ASRock N3150 Braswell Motherboard Round-up Review

Introduction and Specifications Integrated processors and motherboards aren't really in the direct interest of the enthusiast, where the focus is more on; in the word of Jeremy Clarkson, "POWAH". With limited output options and they very rarely have PCIe slots for additional add-in cards, they don't stack up to make the best option for the consumer market; so why are these even produced? To some, it's not about overall performance, but "will it run internet explorer, play 1080p videos and let me do basic work on?" I know many people who have an Intel Core i7 2600k (or similar) in an HTPC that is turned on once a week to play the odd movie from a pen drive. That's serious overkill for the task and not to mention the heat it would produce, or the cost of the build. Onboard processing (SoC) options are not only perfect for less demanding tasks but also run passively thanks to a built-in heat sink. How much does something like this cost? It can be as low as £50 for a no fuss setup, when it would roughly cost that much for just a CPU in most cases. Along with it being cheap, they are also efficient, drawing as little as 15W, so even the most budget friendly PSUs could run them (although we wouldn't recommend buying cheap power supplies). The sole purpose for Soc options like this is for media playback and web browsing, but how much different are they from the current top dog enthusiast CPU, the Intel Core i7-4770k? Let's find out. Key Features Despite these Braswell based motherboards being at the lower end of the spectrum, they do feature some nice features. At least 4 USB 3.0 ports Power gear Power Spike Protection For more information on these functions, please visit the N3150M, N3150B-ITX and N3150-ITX product pages. Packaging, A Closer Look & Layout Analysis - N3150-ITX The box follows the usual design for some of the lower market motherboard products from ASRock, plain and simple with the key features printed along the middle. Accessories are very simple, installation manual, driver CD, I/O shield and 2x SATA 6 cables. The first detailed look at the N3150-ITX leaves good impressions, with 4x SATA 6 powers, USB 3.0 header and a Mini PCIe slot for a wireless card. For such as basic option, ASRock have really thrown in the outputs here, 2x USB 2.0, 1x PS/2 port, 1x DVI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, 4x USB 3.0, 1x Gigabit LAN and HD audio. With ITX becoming more common in the consumer market, its a shame that a PCIe x16 slot wasn't implemented on this board for additional discrete graphics. All of the power that this motherboard requires is drawn from a 24-pin ATX connector. Along the side of the heatsink, we see the first SODIMM slot. Nothing interesting along the top of the board apart from the peculiar placed second SODIMM slot. Packaging, A Closer Look & Layout Analysis - N3150B-ITX Plain and simple packaging, with the key features printed along the middle. All the usual bit, such as installation manual, driver CD, I/O shield and 2x SATA 6 cables. Getting a look over the board, this lacks some features that were included on the N3150-ITX, such as dropping two SATA 6 ports and the mini PCIe slot. Looking at the I/O, this resembles more of an early 2000 motherboard thanks to the Parallel, D-Sub and COM ports. It's nice to see a company think of the past with customers who are likely stuck with aging technology. We have 2x PS/2 ports, 1x Parallel, 1x D-Sub, 1x COM, 1x HDMI port, 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 1x Gigabit LAN and 3x audio jacks. Moving to the bottom of the board, we can see that it has cut back on the features, most likely to save costs. Here it follows a similar design to the N3150-ITX. Packaging, A Closer Look & Layout Analysis - N3150M The box, once again, follows a simple design with all the usual details. The same package of accessories as the other two boards. Connectivity isn't too great on this board, possibly cutting options here to save money to implement the PCIe x16 slot. This board features 2x PS/2 ports, 1x D-SUB, 1x DVI, 1x HDMi, 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, 1x Gigabit LAN and 3x audio jacks. Along the bottom of the board, we have the usual connections such as USB 2.0 headers, front panel audio and switches, but there is also an additional Parallel port header; which is rare to find on a new motherboard. Moving back up the board, we see the CMOS battery, fan header, power connector and the start of the full-size DDR3 DIMM slots. Along the top of the board, is an additional fan header, USB 3.0 header and a USB 2.0 header. The Test System and Test Software Before we delve into any testing we would like to take this opportunity to review our test system. Test System Motherboard varies by review CPU: Intel N3150 and Intel Core i7-4770k @ stock GPU: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X graphics card RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3 1866MHz 16GB, Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3 1600MHz 16GB SODIMM Cooling: Passive Case: Lian Li T80 Test Bench Storage Drives: Main storage: Crucial M550 512GB, Test Devices: SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB SSD and Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit Networking: ASUS RT-AC68U router Test Software SiSoft Sandra Engineer - available here WPrime - available here Cinebench - available here 3DMark - available here Bioshock Infinite - available here Tomb Raider - available here AIDA 64 Engineer - available here Latencymon - available here Rightmark Audio Analyser - available here LAN Speed Test Lite - available here Passmark - available here All tests are conducted three times and the average taken to use in our charts. BIOS The UEFI BIOS has been around for some time now. Offering a more aesthetically pleasing version of the old school legacy BIOS with a user interface similar to a Windows program. I won't delve much into the BIOS features as the features have been covered before. The BIOS featured on this particular motherboard resembles the mainstream UEFI BIOS that ASRock has used in recent years. The first page gives a basic hardware overview. The advanced page is a little lack-luster compared to the bigger and badder overclocking brothers. The Tool page is what it says. You can flash the BIOS from a flash drive or internet connection and also configure the network connections. H/W monitor monitors the temperatures, fan speeds and voltages of the computer. Software Overview Manufacturers design a wide array of different software applications to aid in the day-to-day use of their new products. ASRock typically bundles a huge amount of software into the motherboards, but with these low spec boards; only two key applications were included. Restart to UEFI is extremely useful when trying to access the BIOS, especially if you have a faulty keyboard. Restart to UEFI is extremely useful when trying to access the BIOS, especially if you have a faulty keyboard. ASRock App Shop is incredibly useful, it allows you to pick and choose what drivers and/ or BIOS versions you want to update to and download key recommended apps. CPU Performance Cinebench CINEBENCH is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's CPU performance. Cinebench R15 is a totally free utility and is available for download here. Well, that's just what I was expecting, but I didn't actually know how far behind it was going to be. I added in the additional benchmark with the R9 290X to show that CPU performance wasn't affected from the swap from IGP to discrete GPU. When the Power Gear technology was enabled, the Normal and Sport modes were very similar, but the Eco mode does what I expected and reduced the performance; hopefully reduced it and the power consumption. WPrime wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions. wPrime is a free utility that is available for download here. Similar story here, although there is a larger margin between the ITX boards and the microATX board. SiSoft Sandra The SiSoft Sandra Dhrystone and Whetstone benchmarks are widely used measures of compute power and performance for a wide array of real-world usage scenarios. You can find out more details on these tests here or download SiSoft Sandra here. All 3 boards scoring almost exactly the same here. GPU Performance 3DMark 3DMark Firestrike is Futuremark's latest creation for testing the GPU performance of high-end gaming PCs using Direct X 11 graphics. You can download a free basic version of 3DMark here. The IGP just wasn't up to the task of FireStrike, but even adding the R9 290X shows how much the CPU bottles necks the performance. Tomb Raider Tomb Raider is a popular action-adventure video game published by Square Enix based on the Tomb Raider franchise. The game was released in 2013 and as of March 2014 had sold 6 million copies. Bioshock Infinite Bioshock Infinite is a first person shooter developed by Irrational Games that is the third instalment of the Bioshock series. The game is the last to be produced by Irrational Games before they announced their closure in February 2014. The game has sold over 4 million copies since its 2013 release. Similar story here again, IGP failing to provide any reasonable scores. The ASUS Z97 board is running the benchmarks at MAX settings while the others are at the lowest possible settings. Memory Performance For our memory tests we use the built-in memory benchmarks in AIDA64 Engineer and SiSoft Sandra. For more details on each of the benchmarks please see here and here respectively. AIDA64 Engineer SiSoft Sandra Combined Latency Test Here we had to mix memory due to the ITX boards only accepting SODIMM. However, the microATX board used the same memory as the ASUS Z97 and it just goes to show how limiting the CPU is on performance. SATA, M.2 and USB Performance To test the storage performance in our motherboard reviews we use AIDA's Disk Benchmark utility built into their AIDA64 Engineer Edition software package and run linear read and write tests. We run each of the benchmark tests on a SATA III, USB 3.0 and M.2 device. For SATA III testing we use a SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB, for USB 3.0 testing we use the Supersonic Magnum 256 GB USB 3.0 flash drive and for M.2 testing we use Plextor's 256GB M.2 M6e SSD. The drives are always formatted before use. Linear Read Linear Write There's not really much that can go wrong with SATA 6 and USB 3.0, they are rated at a specific speed and will get within 10-15% of that speed regardless of the motherboard/ CPU (assuming they accept the format). Networking Performance For our networking tests we connect the test system up to our Intel Gigabit-enabled ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard test system through the ASUS RT-AC68U router and run our tests. We opted for this over a direct point-to-point connection because we wanted to simulate real-world performance. For our WiFi tests we do the same except we connect the test system to the ASUS RT-AC68U router via WiFi at a distance of 2 metres from the router. LAN Speed Test Lite LAN Speed Test was designed from the ground up to be a simple but powerful tool for measuring file transfer, hard drive, USB Drive, and Local Area Network (LAN) speeds (wired & wireless). It does this by building a file in memory, then transfers it both ways (without effects of windows file caching) while keeping track of the time. Download the free Lan Speed Test Lite utility from here. In this test, the LAN options proved less than impressive and when both combined together; it was obvious on screen that both options didn't communicate well. Passmark Performance Test 8 The PassMark Advanced Network Test (which is part of PerformanceTest) is designed to test the data transfer rate between two computers both of which must be running PerformanceTest. One of the computers must act as the server and will sit waiting for a connection. The other computer acts as a client. It connects to the server machine and sends data to it for the duration of the test. You can download a trial version of PerformanceTest from here. Ethernet Passmark is a completely different test, showing how the new Killer E2400 option is the best currently available. The results are now being limited by the receiving LAN, but they are really close to the rated speed. Audio Performance RightMark Audio Analyser (RMAA) RMAA suite is designed for testing quality of analog and digital paths of any audio device. The results are obtained by playing and recording test signals passed through the tested audio path by means of frequency analysis algorithms. A more common mark is also provided for those unfamiliar with measured technical parameters. Available here. We run the RMAA test using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable connecting the line out to the line in to test the quality of the motherboard audio codec not any external audio devices. We run the complete playback and recording test at default settings and then get RMAA to interpret the results giving the below outputs. We sync the playback and recording audio devices to the same setting as the test for accurate results. Due to there being three boards, each with 3 results; the result screen shots would merge into one another and be harder to interpret; so here is a written version. 16 Bit, 44KHz (DVD Quality) N3150-ITX - Very good N3150B-ITX - Averga N3150M - Good 16 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) N3150-ITX - Very good N3150B-ITX - Good N3150M - Good 24 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) N3150-ITX - Very good N3150B-ITX - Good N3150M - Good Some very good results here, but the audio options on the N3150M and N3150B-ITX were less than impressive compared to the N3150-ITX. DPC Audio Latency Analyser DPC is a Windows tool that analyses the capabilities of a computer system to handle real-time data streams properly. It may help to find the cause for interruptions in real-time audio and video streams, also known as drop-outs. Despite using audio codecs that are on other boards, they provided poor latency compared to the ASUS Z97. Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption To measure power consumption we, use a "killawatt" meter and measure the total system power draw at the wall. We run three different use-case scenarios for 5 minutes and take the average reading. Now the N3150 options start making sense. A mere 31W load, or under 24W while watching a HD video makes this the perfect option for a HTPC. Temperatures To measure the temperatures, HWmonitor will be used. The idle temperature will be recorded from the average core temperature and load temperature will be measured after 2 minutes of Cinebench and Unigine Heaven running together. Well, those temperatures are very respectable, under 62°c at load. When the R9 290X is added, it produces extra heat itself, but the fans aided air circulation. Final Thoughts Pricing Finding prices for these motherboards was somewhat of a pain; due to the little demand for these products, very few enthusiast stores such as OverclockersUK, SCAN or Newegg will stock them. N3150B-ITX is currently at Newegg.com for $69.99; however it isn't listed for Europe. N3150-ITX isn't currently listed with our recommended retailers, but it can be found online for around £70. N3150M isn't currently listed with our recommended retailers, but it can be found online for around £60. Summary After those tests, it's clear that these aren't aimed at the gamer or enthusiast market due to the low performance and fairly limited outputs. These options are far more suited to the likes of a HTPC or basic web browsing/home office computer. They aren't exactly the best-looking options on the market, but for the price and the fact that there is a relatively huge heatsink in the middle; you can't really complain. The layout on the ITX boards is slightly irregular with one DIMM slot above and one beside the heatsink, but the reduction in motherboard size and oversize heatsink does lend itself to this layout. Performance obviously wasn't the best bang for buck option, it doesn't have the power for rendering, but it is perfect for 1080p video playback and day-to-day tasks. It also works very well with a good SSD drive to really bring down execution times. The one key feature which I thought was good with these options is the Power Gear technology. I used the N3150M with the R9 290X to test these features on. When enabled to Eco mode, there is very power consumption decrease, but the performance drops around 15%. When Sport mode is enabled, performance is impacted very little, but power consumption is increased by 6W. I believe that due to the extremely low power consumption and performance in the first place; these features weren't implemented properly. If this was used on low range options such as an i3, I believe we would see bigger changes. Now I have one major issue with these, power or lack of it; but then I think to myself "I'm only thinking this because I'm used to extreme computers with CPU's that could power a rocket". One actual issue that I've noticed through testing on the N3150M motherboard, the HDMI port is close to the USB 3.0 ports. This then prevents the use of wide USB devices as the HDMI cable is almost on top of the ports. Pros Very Cheap Passive Extremely low power MicroATX and ITX formats to suit most HTPC cases Cons Low range of SATA ports HDMI port on N3150M limits the use of wide USB devices Hard to find. "The N3150 range from ASRock is perfect for that HTPC you've been planning on building or for a low power workstation for office applications" Thank you to ASRock for providing this review sample.