ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-AI350 Power Consumption
We are using a 19V power adapter that comes with the system.
At idle, we saw package power in the 4.5-5W range and the overall system power in the 8.5-9W range.
Under load, the temps certainly rose, and we saw the system power consumption raise to the 58-61W range. That may seem like a lot, but many modern PCs in this NUC form factor are using twice that or more, so it is actually a decent result. Of course, there are options to adjust the power consumption profiles of the system.
The noise went from around 35dba in our 34dba noise floor studio to around 42dba under full load. That is a great result. This system was not silent under load, but it was also much quieter than many systems we have seen in the past.
Key Lessons Learned
On things that we learned, the first is that the Realtek RTL8125BG and RTL8111H (2.5GbE and 1GbE) networking should be two 2.5GbE ports at this point. If nothing else, it makes it confusing when the ports on the chassis are not well labeled.
As good of a desktop as this makes, it also makes a really neat Proxmox VE server. We have been looking at a lot of much larger systems in terms of core counts, but this falls in that lower range where if you had 32GB or 64GB and this, it would probably work as a nice server for most people.
For folks that like to run compact servers, this is a nice machine and with all Zen 5 cores so you do not have the complexity that is present on the Intel side with P-cores and E-cores and their different instruction sets.
Final Words
Overall, this is a great little machine. It has been running happily for us for the past few weeks which is always great to see. Running with minimal noise impact under low load is a great feature when you just need a system to run in the background. If you are running a desktop, then the new RDNA 3.5 GPU and XDNA 2 NPU will be useful, but we have already covered those quite a bit in previous pieces.
Of course, we have our usual nitpicks with the ASRock Industrial AMD platforms. The ports are not well labeled. Both wired Ethernet ports should be 2.5GbE. Finally, we would love it if the middle M.2 slot was both 2242 and 2280 so that we could have a pair of M.2 2280 drives installed. Still, the two front USB4 ports give this system more flexibility if one wants to connect higher-speed external devices.
Overall, this ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-AI350 is a nice upgrade to the ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-8840U and a great alternative if you prefer AMD to Intel in this NUC form factor.
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.