ASRock DeskMini X300 and A300 mini PC barebones first to support up to an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G APU

Asus may have been first to release Renoir-powered mini PCs earlier this year, but ASRock is now reclaiming its leading position in the SFF market with the DeskMini X300 barebones that support the desktop versions of the Renoir processors, including the Pro versions. These are barebones only models, so users need to provide the processor, RAM and storage themselves, but ASRock is currently the only OEM to offer the X300-STM motherboards with advanced overclocking capabilities.

Users can equip the new X300 barebones with up to an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G octa-core APU, and can add up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM. On the storage side, there is support for 1x PCIe 3.0 X4 M.2 2280 and 1x M.2 2280 slots, plus 2x SATA3 connectors. Since the 1.92-liter SFF enclosure does not allow for dGPU mounting, users will have to make do with the integrated Vega graphics, which can output to the include HDMI / DisplayPort / D-Sub video connectors.

There is also support for an optional Wi-Fi + Bluetooth module via an M.2 E 2230 slot and the motherboard integrates a Realtek RTL8111H GbE NIC. Port selection for the new X300 barebones include: 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen1, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen1, 1x USB-A 2.0, 1x headphone jack, 1x Mic-in jack and 1x GbE jack.

As far as prices go, the X300 models should be available for around $200. However, based on the latest findings from users of the Chinese ChipHell forum, it looks like the X300 BIOS can be installed on the A300 models that are priced at around $150. This allows A300 users to add the more powerful Ryzen Pro APUs, but the A300-STX motherboards still cannot offer overclocking features for the processors and iGPUs, so the performance will be subpar compared to the X300-STX motherboards.