TQ
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15 Aug 2024 - by 'Maurits van der Schee'
I am upgrading my 2021 Deskmini X300 to a X600 (finally...). The new machine has an AMD Ryzen 7 8700G instead of a 5700G CPU. It has 64GB DDR5 at 5600MHz instead of DDR4 at 3200MHz. I have the AM5 (instead of AM4) model of the Noctua low profile CPU cooler (with fan duct) and installed the newest Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe drive. Like previous build it is super fast and very quiet. I run Linux Mint 22 and it works great, I'm very pleased with the results!
This build has a 4.2 GHz (5.1 GHz turbo) octa core instead of a 3.8Ghz, (4.8GHz turbo) octa core CPU (8700G vs. 5700G). It has a 7000 MB/s 2TB PCIe 4.0 based NVMe instead of a 3500 MB/s 2TB disk (Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe vs. Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB).
Subscribe 219 EUR - Asrock DeskMini X600 - SFF barebone
194 EUR - Kingston DDR5 SODIMM FURY Impact 2x32GB 5600MHz - Memory
180 EUR - Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe - Solid state drive
268 EUR - AMD Ryzen 7 8700G processor - Processor
65 EUR - Noctua NH-L9a-AM5 chromax.black - CPU cooler
13 EUR - Noctua NA-FD1 - Fan Duct Kit
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939 EUR (including VAT)
NB: The above prices are based on the offering of Dutch web-shops for PC parts, such as "Megekko", "Azerty" and "Alternate", at the time of writing of this post.
I like a small, silent and powerful computer to work on. The small (work) PC sits nicely on my desk and operates super quiet even under (heavy) load. The upgrade to this new specification promises faster graphics, compute, memory and disk speeds and this is clearly noticeable when gaming and when running (Windows) VMs. When browsing the web I've also got the feeling that everything is a little snappier. This was not negatively impacted by the power usage reductions I applied (read on). There is an optional WiFi kit for the X600, but I recommend using a USB dongle.
To reduce temperatures I don't use the cooler that came with the X600 nor the cooler that came with the 8700G. I bought the Noctua NH-L9a-AM5 cooler that has the optimal performance for this machine. Also note that I installed a Noctua NA-FD1 fan duct to ensure that the cooler doesn't circulate air, but blows fresh air from outside the case over the CPU. Note that temperatures are great with the RAM operating at 5600Mhz on 1.1v (XMP enabled), but I've found that temperatures were really bad with more aggressive XMP profiles.
Idle power is around 10W on the Linux desktop (measures on the wall with a kill-a-watt clone) which was surprisingly low (and makes me very happy). I had to do several adjustments in the BIOS (that I also updated to the latest version) to limit the peak power usage. I did set the Fast PPT (boost) to 55W (55000) and the boost time (called "Slow Time") to 10 seconds and I set the Slow PPT (average) to 35W (35000). With a silent fan curve on the CPU fan and undervolting with 20 millivolts (with PBO enabled) the fan does not spin up even when put under an synthetic load (cpu stress test) for several minutes, peaking to 75W on the wall. I disabled performance mode in the BIOS to be sure as I use the 120W power brick that came with the X600 (a nicer smaller power brick than the X300 one). I tried the standby/suspend of the machine and even that worked great without modifications.
This post was not requested nor sponsored in any way. I'm a hardware (and Linux) enthusiast that loves to share. Enjoy!
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