The ASRock DeskMini A300 Review: An Affordable DIY AMD Ryzen mini-PC
by Ganesh T S on April 26, 2019 8:00 AM ESTGPU Performance for Workstation Workloads - SPECviewperf 13
The SPECviewperf benchmark from SPEC provides an idea of the capabilities of the GPU in a workstation from the perspective of different CAD, content creation, and visual data analysis tools. It makes more sense to process these benchmarks on workstations with professional GPUs, but, consumer GPUs are often the choice for machines that need to handle both gaming and professional workloads. Since the Radeon RX Vega 11 performs admirably for an integrated GPU in our gaming tests, we wanted to give the DeskMini A300 a go with the SPECviewperf 13 workloads also.
SPECviewperf 13 includes nine different workloads representative of graphics content and behavior of actual applications. They make use of the OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 12 APIs under Windows. SPECviewperf 13's workloads (termed viewsets) can officially be run only at two desktop resolutions (1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160), and need the display scaling to be set to 100% (DPI of 96). The available viewsets are listed below.
- 3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
- CATIA (catia-05)
- Creo (creo-02)
- Energy (energy-02)
- Maya (maya-05)
- Medical (medical-02)
- Showcase (showcase-02)
- Siemens NX (snx-03)
- Solidworks (sw-04)
The 3ds Max and Showcase viewsets are available only when processing at 1920 x 1080. The rest are available at both resolutions.
We processed SPECviewperf 13 at both resolutions on the ASRock DeskMini A300. The benchmark measures the frame rate at which the GPU renders the scenes in a viewset. Each viewset is composed of different scenes and rendering modes, and the composite score for the viewset is a weighted geometric mean of the FPS measured for the different scenes. In this section, we take a look at how its composite scores stack up against other systems targeting this market segment.
3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
The 3dsmax-06 viewset comprises of 11 different scenes. They have been created from traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 using the default Nitrous DX11 driver. Additional details are available here.
The DeskMini A300 is again the leading iGPU-only system, but, the Bean Canyon NUC's performance is quite close.
CATIA (catia-05)
The catia-05 viewset comprises of 14 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIA V6 R2012 application from Dassault Systemes. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: CATIA Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The DeskMini A300 and the Bean Canyon NUC are essentially tied in this workload.
Creo (creo-02)
The creo-02 viewset comprises of 16 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Creo 3 and Creo 4 applications from PTC. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Creo Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The Ryzen system is ahead at 1080p, but, falls slightly behind the Bean Canyon NUC at 2160p.
Energy (energy-02)
The energy-02 viewset comprises of 6 different tests based on techniques used by the OpendTect seismic visualization application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Energy Viewset Composite Scores | |
The energy-02 workload is a tough nut to crack for SFF systems, and the DeskMini A300 seems to have some trouble in completing the workload properly. At 2160p, all the systems that we are comparing the A300 against had trouble with the workload - hence, we do not have a graph for the workload at that resolution.
Maya (maya-05)
The maya-05 viewset comprises of 10 different tests based on traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk Maya 2017. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Maya Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The Bean Canyon NUC edges ahead of the DeskMini A300 for the maya-05 workload at both resolutions.
Medical (medical-02)
The medical-02 viewset comprises of 8 different tests derived from 4 distinct datasets. Each test uses the ImageVis3D volume visualization program's Tuvok rendering core for 2D projections of 3D volumetric grids. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Medical Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The medical-02 viewset represents a clear victory for the DeskMini A300 over other iGPU-only systems.
Showcase (showcase-02)
The showcase-02 viewset comprises of 4 tests created from traces of the Autodesk Showcase 2013 application rendering a racecar model with 8 million vertices using different modes. Additional details are available here.
The showcase-02 viewset sees the Bean Canyon NUC edge slightly ahead of the DeskMini A300.
Siemens NX (snx-03)
The snx-03 viewset comprises of 10 tests created with traces from the graphics workload generated by the NX 8.0 application from Siemens PLM. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Siemens NX Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The snx-03 viewset is similar to the medical-02 viewset in terms of the DeskMini A300 enjoying a clear lead.
Solidworks (sw-04)
The sw-04 viewset comprises of 11 tests created from traces of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 2013 SP1 application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Solidworks Viewset Composite Scores | |||
In this viewset, we see the Bean Canyon NUC come out on top, with the DeskMini A300 tussling it out with the Skull Canyon NUC for the second place amongst the iGPU-only systems.
Overall, for the SPECviewperf 13 workloads, we see that the DeskMini A300 is not a clear winner. There are a couple of viewsets in which the A300 performs significantly better, but, for the most part, the Bean Canyon NUC mounts an excellent challenge. The reasons for this could be two-fold - on one hand, the Radeon drivers for the RX Vega 11 might not be really optimized for these kinds of workloads. On the other, the Bean Canyon NUC employs an Iris Plus 655 GPU which comes with 128MB of eDRAM cache. It is likely that the eDRAM is beneficial for SPECviewperf 13 workloads.
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Thvash - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link
For some reason 4K HDR, VP9 Profile 2 is not accelerated at all under Windows, while GPU claims to support it, no such issues under LinuxSmell This - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link
**Microsoft removed the in-built HEVC decoding capabilities of Windows 10 in the 2017 Fall Creators Update, and replaced it with an extension that had to be downloaded from the Microsoft Store. Without the extension, playback is restricted to 1080p non-HDR streams encoded in H.264. In addition to the decoding capabilities, the system also needs to support PlayReady 3.0 DRM.**______________________________________
Ding!
Another drive-by DRM borking by WIntel ...
Ratman6161 - Monday, April 29, 2019 - link
This doesn't come with an OS, so if you hate Microsoft so much, then don't use Windows. As far as DRM goes, support for it is a necessary evil to avoid being sued. So it's not a "borking by Wintel", its a symptom of our lawsuit happy society + rampant piracy that the owners of intellectual property feel they must defend themselves against.mapesdhs - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Wow, talk about buying MS' spin. Amazing how people are so happy to throw away their freedoms. In reality the blatant abuse of consumer IP rights is far more important but rarely addressed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw
peevee - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
"In reality the blatant abuse of consumer IP rights"You have NO rights to OTHER PEOPLE'S Property. Intellectual or not.
ripbeefbone - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
I miss the 90s when nerds weren't embarassing bootlickers who fawned over corporations. get a soul you shillspeevee - Monday, May 6, 2019 - link
I was the nerd in the 90s (and 80s) and still supported patents and copyrights. While violating some of them.airider - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Interesting perspective. Intellectual property is not defined anywhere. It is a made up term assigned to copyrighted material and patents. If you live in the U.S. these are protected by Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution:“To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
The "right" to IP is only guaranteed for a limited time. When this time expires, the "right" no longer exists and it becomes public domain.
airider - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
In fact, the reason these legal definitions exist is because copyright material and patents are not property, but rather the expression of ideas and thoughts through various forms of media (i.e. verbal, visual, etc).Because expressions are not property, a legal construct was created in order for "expressionists" to protect their ability to "make money", since once they expressed themselves, the expression is no longer their own, and the ability to profit was no longer in their control.
sorten - Tuesday, May 21, 2019 - link
I was also a nerd in the 80's (and still today) and have never thought it was cool to steal others' creations. If you do that on a large enough scale then there's no incentive left for creative types to create, and what a unhappy world that would be to create.