The mini PC market has a new product from ASRock, a company, well known for its motherboards and Mini PCs. Following up on their iBOX-R1000 Ryzen Embedded R1000 mini PC, the ASRock 4×4 Box is now available with either the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 processor or the AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 processor in a smaller form factor.
Right now, the new mini PC targets the industrial sector, and not the consumer market. This addition to the industrial motherboards and rugged mini PCs line, the 4×4 Box R1000 and V1000 offers more features and are designed to fit in a smaller case, hence the 4×4 name which likely refers to the 4″x4″ dimensions of the motherboard.
The AMD Ryzen Embedded is finding its way into all kinds of industrial and medical uses, because of its Radeon VEGA graphics capability and processing enhancements over the R or C series processors. The ASRock 4×4 Box takes full advantage of the Ryzen’s capability with Vega level graphics built in and available to three screen outputs. The next generation Zen core is 2C/4T in the R-Series and 4C/8T in the V-Series and allowing for faster processing speeds and graphics resolutions only seen in larger computers. The options for industrial uses, especially utilizing the V-Series, are more widely applicable.
The ASRock 4×4 Box specifications in common to both processors are as follows.
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- AMD Ryzen Embedded R-Series or V-Series
- Supports Dual Channel DDR4 SO-DIMM 2400MHz, up to 32GB
- 1 x HDMI, 2 x DisplayPort
- Supports Triple Display
- 3x USB 3.1, 2x USB 2.0
- 1x M.2 Key M, 1x M.2 Key E
- 2x Realtek LAN
- 12V DC-in
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The box is rugged plastic and measures 110 x 118.5 x 67.3mm (W x D x H) supports a Kensington lock and comes with a VESA mounting bracket. The WLAN is a 1x Wireless-AC 3168 Module.
The mini PC can be used in various applications including IoT, Kiosk, digital signage and is a thin client form factor. More details can be found in the respective product here and there.
Via Android PC.es
Stephen started writing about technology after publishing sci-fi short stories. His first White-Paper, written in 2008, was well received and inspired him to continue writing about technology. Today he writes in the technology space full time, covering a multitude of topics. During the time he wrote part-time he edited hundreds of titles for large publishers, in science and technology. He lives in Staten Island, with his wife and children.
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It’s ASRock Industrial and while the boxes have a watch dog they left the serial ports out? Manuals are not available. I expect the V1000 to cost more given the paucity of PCIe lanes on the R1000 (16 vs 8). Strangely both models expose the same IO. The DFI GH171 board at < $500 does for the v1608b a much better job: 1 M.2 x4 lanes, 2 x SATA 3, 1 PCIe x16 (electrical x8), serial ports if you are really into industrial apps, 4 DP++ if you are really into signage, 2x 1 Gbe LAN. This makes it much more polyvalent especially for thin clients or NAS. I built a NAS out of one with a Mellanox dual 40/56 Gbe, two mirroring WS Red 10 TB. It rsyncs with 3 low cost Odroid HC2 and provides about 28 Gbe with IPoIB using Samba to my workstations with IB cards. The other machines and SBCs use the 1 Gbe access. These ASRock thingies look like a strange crossover. I’m curious about how much they will sell them and to whom. Finally, let’s hope that AMD will reverse the trend to reduce the number of PCIe lanes and provides at least 16 of them.