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, 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.
It would be interesting to see the power consumption tests on units like this using something realistic like a pico psu unit. The unit you’re using here is complete overkill and I’m a little dubious about the efficiency at these demands. It’s only pulling about 3.3% of peak output. The efficiency isn’t measured at anything below 20% I think for this classification.
I can understand wanting to standardize the test rig as much as possible but question how much sense that really makes with such disparity in the platforms themselves. Nobody in the real world is going to use a $200 800+ watt PSU for an n3700 board. The attraction is in the low power and for many in the silence. I suppose if you have it in a closet as a NAS you might use some larger power supply you had on hand. But for htpc duty almost everyone is going to go for a pico psu unit.
It would be interesting to see the power consumption tests on units like this using something realistic like a pico psu unit. The unit you’re using here is complete overkill and I’m a little dubious about the efficiency at these demands. It’s only pulling about 3.3% of peak output. The efficiency isn’t measured at anything below 20% I think for this classification.
I can understand wanting to standardize the test rig as much as possible but question how much sense that really makes with such disparity in the platforms themselves. Nobody in the real world is going to use a $200 800+ watt PSU for an n3700 board. The attraction is in the low power and for many in the silence. I suppose if you have it in a closet as a NAS you might use some larger power supply you had on hand. But for htpc duty almost everyone is going to go for a pico psu unit.
It would be interesting to see the power consumption tests on units like this using something realistic like a pico psu unit. The unit you’re using here is complete overkill and I’m a little dubious about the efficiency at these demands. It’s only pulling about 3.3% of peak output. The efficiency isn’t measured at anything below 20% I think for this classification.
I can understand wanting to standardize the test rig as much as possible but question how much sense that really makes with such disparity in the platforms themselves. Nobody in the real world is going to use a $200 800+ watt PSU for an n3700 board. The attraction is in the low power and for many in the silence. I suppose if you have it in a closet as a NAS you might use some larger power supply you had on hand. But for htpc duty almost everyone is going to go for a pico psu unit.