behave in the VisionX 420D and how it would compare with other select PCs. This is a purely CPU feature / clock speed based test.

TrueCrypt Benchmark

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). The benchmark takes around 50 photographs and does four stages of computation:

  • Stage 1: Align Photographs
  • 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.

Agisoft PhotoScan Benchmark - Stage 1

Agisoft PhotoScan Benchmark - Stage 2

Agisoft PhotoScan Benchmark - Stage 3

Agisoft PhotoScan Benchmark - Stage 4

Dolphin Emulator

Wrapping up our application benchmark numbers is the Dolphin Emulator benchmark mode results.

Dolphin Emulator Benchmark



Gaming Benchmarks

The two recent mini-PCs that we reviewed with gaming potential have both been based on Intel's Iris Pro. The Gigabyte BRIX Pro has a much smaller footprint, while the Zotac ZBOX EI750 and the VisionX 420D are more comparable. When the VisionX 420D was officially launched, AMD's official model number for the Venus GPU targeting the mobile market was the Radeon HD 8850. In their rebranding exercise, it became the R9 270MX. The MXM card also integrates 1 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. For the purpose of benchmarking, we chose five different games (Company of Heroes 2, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and DiRT Showdown) at three different quality levels.

As someone focusing on HTPCs and multimedia aspects, I rarely get to process gaming benchmarks, even while evaluating GPUs. One of the aspects that I feared was spending lot of time in installing the same games again and again on different PCs under the review scanner. The solution was to go the Steam route. Unfortunately, Steam also likes to keep the game files updated. A quick online search revealed that Steam could make use of an external drive for storing the game executables and downloadable content. With the Steam drive on-the-go use-case being read-heavy, the Corsair Flash Voyager GS USB 3.0 128GB Flash Drive (with read speeds of up to 275 MBps) was ideal for use as a portable Steam drive.

Even before we jump into the benchmark numbers, readers must be thinking about the VisionX 420D handily besting the Intel Iris Pro-based PCs. AMD doesn't disappoint, as shown in the graphs below. For comparison purposes, we also have results from the ASRock Vision 3D 252B, a two-generation old gaming mini-PC that used the NVIDIA GT 540M.

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs

DiRT Showdown

DiRT Showdown

DiRT Showdown

Company of Heroes 2

Company of Heroes 2

Company of Heroes 2

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite

Before concluding this section, I would like to draw attention to the improvement in gaming credentials over the last two years inside the same chassis with a similar thermal headroom. This has really expanded the available target market for gaming mini-PCs such as the one being considered today. Gigabyte does have the BRIX Gaming version (which comes in a smaller chassis with a 'desktop-class' NVIDIA 'GTX 760'). We will see next week whether it can give the ASRock VisionX 420D a run for its money in the gaming department.



Network & Storage Performance

We have recently started devoting a separate section to analyze the storage and networking credentials of the units under review. 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.

Futuremark PCMark 8 Storage Bench

Futuremark PCMark 8 Storage Bench

The absence of a SSD brings down the benchmark numbers heavily for the VisionX 420D. Given the cost of the unit, it would have only been fair for consumers to expect a 64 GB boot SSD drive or mSATA drive backed up by a hard drive of lower capacity than the currently shipping 1 TB version.

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 (Zotac ID89-Plus) 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.

Wi-Fi TCP Throughput

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

Wi-Fi UDP Throughput (< 1% Packet Loss)

It is a bit surprising to see TCP perform better than UDP, but, apparently, that is quite possible in certain circumstances with iPerf.

The ASRock VisionX 420D comfortably wins the WLAN benchmarks. The Broadcom BCM4352 is a 2x2 802.11ac solution, and it is able to deliver better results compared to other 2x2 solutions (such as the Intel AC7260) with the Broadcom-based Nighthawk router. On the subject of networking, it is also heartening to see the Intel I217-V Ethernet adapter enabling the Gigabit NIC.



VisionX 420D as a HTPC

The VisionX 420D has a much better acoustic profile compared to the BRIX Pro and even the ZBOX EI750 (thanks to the larger chassis, which, in turn, allows for a better thermal solution). Subjectively speaking, I found it to be ideal for a gaming HTPC, but is is definitely no substitute for the Haswell Core i5 NUC or a passive HTPC. The Radeon R9 270MX should be capable enough for madVR, but does it choke when we try to bring complicated scaling algorithms into play? We aim to find that out in this section. Prior to tackling that, we have two HTPC aspects to explore.

Refresh Rate Accuracy

AMD and NVIDIA have historically been able to provide fine-grained control over display refresh rates. The default rates are also quite accurate. The R9 270MX in the VisionX 420D is no exception.

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.

Network Streaming Efficiency

Evaluation of OTT playback efficiency was done by playing back our standard YouTube test stream and five minutes from our standard Netflix test title. Using HTML5, the YouTube stream plays back a 720p encoding, while Adobe Flash delivers a 1080p stream. The power consumption at the wall as well as the GPU usage while playing them on Mozilla Firefox are provided in the graphs below. Note that the utilization statistics don't directly correspond to similar numbers delivered by the Intel and NVIDIA GPUs.

Unlike our earlier comparisons of Flash vs. HTML5 in Firefox, we find that the average power consumption numbers are approximately the same this time around. This was the first time that Firefox 31.0 was being used for this evaluation, and it looks like there have been some improvements to HTML5 video playback.

Netflix streaming evaluation was done using the Windows 8.1 Netflix app. 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.

Decoding and Rendering Benchmarks

In order to evaluate local file playback, we concentrate on EVR-CP and madVR. We already know that EVR works quite well even with the Intel IGP for our test streams. Under madVR, we used the default settings initially. We also put together a 'madVR stress configuration' with the upscaling algorithms set to Jinc 3-tap with anti-ringing activated and the downscaling algorithm set to Lanczos 3-tap, again with anti-ringing activated. The decoder used is from the LAV filters integrated in MPC-HC v1.7.6.

ASRock VisionX 420D - Decoding & Rendering Performance
Stream EVR-CP madVR - Default madVR - Stress
  GPU Load (%) Power (W) GPU Load (%) Power (W) GPU Load (%) Power (W)
480i60 MPEG2 8.40 39.57 28.04 44.85 69.24 57.71
576i50 H264 10.07 39.75 31.08 45.48 74.78 59.31
720p60 H264 8.70 40.47 26.25 47.52 87.07 64.86
1080i60 MPEG2 21.01 41.50 29.40 48.23 59.41 56.00
1080i60 H264 21.21 42.18 30.69 48.66 60.34 56.94
1080i60 VC1 11.97 42.14 29.70 48.83 60.24 56.35
1080p60 H264 11.36 41.50 31.34 49.09 69.01 59.34
1080p24 H264 6.32 39.29 8.21 43.05 34.17 47.02
4Kp30 H264 17.88 49.41 71.34 80.12 81.62 82.77

The PC has no trouble, as expected, with EVR-CP for any of our test streams. Just like the Iris Pro-equipped PCs, madVR works well with the default settings. Problems start to appear only for 60 fps progressive streams as well as 4K streams when advanced madVR scaling algorithms are chosen. A point to note about 4K: The R9 270MX doesn't support 4K decode in hardware, though the HDMI port does drive 4K displays at native resolution. Earlier AMD driver versions used to BSOD when 4K playback was attempted using DXVA. In recent releases, the driver has simply not exposed that functionality (making LAV Video Decoder fall back to avcodec irrespective of the chosen codec for playback). The other aspect that we found in our testing was that madVR dropped lot of frames under the default settings (auto fullscreen exclusive mode). Disabling this mode (i.e, playback in windowed mode even in fullscreen) enabled playback of the clips without any issues.



Miscellaneous Aspects & Final Words

The power consumption at the wall was measured with the display being driven through the HDMI port. In the graphs below, we compare the idle and load power of the VisionX 420D with other low power PCs evaluated before. For load power consumption, we ran Furmark 1.12.0 and Prime95 v27.9 together. The VisionX 420D is not the most power efficient PC around, but the target market (gamers) don't need to care too much. The numbers are not beyond the realm of reason for the combination of hardware components in the VisionX 420D.

Idle Power Consumption

Load Power Consumption (Prime95 + FurMark)

Thermal Performance

Given the active nature of the thermal solution and the size of the chassis, it would be fair to expect the unit to be able to handle full loading of the CPU and GPU without issues. The VisionX 420D manages to acquit itself very well in our tests. The following two graphs show the various clocks in the system as well as the temperatures with the unit subjected to more than 1 hour of continuous CPU and GPU loading.

The excellent thermal solution manages to keep the CPU temperature well below the junction temperature. The clocks also indicate that there is no throttling at play.

Concluding Remarks

ASRock continues to impress us with the capabilities it crams into a small chassis. The SD card reader, multiple audio outputs and Intel NIC are nice to have features. The AMD GPU (Radeon R9 270MX) is also a top notch choice for gaming in this form factor. The MHL port (along with the supplied MHL cable) is a unique feature of the unit. It allows users to mirror the display of a supported smartphone while also charging it. The WLAN component (Broadcom-based 2x2 802.11ac) is the best amongst all the mini-PCs that we have evaluated so far.

On the other side, ASRock should start thinking about supplying a SSD or a mSATA drive coupled with a smaller hard drive for the storage subsystem. We are also a bit surprised by the absence of a Blu-ray option for this configuration (either go with no ODD, or include one befitting a premium mini-PC). The choice of the GPU, while perfect for gaming, is not that great for videos (given lack of 4K decoding capabilities). As a final note, it is definitely time for ASRock to reconsider the bundled MCE remote. In its place, a mini-keyboard / trackpad combo would be a better option. Apart from these quibbles, there is nothing much to say against this unit. If you are looking for a non-DIY gaming mini-PC which doesn't skimp on features, it is hard to go wrong with the VisionX 420D.

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