Beelink SER4 Review – Windows 11, Ubuntu 20.04, and “overclocking” AMD Ryzen 7 4800U SoC

Beelink SER4 review

Beelink has released the SER4 which is the latest in their ‘SER’ mini PC series and it features a Zen 2 AMD mobile processor. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu and dabbled with ‘overclocking’.

The Beelink SER4 physically consists of a 126 x 113 x 40mm (4.96 x 4.45 x 1.57 inches) square metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses AMD’s 7 nm Zen 2 Ryzen 7 4800U Renoir processor which is an eight-core 16-thread 1.8 GHz mobile processor boosting to 4.2 GHz with Radeon Graphics.

The front panel has an illuminated power button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a Type-C USB 3.1 port with Alternate Mode, dual USB 3.1 ports, and a reset pin-hole ‘CLR CMOS’.  The rear panel includes a gigabit Ethernet port, a USB 3.1 port and a USB 2.0 port, dual HDMI 2.0 ports, and the power jack.

Internally there is an M.2 2230 WiFi 6E (or 802.11ax) Mediatek MT7921K card which supports the new 6 GHz band, an M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD drive (the review model included a 500 GB Intel 660p drive complete with Windows 11 Pro installed) and the ability to add a 2.5” SATA drive to the lid which is connected to the motherboard via a short ZIF cable:

Beelink SER4 motherboard

There are also two SODIMM memory slots supporting up to 64 GB of memory and the review model included two sticks of Crucial 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz memory for a total of 32 GB noting that this particular memory is single-rank:

AMD Ryzen single-rank memory

The specifications state:

Beelink SER4 specifications

and the Beelink webpage lists all of the USB ports as 3.0 so I tested them together with the Type-C USB port using a Samsung 980 PRO PCle 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD housed in a ‘USB to M.2 NVMe adapter’ (ORICO M2PAC3-G20 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure) which showed that the ‘blue’ USB ports were USB 3.1 (USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 i.e. 10 Gbit/s):

windows blue usb 3.1 gen1

ubuntu blue usb 3.1 gen1

and the ‘black’ rear USB port was USB 2.0:

windows black usb 2.0

ubuntu black usb 2.0

Box contents

In the box, you get a power adapter and cord, both a short and a longer HDMI cable, a VESA mounting bracket together with a small packet of miscellaneous screws. Also included is a multilingual user manual:

Beelink SER4 power supply & user manual

 

Review Methodology

When reviewing mini PCs, I typically look at their performance under both Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) and compare them against some of the more recently released mini PCs. Where possible I now review using Windows 11 version 21H2 and Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS and test with a selection of commonly used Windows benchmarks and/or equivalents for Linux together with Thomas Kaiser’s ‘sbc-bench’ which is a small set of different CPU performance tests focusing on server performance when run on Ubuntu. I also use ‘Phoronix Test Suite’ and benchmark with the same set of tests on both Windows and Ubuntu for comparison purposes. On Ubuntu, I also compile the v5.4 Linux kernel using the default config as a test of performance using a real-world scenario.

Prior to benchmarking, I perform all necessary installations and updates to run the latest versions of both OSes. I also capture some basic details of the device for each OS.

Installation Issues

On Windows running the pre-installed AMD Radeon Software (version 21.6.1) errored with a software and driver version mismatch:

radeon software and driver versions do not match

However, this was easily resolved by downloading and installing the latest version (22.3.1):

AMD Ryzen 7 4800U radeon software fixed

Normally, I install WSL2 so I can easily copy across software and results to my server. Unfortunately having completed the installation with the default Ubuntu distro, running GPU Z caused the SER4 to crash with a blue screen:

Windows 11 BSOD

So I had to reset the PC as even after a restore it would still crash. After benchmarking and whilst looking into this issue further, I found that with WSL2 installed crashes also happened when running other applications including 3DMark’s Firestrike and PCMark10. Currently, no solution has been found for this issue other than not installing WSL2.

Otherwise, running the benchmarks went smoothly with the exception of the ‘Selenium’ test from the ‘Phoronix Test Suite’. When running the test with ‘Chrome’ selected it errored with the message ‘The test quit with a non-zero exit status’. This is typically caused by the benchmark driver used by the test not supporting the newest Chrome release and has been encountered before. As a result, the Octane tests were run manually and edited into the final results.

Finally, on Ubuntu 20.04.4 the ‘dmesg’ showed some ACPI errors and the significance of which was unknown at the time of testing:

Beelink SER4 ACPI errors

Windows 11 Performance

Initially, the Beelink SER4 came installed with a licensed copy of Windows 11 Pro version 21H2 which after applying updates was build 22000.556. A quick look at the hardware information shows it is aligned to the specification:

windows-11-configuration-hwinfo64 Beelink-SER4-windows-11-disk-management SER4 windows info windows 11 hwinfo64 AZW SER 4 windows 11 gpu-z AMD Radeon Renoir

A brief check showed working audio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and video output from the USB Type-C port:

Beelink SER4 dual monitor windows 11 type-c video

I then set the power mode to ‘High performance’ and ran my standard set of benchmarking tools to look at performance under Windows:

I also tested Cinebench R23:

Beelink SER4 windows 11 cinebench r23 benchmark

For my specific set of Phoronix Test Suite tests the results were:

windows 11 phoronix overview Beelink SER4

All these results can then be compared with other recent mini PCs:

windows 11 mini pcs comparison april 2022

The results show good CPU and iGPU performance given the increased core/thread count however in contrast the NVMe performance is slower, especially for ‘writes’.

After shrinking the Windows partition in half and creating a new partition I installed Ubuntu using an Ubuntu 20.04.4 ISO as dual boot. After installation and updates a brief check showed working audio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and video output from the USB Type-C port:

ubuntu usb type-c video output

The key hardware information under Ubuntu 20.04.4 is as follows:
Ryzen 7 4800U ubuntu info
ubuntu-disk-management-512GB-SSD


I then set the CPU Scaling Governor to ‘performance’ and ran my Linux benchmarks for which the majority of the results are text based but the graphical ones included:

AZW SER 4 ubuntu geekbench 5 cpu Beelink SER4 ubuntu heaven

and the latter can be directly compared to when run in Windows using the OpenGL render:

AZW SER 4 windows heaven opengl

I also ran PassMark PerformanceTest Linux:

Beelink SER4 ubuntu cpu passmark

which can be directly compared to the results from when it was run on Windows:

CPU & memory passmark for Beelink SER4

For the same set of Phoronix Test Suite tests the results were:

Beelink SER4 ubuntu pts overview

The complete results together with a comparison against other recent mini PCs are:

linux mini pcs comparison april 2022

again highlighting the improved processor performance but slower NVMe speeds.

Video Playback in Browsers & Kodi

For real-world testing, I played some videos in Edge, Chrome, and Kodi on Windows and in Firefox, Chrome, and Kodi on Ubuntu. No issues were encountered playing up to 4K 60 FPS videos.

I also attempted playing an 8K 60 FPS video on YouTube on both Windows and Ubuntu but regardless of browser the video continually stalled:

Ryzen 7 4800U mini PC windows 8k chrome Ryzen 7 4800U mini PC ubuntu 8k chrome

Gaming on an AMD Ryzen 7 4800U mini PC

Given the Unigine Heaven scores, I decided to test three games under Steam  (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Grand Theft Auto V and Shadow Of The Tomb Raider) at both 1080p and 720p using default settings in both CS:GO and GTA V and with the graphical preset of ‘high’ and ‘low’ in the built-in benchmark of SOTTR. The very respectable average FPS results were as follows:
Ryzen 7 4800U windows sottr 1080p high
Beelink SER4 ubuntu sottr 720p low Ryzen 7 4800U mini PC gaming

with Ubuntu out-performing Windows.

The SER4 uses active cooling which is very effective. Running a stress test on Ubuntu saw the CPU temperature climb to a peak of 62°C where it remained for the duration of the test:

Beelink SER4 ubuntu stress test

During the stress test, the maximum temperature I recorded on the top of the device was around 29.4°C in an ambient room temperature of 23.3°C and the fan whilst audible was not excessively loud reaching 48 dBA on my sound meter next to the device during the test and around 38 dBA when idle. Note that Beelink are in the process of releasing a new BIOS which alters the fan curve such that the fan is inactive under low to medium loads resulting in this being a very quiet mini PC however the review testing was performed using BIOS version 1.08.

If the CPU frequency is monitored during the stress test it can be seen that it averages 2835 MHz:

Beelink SER4 ubuntu cpu frequency

which is much lower than what the CPU is capable of.

Networking (WiFI and Ethernet)

Network connectivity throughput was measured on Ubuntu using ‘iperf’:

Beelink SER4 network throughput

Using Dual-Rank Memory and Increasing the Power Scheme

Initially, I wanted to see the effect of running dual-rank memory however I didn’t have two 16GB sticks but did have two 32GB sticks of 3200 MHz RAM so I installed them:

AMD Ryzen 7 4800U 64GB RAM

As I didn’t notice much of a performance gain I decided to also look at increasing the power.

windows throttlestop CPU not supportedThe BIOS Power On Reset (POR) maximum setting is 25W and the CPU frequencies achieved during the stress testing are not very high given there was plenty of headroom as the CPU temperature only reached 62°C. Interestingly the CPU is not supported by ThottleStop.

So by using ‘RyzenAdj’ from Jiaxun Yang (FlyGoat) I experimented with adjusting the power management settings. I found the highest CPU clocks could be achieved by setting the Actual Power Limit (PTT Limit Fast) to 50 W, the Average Power Limit (PPT Limit Slow) to 50 W, and the Sustained Power Limit (STAPM Limit) to 50 W:

windows ryzenadj Ryzen 7 4800U

 

Beelink SER4 ubuntu ryzenadj ubuntu overclock-power limits cpu frequency

This effectively doubles the power and rerunning some of the tests showed significant improvement. For example with PassMark PerformanceTest, Geekbench and Heaven on Windows:

Beelink SER4 windows overclock passmark windows oc geekbench 5 cpu Beelink SER4 windows overclock heaven

and on Ubuntu:

Overclocked Ryzen 7 4800U ubuntu passmark benchmark Overclocked Ryzen 7 4800U-ubuntu geekbench 5 cpu Overclocked Ryzen 7 4800U ubuntu heaven

Some other Windows benchmarks achieved very impressive results :

3Dmark fire strike windows 11 overclocked Ryzen 7 windows overclocked cinebench windows overclocked cinebench r23

Unfortunately, even though the Unigine Heaven scores improved this wasn’t reflected with significant gaming improvements, primarily as the games were already GPU bound:

Overclocked Ryzen 7 4800U-windows sottr 1080p high Overclocked Ryzen 7 4800U ubuntu sottr 720p low

The obvious drawback of increasing the power besides using more electricity is that the fan ramps up more frequently and more often to its maximum although this will depend on the version of BIOS used (see the note in ‘Thermals’ above).

Power Consumption

The power consumption for the stock configuration was measured as follows:

  • Initially plugged in – 1.0 Watts
  • Powered off (shutdown) – 0.4 Watts (Windows) and 0.4 Watts (Ubuntu)
  • BIOS*  – 18.7 Watts
  • GRUB boot menu – 17.2 Watts
  • Idle – 5.6 Watts (Windows) and 4.1 Watts (Ubuntu)
  • CPU stressed – 36.1 Watts (Windows ‘cinebench’) and 30.8 Watts (Ubuntu ‘stress’)
  • Video playback** – 25.4 Watts (Windows Edge 4K60fps) and 30.6 Watts (Ubuntu Chrome 4K60fps)

*BIOS (see below)
**The power figures fluctuate notably due to the fan so the value is the average of the median high and median low power readings.

Powering up the mini PC and hitting the F7 key results in a boot menu that includes access to the BIOS. The BIOS is unrestricted and the following video includes both the ‘POR’ and ‘Auto Power On’ settings:

Final Observations

Whilst the supplied memory is single-rank, a slight improvement can be gained by using dual-rank memory. Additional performance gains can be achieved by using a faster NVMe drive. However, even though the OOTB (out-of-the-box) experience is satisfactory, by far the most impressive and best performance gains are from increasing the power settings whilst not encountering thermal throttling.

HighlightsLimitations
Power tweaks achieve excellent price-performanceNo SD card slot
Additional SATA drive expandabilitySlow NVMe drive
Stylish designSingle-rank memory

I’d like to thank Beelink for providing the SER4 for review. It retails at around $749 for the tested configuration from Beelink or Amazon.

Share this:

Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress

ROCK 5 ITX RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
The comment form collects your name, email and content to allow us keep track of the comments placed on the website. Please read and accept our website Terms and Privacy Policy to post a comment.
1 Comment
oldest
newest
FreekieDeCakie
FreekieDeCakie
2 years ago

4.1W idle is lower than a Pi4B with the original firmware 🙂

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products