ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-7840U mini-PC Review: AMD Phoenix in an UCFF Avatar
by Ganesh T S on December 28, 2023 8:30 AM ESTSetup Notes and Platform Analysis
The video below presents the entire gamut of available options in the BIOS of the 4X4 BOX-7840U. Of particular interest is the 'CPU Operating Mode' under 'Advanced > CPU Configuration'. It is set to 'Normal' by default, corresponding to a TDP of 28W. Altering it to 'Performance' sets the fan speed to maximum irrespective of the actual load, but ekes out extra performance by pushing up the TDP to around 40W.
The system is equipped with dual LAN ports (1x 2.5GbE + 1x 1GbE) backed up by Realtek controllers. Similar to previous 4X4 BOX systems, the 1GbE link comes with DASH support to make it easy for IT departments to deploy and manage the system with an out-of-band management interface. This support is disabled by default.
The block diagram below presents the overall high-speed I/O distribution.
Compared to the Rembrandt Refresh board, some functionalities seem to have been absorbed into the Phoenix package. For example, the two HDMI ports are driven directly from the package instead of using a protocol converter to switch Display Port to HDMI. The two power delivery controllers between the package and the USB4 ports seem to be absent too, but the Kandou Technologies KB8002 retimer remains (which also means that the USB4 ports still don't support the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps mode). The other board components are largely similar to the ones in the 4X4 BOX-7735U.
In today's review, we compare the 4X4 BOX-7840U and a host of other systems based on processors with TDPs ranging from 15W to 65W. The systems do not target the same market segments, but a few key aspects lie in common, making the comparisons relevant.
| Comparative PC Configurations | ||
| Aspect | ASRock 4X4 BOX-7840U (Performance) | |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 7840U Zen 4 (Phoenix) 8C/16T, 3.3 - 5.1 GHz TSMC 4nm, 16MB L3, 28W Target TDP : 40W |
AMD Ryzen 7 7840U Zen 4 (Phoenix) 8C/16T, 3.3 - 5.1 GHz TSMC 4nm, 16MB L3, 28W Target TDP : 40W |
| GPU | AMD Radeon 780M (RDNA3 / Phoenix) - Integrated (12 CUs @ 2.7 GHz) |
AMD Radeon 780M (RDNA3 / Phoenix) - Integrated (12 CUs @ 2.7 GHz) |
| RAM | Crucial CT16G56C46S5.M8G1 DDR5-5600 SODIMM 46-45-45-90 @ 5600 MHz 2x16 GB |
Crucial CT16G56C46S5.M8G1 DDR5-5600 SODIMM 46-45-45-90 @ 5600 MHz 2x16 GB |
| Storage | Samsung SSD 990 PRO MZ-VP92T0B (2 TB; M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe;) (Samsung 7th Gen. V-NAND 176L (136T) 3D TLC; Samsung Pascal S4LV008 Controller) |
Samsung SSD 990 PRO MZ-VP92T0B (2 TB; M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe;) (Samsung 7th Gen. V-NAND 176L (136T) 3D TLC; Samsung Pascal S4LV008 Controller) |
| Wi-Fi | 1x 2.5 GbE RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8125BG) 1x GbE RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8111EPV) Mediatek MT7922 (RZ616) Wi-Fi 6E (2x2 802.11ax - 1.9 Gbps) |
1x 2.5 GbE RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8125BG) 1x GbE RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8111EPV) Mediatek MT7922 (RZ616) Wi-Fi 6E (2x2 802.11ax - 1.9 Gbps) |
| Price (in USD, when built) | (Street Pricing on December 27th, 2023) US $570 (barebones) US $837 (as configured, no OS) |
(Street Pricing on December 27th, 2023) US $570 (barebones) US $837 (as configured, no OS) |
The next few sections will deal with comparative benchmarks for the above systems.
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FWhitTrampoline - Sunday, December 31, 2023 - link
Get an Intel Meteor Lake based system instead as that at least has the iGPU compute support ducks in order for Linux via Intel's OneAPI/Associated iGPU Compute API support. On Linux AMD's ROCm/HIP is not supported on AMD's current iGPUs and really that's going to limit any Ryzen APU based systems to Blender Cycles CPU only rendering whereas Intel's Meteor Lake will be able to utilize the iGPU for Blender 3D's GPU accelerated rendering. And even iGPUs have a bit more FP resources than CPUs and Intel's ARC Graphics tile has Ray Tracing units as well with a higher level of hardware feature support than AMD's RDNA3 Ray Tracing IP.haplo602 - Sunday, December 31, 2023 - link
so what is the advantage over a beelink/minisforum/morefine ? except the higher price ?TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, January 2, 2024 - link
Better support and a website that works? Minisforum's site is held together with duct tape.