Bare minimum dGPU SFF PC, testing suggestions

[Agall]

Have some spare parts lying around, been getting a mITX itch lately, thought I'd satisfy it with something reasonable versus buying a short RTX 4000 series card. Rest of the parts are on the way.

 

Parts:

Asrock Deskmeet B660- $200

i3 12100f- $92

2x8GB DDR4 3200 (already have) ~$35

WD SN770 500GB (already have) ~$30

Asrock Intel Arc A380 (already have) ~$120

Total: <$500 USD

 

Do you think this build will be enough for 1080p 60 fps smooth-ish gameplay? Some games might require low settings (Diablo 4 does so far due to VRAM limitations at 6GB) but that's still 1080p. In some titles, I may end up testing 720p in very demanding titles if it doesn't meet that standard.

 

I may do a PSU swap since i have a 500W some SFX power supply laying around, though that chassis uses a reversed fan PSU to support the stock cooler design which is cool.

 

This build will likely end up a recording server for some IP cameras running off endurance SATA SSDs or as a media PC. It can also serve as a bare minimum PC for testing some games in the meanwhile. 

 

I've already done some testing with an A380 on both a 3950x and 7950x3D which has impressed me for the price. Its a fully featured dGPU for only $120 that's 1080p capable, but I've only tested relatively low power games like Warframe, Diablo 3, Diablo 4, and HotS. I'll be comparing that to the 12100f to see how much is lost when going with a sub $100 CPU. I'll likely drive it for a few hours here and there testing various things, it'll be a discrete build so it won't require swapping hardware to hop into. 

 

The other thing of note is that this setup would fit some RTX 4060/4060ti models, but obviously that's a waste of money. That would warrant a 13100f or higher CPU in that scenario, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB drive, which would just blow up the nature of a 'bare minimum' 

 

What I'm interested in is some feedback from those with budget orientated or older builds, to get some relative performance comparisons. The Deskmeet puts the system in a certain tier of SFX computers, but I'd be interested to know how it compares to any system that may be close in performance. I'll be doing testing at 1080p 240Hz, but I'd consider 1080p ~60 fps to be acceptable. 

 

This would obviously be competing with the likes of the flagship consoles with the $500 price tag, but with the advantages of a DIY PC. The goal would be to get console like performance capabilities, but I don't expect it to beat those consoles in gaming performance overall.

 

I'm not the type to pull out spreadsheets and get precise values, so relative experience and approximate framerates is all I give or ask for. 

[YoungBlade]

The A380 is the problem here, and it's just not capable of giving a consistent 60fps experience in the most recent AAA titles. The A380 has performance comparable to a GTX 1650, 1050 Ti, RX 6400, RX 470, etc., and cards in that tier of performance can't still get 60fps in all games in 2023.

 

For competitive esports titles and older games, it's fine, but not for games like Jedi Survivor or The Last of Us. Diablo 4 it can probably give you 60fps+ at 1080p, but that's probably the only major AAA release this year so far where that's possible.

[jaslion]

The issue with the 12100 is that its bare minimum/falling under minimum for the latest games. 8 threads is absolute minimum for a stutter free experience. Hence why the 5600 or even the 4500 i

worst case gets recommended over it.

 

The a380 is not meant for gaming really. Its a display adapter card with a bit of power and it will do that fine.

 

Id say dont get a deskmeet but a small case + cheap b550 board + cheap 6 core ryzen as the core to simply have more power for the same budget.

 

An a380 is a bit better than last gen consoles (not the pro or one x) but given pc overhead isnt really a 1080p 60fps card either. Unless lowest settings is used but even then it doesnt.

 

For your budget id up it by 100 and opt for a rx6600 that starts you off well + the amd combo and you have a mean little gaming machine thatll play anything at good settings 1080p 60fps+

[Agall]

27 minutes ago, 8tg said:

What would you want to compare against? I’ve got a variety of hardware including an A380.

The A380 will do fine, my testing brings it in close comparison to a GTX 1060 6gb or 8gb RX580, with newer drivers. But not a whole lot more.

Its performance is interesting for its low power requirement but it’s definitely about to be held back in the newest games, people with Polaris and pascal cards are seeing that now.

A380 genuinely surprised me when I tested it and a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 are quite standard 1080p GPUs still regularly used from steam hardware surveys.

 

Its unlikely that I'd recommend it for a person intending to exclusively game on it, but maybe as a secondary GPU or special purpose GPU with its quad outputs and dedicated AV1 capable encoder.

 

34 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The issue with the 12100 is that its bare minimum/falling under minimum for the latest games. 8 threads is absolute minimum for a stutter free experience. Hence why the 5600 or even the 4500 i

worst case gets recommended over it.

 

The a380 is not meant for gaming really. Its a display adapter card with a bit of power and it will do that fine.

 

Id say dont get a deskmeet but a small case + cheap b550 board + cheap 6 core ryzen as the core to simply have more power for the same budget.

 

An a380 is a bit better than last gen consoles (not the pro or one x) but given pc overhead isnt really a 1080p 60fps card either. Unless lowest settings is used but even then it doesnt.

 

For your budget id up it by 100 and opt for a rx6600 that starts you off well + the amd combo and you have a mean little gaming machine thatll play anything at good settings 1080p 60fps+

Part of the purpose is an Intel only system as well, I could've easily just thrown the GPU in my R5 3600 and X570 motherboard that I have laying around, but I'm just stealing its RAM instead. The problem with the Deskmeet X300, aka the AMD version, is its only got PCIe 3.0 16x versus the B660 version's PCIe 4.0 16x.

 

SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 6600 Video Card 11310-01-20G - Newegg.com

 

This would fit, and get PCIe 4.0 support in the B660 Deskmeet, but noting its $100 more than the A380 that I already own. Its possible that extra $100 would be worth it, but that's partly what I intend to find out with the A380. $100 more isn't much in the context of the average graphics card of an enthusiast, but as a bare minimum, that's 1.2x the cost for the system.

39 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

The A380 is the problem here, and it's just not capable of giving a consistent 60fps experience in the most recent AAA titles. The A380 has performance comparable to a GTX 1650, 1050 Ti, RX 6400, RX 470, etc., and cards in that tier of performance can't still get 60fps in all games in 2023.

 

For competitive esports titles and older games, it's fine, but not for games like Jedi Survivor or The Last of Us. Diablo 4 it can probably give you 60fps+ at 1080p, but that's probably the only major AAA release this year so far where that's possible.

It generally out performs those cards, especially if you look at newer benchmarks. It started in that territory, but was limited by driver optimization, which has occurred with Intel Arc over the 6 months. I see benchmarks any older than 2 months for Intel Arc to be inaccurate because of that.

 

Yes there's better value dGPUs, but that's partly not the point. This is a bare minimum build, and you can't get a cheaper new GPU than $120 without going for the e-waste tier like a GT 710, GT 1030. Its a quad display output, dedicated encoder GPU with 6GB of VRAM for only $120, which is comparable to used GTX 1060 6GB in price and performance.

[YoungBlade]

1 hour ago, Agall said:

It generally out performs those cards, especially if you look at newer benchmarks. It started in that territory, but was limited by driver optimization, which has occurred with Intel Arc over the 6 months. I see benchmarks any older than 2 months for Intel Arc to be inaccurate because of that.

 

Yes there's better value dGPUs, but that's partly not the point. This is a bare minimum build, and you can't get a cheaper new GPU than $120 without going for the e-waste tier like a GT 710, GT 1030. Its a quad display output, dedicated encoder GPU with 6GB of VRAM for only $120, which is comparable to used GTX 1060 6GB in price and performance.

Here's a video from 2 weeks ago where it fails to hit 60fps in Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, RE4R, Jedi Survivor, and TLOU. Like I said, it cannot hit 60fps consistently in the newest AAA titles.

And its performance is about what I would expect from a GTX 1650 or RX 6400. Luckily, that same channel has a video for the GTX 1650, so we can get an apples-to-apples comparison. For the games tested that were the same at the same settings, the result is that the A380 is 14% slower in Horizon Zero Dawn, 15% faster in Forza Horizon 5, 13% faster in Cyberpunk, 5% faster in GTA V, 33% slower in Rocket League, 11% slower in CSGO. In other words, they trade blows, and are generally within 15% of each other, so on average are about the same.

 

I'm not saying that the card is bad value for a new card - for a new card, it's probably the best choice under $150 - but at that price point, I think it's foolish to ignore the used market. You can get a GTX 1070 or RX 5600XT for that price that will way out perform that A380, or an RX 580 8GB for almost half the price that will also perform better.

[Agall]

29 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Here's a video from 2 weeks ago where it fails to hit 60fps in Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, RE4R, Jedi Survivor, and TLOU. Like I said, it cannot hit 60fps consistently in the newest AAA titles.

And its performance is about what I would expect from a GTX 1650 or RX 6400. Luckily, that same channel has a video for the GTX 1650, so we can get an apples-to-apples comparison. For the games tested that were the same at the same settings, the result is that the A380 is 14% slower in Horizon Zero Dawn, 15% faster in Forza Horizon 5, 13% faster in Cyberpunk, 5% faster in GTA V, 33% slower in Rocket League, 11% slower in CSGO. In other words, they trade blows, and are generally within 15% of each other, so on average are about the same.

 

I'm not saying that the card is bad value for a new card - for a new card, it's probably the best choice under $150 - but at that price point, I think it's foolish to ignore the used market. You can get a GTX 1070 or RX 5600XT for that price that will way out perform that A380, or an RX 580 8GB for almost half the price that will also perform better.

I wouldn't expect it to outperform consoles in any of those games simply due to optimization. I know the card will struggle to run any ridiculously unoptimized AAA modern title like the ones you've mentioned.

 

So here's a scenario: What about a console gamer who wants a PC that can play the games that a console cannot, things like LoL, WoW, DotA, etc? Would a console gamer be more likely to drop $1000 on a new PC or opt for their console of choice and a ~$500 PC? Yes, you can get better value on the used market, but what if that's not available or worth the risk to the individual? They'd already be choosing to get a console instead of a more power PC.

[porina]

My own testing on A380 at 1080p:

Forspoken (launch version): FSR2 low or XeSS low - 30fps class

Blue Protocol: >75 at low

COD MWII: >60 at recommended performance (which sets XeSS performance)

Watch Dogs Legion: low 49fps average

SOTTR: native medium 40+, high+XeSS 50+

Genshin Impact: medium, SMAA (instead of default FSR2), motion blur off - 60fps class

FFXIV: standard desktop can hold 60fps cap (when not engine limited e.g. high number of people around)

WOWS: high can hold 60fps cap

 

 

I used 11700k but I suspect in most cases the GPU is the bigger limit, even with dropping down to a 4c8t.

 

[Agall]

6 minutes ago, porina said:

My own testing on A380 at 1080p:

Forspoken (launch version): low - 30fps class

Blue Protocol: >75 at low

COD MWII: >60 at recommended performance (which sets XeSS performance)

Watch Dogs Legion: ~45fps ball park (I don't have the final result on hand)

SOTTR: native medium 40+, high+XeSS 50+

Genshin Impact: medium, SMAA (instead of default FSR2), motion blur off - 60fps class

FFXIV: standard desktop can hold 60fps cap (when not engine limited e.g. high number of people around)

WOWS: high can hold 60fps cap

 

 

How's XeSS worked for you so far? I've only seen it as an option with Diablo 4 so far in my testing. I'll obviously be doing more mid next week when the rest of the parts arrive for the 12100f. In that game, it worked just fine and netted about 10 fps.

[porina]

1 minute ago, Agall said:

How's XeSS worked for you so far? I've only seen it as an option with Diablo 4 so far in my testing. I'll obviously be doing more mid next week when the rest of the parts arrive for the 12100f. In that game, it worked just fine and netted about 10 fps.

It's long enough ago I can't remember the details. I think it was comparable to FSR2 at similar setting.

 

Note I edited my post a little since you quoted, and I just spotted another thing to fix which I'll do after hitting reply.

[Agall]

21 minutes ago, porina said:

It's long enough ago I can't remember the details. I think it was comparable to FSR2 at similar setting.

 

Note I edited my post a little since you quoted, and I just spotted another thing to fix which I'll do after hitting reply.

I do the same thing, don't worry

 

I can see an argument for an RX 580 which are as low as $80 on Newegg. Problem with every listing I have is they're sold from other sellers, although shipped from Newegg. XeSS may provide benefit comparably, and AV1 encoding support. mITX size of an A380 is a benefit in some scenarios. We also don't know the maximum performance of the architecture yet with the immaturity of the drivers, which are getting better every update.

[Agall]

 

Hah, multiple game client installs go brrrr. LTT screw driver for scale.

 

[Agall]

On 6/29/2023 at 12:13 PM, porina said:

My own testing on A380 at 1080p:

Forspoken (launch version): FSR2 low or XeSS low - 30fps class

Blue Protocol: >75 at low

COD MWII: >60 at recommended performance (which sets XeSS performance)

Watch Dogs Legion: low 49fps average

SOTTR: native medium 40+, high+XeSS 50+

Genshin Impact: medium, SMAA (instead of default FSR2), motion blur off - 60fps class

FFXIV: standard desktop can hold 60fps cap (when not engine limited e.g. high number of people around)

WOWS: high can hold 60fps cap

 

 

I used 11700k but I suspect in most cases the GPU is the bigger limit, even with dropping down to a 4c8t.

 

So far for myself, I drove the system for several hours yesterday versus my main rig. I just set the display to 1080p 240Hz so I wasn't having to manually adjust to 1080p every time. 

 

I let Warframe default to about medium, 1080p, which was a very comfortable ~120 fps.

 

Diablo 4 defaulted to low, XeSS in Quality (high quality had weird tearing-ish behavior) ~90 fps, though would get some frame time spikes when traveling fast around the world mounted.

 

I don't plan to test any AAA games, since I feel like the best use case for this system (outside of its practical purpose yet unfulfilled) is as a PC gaming host. If WoW does another free weekend I might install it to see how it goes, but I won't be able to get to any major cities to see how well the 12100f fairs. 

 

So far its a neat little rig. I did have to make a custom fan curve for the CPU cooler since otherwise it would cycle quite often, even with the CPU at 80C max. The A380's cooler is doing just fine keeping it tamed, currently have it dialed up to maximum TDP in Intel's control software apart of the drivers. I did test some of those performance offsets and voltage offsets, however anything but +10 to performance offset was unstable.

 

I've considered this chassis for other builds, but those would involve an i3 13400 and an RX 6600 or such. I have some people who require smaller rigs and this would be a great size, being practically the minimum volume for a dGPU DIY system.

[porina]

What case is that?

 

Probably wont help most, but I see Asrock made a low profile version of the A380 as well now.

https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/Intel/Intel Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB/index.us.asp

Looks like it doesn't need a power connector.

[Agall]

21 minutes ago, porina said:

What case is that?

 

Probably wont help most, but I see Asrock made a low profile version of the A380 as well now.

https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/Intel/Intel Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB/index.us.asp

Looks like it doesn't need a power connector.

The low profile version is probably a better test GPU since it requires no aux VGA power, I haven't seen it retail yet to see what it'll cost though.

 

Its the Asrock Deskmeet B660. The X300 AM4 version doesn't have PCIe 4.0, which any card that's going in the system would likely be a PCIe 4.0 8x card, like an RTX 4060/ti, RX 6600, A380, etc.

 

The included power supply's fan is reversed so it'll actually intake through the rear and provide air to the CPU. Its clearly designed around a stock cooler. I don't think it would struggle handling an i5 13400/13500 with a thermalright cooler (which are pretty cheap) and having something like an RX 6600 or 4060. I'm tempted, maybe if the ~$180-190 RX 6600's that are 200mm or less come into stock I'll hop on one.

 

PowerColor Fighter Radeon RX 6600 Video Card AXRX 6600 8GBD6-3DH - Newegg.com example.

 

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4060 WINDFORCE OC 8G Graphics Card, 2x WINDFORCE Fans, 8GB 128-bit GDDR6, GV-N4060WF2OC-8GD Video Card - Newegg.com