Gadgetory

what's going on everybody Aiden here with Hardware Canucks and the footprint of PC hardware has been shrinking with desktop hardware and laptop form factors and the rise of small form-factor pcs the time when your average consumer needs a massive PC for basic tasks is coming to an end with the rise of ultra small form-factor pcs becoming ever more present these days you can build an amazing gaming rig in an ITX chassis but what happens if you don't need all of that gaming horsepower and instead you just want something that will perform well under basic tasks the z9 neo buys all moan brings all the right features on a budget with a large windowed side panel 5 included fans and the excellent interior layout with super simple cable management get it now link in the description below that's the situation I found myself in not too long ago I already have my main gaming PC to handle video production and heavy gaming workloads but I was looking for a small form-factor PC to do basic tasks when my main PC was occupied with rendering and to act as a media PC I wanted it to be small discreet and quiet so it wouldn't distract when watching films YouTube or just Netflix I also wanted to build it myself since ultra often off-the-shelf options come loaded with bloatware and unnecessary add-ons this is where as rocks desk mini 110 steps into the equation it's a tiny bare-bones PC which not only accepts 2.5 inch drives but is also compatible with almost the full range of desktop Intel skylake 11:51 processes this is looking to be the perfect platform upon which I could build a respectable low-cost computer the desk mini is considered a bare-bones unit which means out of the box or you'll be getting is the chassis motherboard and power supply however since the chassis is built directly around its components it's extremely compact and can fit into its surroundings quite well key items asrock hasn't included are the RAM storage and CPU but I wanted to control these specs myself so that's perfectly fine with me more importantly the desk mini 110s price of 140 dollars fits perfectly into my budget especially when you consider individually purchasing a Mini ITX case motherboard and power supply would come to much more than that this thing's most notable competitor is likely Intel's newest Knox range in price from $290 for one with a mobile a 360 100 year to 500 $90 for the high-end skull canyon version with its i7 6700 HQ processor and iris pro graphics while those units do come with processors and integrated Wi-Fi a stock's price still seems extremely competitive considering you could equip the desk Mini with a desktop class a 360 100 and it would still cost less than Intel's own offerings so that's what I did the hardware in this book was chosen to be cost-effective while still being powerful enough to do some light photo editing or some very light gaming as well I chose the Intel skylake a 360 100 processor as it's quite affordable at around 120 dollars while still providing a good amount of processing horsepower it's integrated HD 530 graphics engine won't allow for much more than some light gaming but it's actually clocked at a higher speed than the one on Intel's more expensive eye 5 6400 I could have went with something more powerful though since as rocks mini STX board may only measure 5 inches by 5 inches but it will accept any 65 watt TDP skylake chip that means an Intel i7 6700 could have been added to really make this PC a processing Beast I also needed some notebook size so dim memory an g.skill kindly provided there Ripjaws ddr4 21 33 megahertz 16 gigabyte kit at only $60 it provides great value with plenty of capacity for running multiple tasks and at the cost it just wouldn't make sense to go with less one thing to keep in mind since this is a h1 10 motherboard the maximum supported memory speed is 21 33 megahertz lastly for storage I wanted to keep it simple but fast so I decided on an OC ZTR 150 SSD with 240 gigabytes of storage since most of the larger files we kept on the main PC I felt this drive was a good compromise between price and capacity since it cost only $65 it'll allow for plenty of important files to be stored while having the speed and the reliability perform well day to day alternatively there's an m3 slot for additional storage as well as another 2.5 inch drive bay for a second SSD or HDD if you so desire one thing to note however is the m2 slot doesn't support the sava standard so PCI SSDs will have to be used there's another m0 as well but that's meant to be used for either as rocks optional Wi-Fi module or an additional mq based add-in card of your choosing so we've looked at the hardware now let's look at the build itself the exterior is pretty simple it's a black aluminium build with a plastic front shell as mentioned it's very small at 6.1 inches in length and width and 3.1 inches deep there's nothing too exceptional on the exterior except for a large amount of ventilation with large grilles on the top and on the side which I wish would have had dust filters the front has your power button this nice layered texture which allows for more ventilation and the i/o it's actually slightly interesting ire as there's the usual headphone and mic jacks although I wish they were labeled and the USB 3 port but also a USB type-c port it's a nice inclusion to keep the eye irrelevant in the future however I do shows a USB 3.1 port not just a type C now let's build the machine this is hands down the easiest build I've ever done installation is super simple and there's even step-by-step instructions to help you along the way once you've removed the four back screws which unfortunately are not thumb screws you simply slide out the motherboard tray from the case from here it's just a matter of slotting in the CPU installing its cooler installing the memory and then flipping it over and putting in the SSD I had a little bit of trouble with the metal tabs blocking the SSD but once I had screwed that in I just used as rocks proprietary SATA cable and it was hooked up just connect the front i/o and slide the system back in and you're good to go you could assemble this in under 15 minutes with ease it's great for first time builders and they really aren't any difficult steps in the building process now that it's assembled just choose your orientation either vertical or horizontal stick on the four rubber feet and connect the included power brick either VGA HDMI or DisplayPort cables Ethernet and your keyboard and mouse using either the rear two USB ports or the front ones the case also has a base amount meaning you can mount on the back of a compatible monitor if you so desire instead of having it on your desk performance on this little machine is hard to quantify since it really comes down to your choice of components how the system performs will depend on what hardware you choose to use but I'll run a couple of benchmarks to show what kind of performance you can expect from this $400 build in Cinebench is CPU benchmark we've got a score of around 375 I've pretty close in line without socks graphic they are advertising in comparison with the Intel nook in 3d marks guy driver we got an overall score of three thousand six hundred and fifty two with a graphic score of three thousand four hundred and forty and a physics score of five thousand five hundred and seventy one as for gaming don't expect anything great but some basic titles won't cause any problems when played at 1080p in terms of thermal performance this build does pretty well considering there's no active cooling other than the CPU fan in a cool room when running the 3d mark stress test for 10 minutes D CPU peaked at around high 60s very much in the safe range while CPU fan was still on a low rpm if it does get hot though the CPU fan can ramp up a bit and get a bit loud and because of the small form factor there are very few options for aftermarket coolers and that's my main gripe with this little system there's just not a whole lot of customization due to the very nature of it you're probably stuck with limited cooling options and you can't install any PCI devices in here however I don't think that will be an issue for most people looking into this market and the desk mini does a lot right it's one of the most powerful and simple small form-factor pcs and its support for desktop CPUs means it can have the right options for almost anyone it fits my needs perfectly and it might do the same for you so thank you for watching everyone if you enjoyed this video make sure to leave a like and comment with any questions or feedback down below I'm Aiden with Hardware Knox make sure to describe more similar content and we'll see you in the next one