AMD Ryzen CPUs have been around for a while now and the 3rd generation of desktop AMD Ryzen CPUs are going to release soon. ASRock has released the DeskMini A300, which is the smallest form factor PC with AMD Ryzen CPUs that you can buy on the market right now.
It is worth pointing out that most mini PCs that we see are powered by Intel CPUs so the ASRock DeskMini A300 is a bit different and it does offer plenty of power and compatibility for the size. The motherboard inside the ASRock DeskMini A300 has an AM4 socket so you can use any AMD Ryzen CPU but the 2200G and the 2400G provide great value and integrated Vega graphics.
The ASRock DeskMini A300 costs $150 which is reasonable. For the money, you get the case and the STX motherboard. The case supports two 2.5” storage devices and a 46mm tall CPU cooler. Storage is not going to be an option keeping in mind that this is not going to be a very powerful machine. The CPU cooler is going to be a limiting factor but there are some decent low profile CPU coolers that are effective and inexpensive.
While you do not have a lot of I/O, you do get the essentials which will come in handy. You get a USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C port and a Type-A at the front and at the back, there is a 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port and a 2.0 Type-A port. You also have 3 M.2 ports. 2 can be used for SSDs and the third is for a WiFi card. The motherboard supports 2 DDR4-2933 DIMMs with AMD Ryzen APUs.
AMD CPUs are also being paired with Nvidia Turing graphics cards in mid-range laptops. AMD has also confirmed that their chips are not affected by the new spoiler vulnerability.
Let us know what you think about the ASRock DeskMini A300 and whether or not this is something that you are interested in.
