Small form factor PC, with ECC - Not NAS

General Discussion
21

Answering my own questions…
The “Pro” versions are fantasy versions from the Middle Earth, aren’t they?

This review of the B660 sibling from a now-defunct site indicates that installing any 3.5" drive essentially precludes using the PCIe slot. I assume that the DeskMeet X600 uses the exact same chassis.

But from this other review of the X600 idle power with a 8000G APU is 14 W, 17 W lower than the B660 and apparently quite low for a DDR5 system—but using an APU restricts the PCIe slot to x8. (Incidentally I note that the SATA ports come from an ASM controller.) For a desktop (“not NAS”) it’s not bad.

22

Well, a desire, not necessarily fantasy :-).

Uh, the quick install guide clearly shows support for 2 x 2.5" SATA drives, or 1 x 3.5" SATA drive. It’s not as transparent about support for 2 x 3.5" drives, though it clearly shows 2 different mounting positions for the 3.5" disk. One of which blocks the PCIe slot. BUT, the other DOES NOT.

However, right on the main page for the DeskMeet X600, it lists this;

Keep Your 3.5” HDD

DeskMeet can be equipped with 2 x 3.5” HDD at most.
ASRock > DeskMeet X600 Series

This implies that both 3.5" mounting locations can be used at the same time. (One of which will block the PCIe slot completely…)

Even as a Micro NAS, it may be good:

  • 2 x NVMe
  • 2 x SATA, (mixed 2.5" or 3.5")
  • 4 x full sized DIMMs, (with ECC support when using a CPU with ECC support)

Might have resort to USB for boot, (using USB to SATA or USB to NVMe…), to make the most of the 4 internal storage devices.

24

I know I’m late, but I came across this forum thread when searching for something along the lines of “ecc igpu”.

I just registered to say that your concernes about the performance if the integrated graphics on the non-G series Zen4 & 5 isn’t really something to worry about. Even though AMD heavy implies it’s not for gaming, I believe this is largely marketing speak so that gamers don’t go with high expectations.

I say this because the integrated graphics on a 2400G is only something like 30% faster than the integrated graphics on non-G series Zen4 & 5 (called the Radeon 610M) and therefore is basically the equivalent of a single product tier in performance difference (e.g. Radeon 7700XT vs Radeon 7800XT);

  • notebookcheck.n et/AMD-Radeon-610M-GPU-Benchmarks-and-Specs.654293.0.html

  • notebookcheck.n et/AMD-Radeon-RX-Vega-11-GPU.278628.0.html

(unfortunately, presumably because I’m newly registered, I’m not allowed to post hyperlinks! So you’ll have to copy and paste the URLs and remove the big fat space in the middle of the word “net”)

1 Like
25

Hmm, the graphics speed was never a concern for my miniature media server’s replacement. Just needed a console, (which I’d prefer IPMI, but also want small and cheap as a higher priority).

However, I really don’t want to go lower in graphics performance for my miniature desktop replacement. It might be okay, but I won’t know until it is too late. My employer sent me home middle of February 2020, and I have worked from home since. This involves a VPN and Citrix desktop on my miniature desktop. So I really don’t want to risk going slower on graphics.

Thus, I wanted to see if I could get a Ryzen Pro 8700G CPU, which has both the integrated graphics of higher performance than my old 2400G. And has the desirable ECC memory support.

Using the same Ryzen Pro 8700G CPU for both had 2 benefits for me:

  1. Same configuration of system, CPU, memory, (though storage would be different)
  2. Possible to swap units if one melted into a puddle. (My words to describe if a computer failed without an easy or known fix.)

Plus, if I use the Ryzen 8600G or 8700G, Pro or Non-Pro, I get some AI / NPU thing included. Might not need it, but I tend to keep my computers for many years. (The miniature media server was built in 2014/15 time frame…) Who knows if that AI / NPU will be useful in the future, but it will be present.