ASRock’s AMD Ryzen NUC (4x4BOX-V1000M) Review

HTPC Capabilities

The NUC-like PCs have been a popular choice for HTPC enthusiasts for years and for a good reason. They’re small enough to be hidden behind the TV or in a cabinet, they consume only a little electricity and they tend to be quiet. At the same time the CPUs and GPUs in these units are more than enough for audio and video playback. However, there tends to be always some gotchas with some functionality not working entirely as expected.

Windows

There are no big surprises here. The Radeon Vega 8 GPU is able to decode pretty much all relevant video formats including 10-bit HEVC and VP9 at 4k resolution.

The HDR support is there as well. I was happily playing both HDR videos from YouTube as well as using the Windows Movies player for HEVC HDR videos. Note that it’s a good idea to download the HEVC decoder from Windows store before trying to play those videos on Windows Movies and Photos player. The free version is available here. Of course for Kodi there’s no need to download the codec as it’s already included.

LibreELEC

For testing the HTPC credentials of the 4X4 BOX in Linux I installed latest LibreELEC version, 9.2. I was happy to find out that, first of all, the Ryzen V1605B and Vega 8 GPU was supported and furthermore that it could actually perform as expected.

The WiFi adapter as well as the Ethernet adapters were automatically detected and my networks were found. This wasn’t completely unexpected as the 4X4 BOX includes a bit older Intel 802.11ac WiFi card and the fairly common Realtek 8111G network adapter.

Decoding and playing 4K HEVC videos was not a problem. Of course HDR support is not there, as it is not there for any Linux system. The development of HDR support has been very active during 2019 and I fully expect that the support will materialize during 2020. The thing with HDR support is that functionality is needed in the graphics drivers, Linux kernel as well as in Kodi. There already are some private LibreELEC development builds to demonstrate HDR functionality on Intel Gemini Lake chips. Earlier this year Phoronix was reporting development progress regarding HDR support on AMD GPUs.

Audio passthrough using a HDMI 2.0 amplifier worked fine with all Dolby and DTS formats I tried including Dolby TrueHD and DTS:X.

In general the ASRock 4X4 BOX and the Ryzen/Vega combo did well in my HTPC tests. I would imagine the cheaper ASRock 4X4 BOX-R1000V model would serve equally well as a HTPC.

Linux Support

As expected based on the LibreELEC testing (LibreELEC is essentially a Linux distribution with cutting edge hardware support) the system was working fine using Ubuntu Linux 19.10. WiFi, Ethernet, audio, GPU – all seemed to work without additional effort. If you’re interested, my boot log is available here.

As always when using a new product it’s a good idea to select a Linux distribution and version that includes a relatively new kernel to ensure that all functionality is supported.

Conclusion

The ASRock Industrial’s 4X4 BOX-V1000M is the first Ryzen based miniature PC that I’m having the chance to play with. Even if the product is marketed as an industrial barebones PC it performed on a good level beating even the Bean Canyon i7 NUC in several tests. As the upcoming Frost Canyon NUC will likely have a worse GPU performance compared to the Bean Canyon the Ryzen will likely be competitive even against the latest NUCs.

More importantly, it’s great to see some competition for Intel and their dominant NUC product. Increased competition will hopefully lead to more innovation and better products being pushed to the market. The first Ryzen based mini PCs including other vendors were all classified as industrial products. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing a consumer Ryzen NUC-like PC materialize.

Definite pros include:

  • Gaming/GPU performance
  • Excellent display connectivity
  • HTPC performance
  • Multi-core CPU performance
  • Dual Ethernet ports

My wishlist for a consumer Ryzen NUC would include the following features that the ASRock 4×4 BOX is lacking currently:

  • Larger and more quieter fan
  • Slightly reduced case height
  • USB Type C connector
  • M.2 slot with 2280 form factor
  • Easier access to the memory slots

Sometimes sourcing these industrial models has been a bit problematic. If you’re interested in the ASRock 4X4 BOX and are located in North America, then NewEgg is a good choice, they have both the R1000V and V1000M model in stock. I’m still not sure where you could buy one for example in Europe. If you do, let me know in the comments!

10 Responses

  1. Mounter says:

    Thanks to the review, but I would be more curious regarding some more in-depth HTPC capabilities, specially UHD / HDR playback (with possibly high bitrate videos) also when using MadVR. A run with some more sophisticated and MadVR compatible playback option like MPCHC, DSPlayer or Jriver on Windows.

    (Might need to check the “On a budget and need basic 4K UHD video processing:” section of this tutorial in the first post for the fitting setup: https://www.avsforum.com/forum/26-home-theater-computers/2364113-guide-building-4k-htpc-madvr.html ).

    What I’m afraid of in this case, that the max. 2400MHz RAM speed limitation would hold far back the IGP’s horses in this case… A more consumer version of this Box, with more headroom for the RAM clock would be much more desirable and less doubtful regarding.

    • Olli says:

      Thanks for the comment! I’ll have a go with MPC-HC and MadVR and let you know how it goes. At least initially the performance looked bad (sometimes it worked ok and sometimes it seemed like a slideshow of pictures). Also the fan starts to run at full speed when the GPU is stressed…

      • Mounter says:

        Thanks! Did you configure MadVR as stated in the linked tutorial for Vega IGP’s? Well, if you did, than it’s sounds like I’we expected and the RAM’s are too slow for this purpose yet. Let’s juts hope Asrock will bring a more flexible AMD APU NUC sometime, it would have the potential and also the market I guess. Intel wouldn’t get any near to the performance of AMD IGPs anytime soon as I see now.

  2. ed says:

    Thanks for the review! Glad to see some AMD CPUs in the NUC space.

    I have a bunch of AsRock motherboards, and they all perform flawlessly. The only knock I have against them is that the BIOS support usually stops after a year or two, unless it’s a popular product. Perhaps it’s a different story with their “industrial” line…

    I mention that because one thing Intel got right with their NUC line is the long-term product support. I just retired a functional five or six year old N2820 NUC that was still receiving BIOS updates this year (!)

    • Olli says:

      Thanks for the comment! Indeed, you’re right – Intel has been pretty good at providing updates even for older NUCs. I also have an ASRock mainboard on my desktop PCs that’s been solid since day 1. However, no BIOS updates for long time…

  3. 400$ for the V1000M? This is not an interesting offer IMHO. If you can live with a little more space used, the buying the ASRock DeskMini A300 + Ryzen 3400G + Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 will be a lot faster, whisper quiet and still reasonably small. For about 80 bucks LESS (!!!). And you can use fullsize DIMMs and faster memory as well – WiFi costs extra though (which I personally do not care about much).

    And next year, Zen 2 based AMD Renoir CPUs might be compatible with it and be even fast, we should see within two weeks or so what AMD announces at CES.

  4. su yen liu says:

    To buy a 4X4Box in Europe or other regions, there are ASRock Industrial disty in major of EU countries and you can check disty information for your region on ASRock Industrial website / Where to Buy page and contact the disty for your inquiry. Where to Buy page : https://www.asrockind.com/general/buy.asp

    Or leave ASRock Industrial an inquiry, they will have a disty contact you. https://event.asrockind.com/ipc.asp

    Hope this will help. thank you.

  5. Nick says:

    Thanks for the great review. I went with a DeskMini A300 + 200GE last year for a home automation build, and it works great, but if this were around I might have paid a premium to get it. As pointed out already, the A300 is cheaper and the CPU is upgradeable, but it’s not as small.

  6. ENOTTY says:

    Weird how this compares poorly to the Crimson Canyon NUC NUC8i3CYSM, but has a newer generation GPU.

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