ASRock DeskMeet B660 Review: An Affordable NUC Extreme?

System Performance: UL and BAPCo Benchmarks

Our 2022 Q4 update to the test suite for Windows 11-based systems carries over some of the standard benchmarks we have been using over the last several years, including UL's PCMark. New additions include BAPCo's CrossMark multi-platform benchmarking tool, as well as UL's Procyon benchmark suite. BPACo recently updated their SYSmark benchmark suite - while operational at a basic level, it is missing key features such as energy consumption measurement. We will start including SYSmark 30 once the open issues are resolved.

UL PCMark 10

UL's PCMark 10 evaluates computing systems for various usage scenarios (generic / essential tasks such as web browsing and starting up applications, productivity tasks such as editing spreadsheets and documents, gaming, and digital content creation). We benchmarked select PCs with the PCMark 10 Extended profile and recorded the scores for various scenarios. These scores are heavily influenced by the CPU and GPU in the system, though the RAM and storage device also play a part. The power plan was set to Balanced for all the PCs while processing the PCMark 10 benchmark. The scores for each contributing component / use-case environment are also graphed below.

In CPU-bound components like 'Essentials' and 'Productivity', the DeskMeet B660 manages to snag one of the top two spots thanks to its CPU prowess as well as high RAM speeds. However, components that bring the GPU into the equation drag down the system - after all, a Radeon RX 6400 is no match even for a RTX 2070 when it comes to graphics capabilities. Overall, we see the DeskMeet B660 slot in just above the Ghost Canyon NUC.

UL Procyon v2.1.544

PCMark 10 utilizes open-source software such as Libre Office and GIMP to evaluate system performance. However, many of their professional benchmark customers have been requesting evaluation with commonly-used commercial software such as Microsoft Office and Adobe applications. In order to serve their needs, UL introduced the Procyon benchmark in late 2020. There are five benchmark categories currently - Office Productivity, AI Inference, Battery Life, Photo Editing, and Video Editing. AI Inference benchmarks are available only for Android devices, while the battery life benchmark is applicable to Windows devices such as notebooks and tablets. We presents results from our processing of the other three benchmarks.

The performance of all the MS Office components follow the same pattern as per expectations - the Core i7-12700F in the DeskMeet B660 slots exactly in the middle of the pack, between the Core i9-11900KB and the Core i9-12900 in the Beast Canyon and Dragon Canyon respectively. This comes as no surprise, as the workloads are reflective of the CPU performance, with the GPU playing little to no role.

Moving on to the evaluation of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom, we find the pattern in the scores to be similar to that of the Office workloads. The GPU again appears to play no role in the final standings.

UL Procyon evaluates performance for video editing using Adobe Premier Pro, and GPU acceleration plays a significant role here. The Radeon RX 6400 has no encoding acceleration capabilities for any codec, and the workload falls back purely to the CPU. This is no match for the hardware-accelerated scenarios in all the NUC Extreme models, resulting in the DeskMeet B660 coming in last in video editing performance.

Given the absence of SYSmark scores and workload energy consumption numbers for the foreseeable future, we opted to record energy consumption numbers for each of the above Procyon components.

The DeskMeet B660 configuration is the only system in the list using a discrete GPU operating solely within the 75W provided by the PCIe slot. This also translates to lower power consumption numbers at the wall during active workloads. Despite not faring too well in the performance numbers, we find that the DeskMeet B660 is frugal in terms of the energy consumed while processing each workload component.

BAPCo CrossMark 1.0.1.86

BAPCo's CrossMark aims to simplify benchmark processing while still delivering scores that roughly tally with SYSmark. The main advantage is the cross-platform nature of the tool - allowing it to be run on smartphones and tablets as well.

The relative performance seen in the overall PCMark 10 scores translate to CrossMark also. The only disappointing score is in the responsiveness numbers. As we shall see further down in this review, our choice of storage device was not very optimal for the system.