ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-AI350 Topology
Since this is is a single-socket system, we get a very straightforward topology:
There is not much to these smaller systems, but we still wanted to show it off.
AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 Performance
On the processor side, we get the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350. This is one of AMD’s new processors that uses Zen 5 architecture cores along with the new XDNA 2 NPU and RDNA 3.5 graphics.
With 8 cores and 16 threads, we wanted to see how this one would stack up to the other options we have tested.
Python Linux 4.4.2 Kernel Compile Benchmark
This is one of the most requested benchmarks for STH over the past few years. The task was simple, we have a standard configuration file, the Linux 4.4.2 kernel from kernel.org, and make the standard auto-generated configuration utilizing every thread in the system. We are expressing results in terms of compiles per hour to make the results easier to read:
Overall, we are getting fairly good results. Of course, even being power limited the AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 is going to be faster, but these are good results. What is really neat is that due to the TDP differences, the 45W AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 is doing fairly well here.
7-zip Compression Performance
7-zip is a widely used compression/ decompression program that works cross-platform. We started using the program during our early days with Windows testing. It is now part of Linux-Bench.
We see something similar when we get to the 7zip side. The higher-core count HX chip has more cores, so it gives us more performance, but in these mini PCs, it is decently close.
OpenSSL Performance
OpenSSL is widely used to secure communications between servers. This is an important protocol in many server stacks. We first look at our sign tests:
Here are the verify results:
Again, we get fairly solid performance. The Zen 5 cores are doing well here. We re-ran the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 results, and we kept getting better performance, but not necessarily an enormous delta.
Geekbench 5 Performance
We wanted to also run Geekbench 5 quickly to see the difference between this and the Intel Core Ultra 7 255H version:
It is a bit hard to see, but the baseline is the ASRock Industrial Intel box while the comparison is the AMD Ryzen version. We were a bit surprised that we lost on the single core results, but the multi-threaded results ended up being fairly similar.
Just as a sanity check, we compared this to the Ryzen AI 7 370 result we had, and the Ryzen AI 7 370 was faster, but it also was not an enormous delta.
Next, let us get to the power consumption.
Two things on this review:
1. I wish you guys would start doing more of the review tests for large memory with your 2x64GB 128GB kit going forward. We have the RAM, let’s test if the systems can support it properly.
2. As you stated, both NICs should be 2.5GbE. Exactly how much do they save by dropping one of the ports to 1GbE instead of both being 2.5GbE on the BOM? 5 cents? 1 dollar? I’ll offer up I’d be willing to pay them 100% profit on that $1 BOM (so an extra $2 on the total cost) to get it up to 2x 2.5GbE.
I still doesn’t understand why Asrock on AMD version still stick with on port at 1GbE
Do these support ECC memory? With 96 or 128 GB they’d make a handy little edge server if they can do ECC.