ASRock VisionX 471D Review - Evolutionary Upgrades for a Powerful mini-PC

Networking and Storage Performance

We have recently started devoting a separate section to analyze the storage and networking credentials of the units under review. On the storage side, one option would be repetition of our strenuous SSD review tests on the drive(s) in the PC. Fortunately, to avoid that overkill, PCMark 8 has a storage bench where certain common workloads such as loading games and document processing are replayed on the target drive. Results are presented in two forms, one being a benchmark number and the other, a bandwidth figure. We ran the PCMark 8 storage bench on selected PCs and the results are presented below.

The JMicron JMF667H performs exceedingly well with the IMFT NAND - actually, good enough to score the best numbers in PCMark 8's storage bench for both the score and raw bandwidth. Obviously, the SSD upgrade is a huge benefit over the pure HDD-based VisionX 420D.

On the networking side, we restricted ourselves to the evaluation of the WLAN component. Our standard test router is the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk configured with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. The router is placed approximately 20 ft. away, separated by a drywall (as in a typical US building). A wired client (Zotac ID89-Plus) is connected to the R7000 and serves as one endpoint for iPerf evaluation. The PC under test is made to connect to either the 5 GHz (preferred) or 2.4 GHz SSID and iPerf tests are conducted for both TCP and UDP transfers. It is ensured that the PC under test is the only wireless client for the Netgear R7000. We evaluate total throughput for up to 32 simultaneous TCP connections using iPerf and present the highest number in the graph below.

In the UDP case, we try to transfer data at the highest rate possible for which we get less than 1% packet loss.

The VisionX 420D and 471D share the same Broadcom BCM4352 WLAN subsystem. It is a 2x2 802.11ac solution, and delivers better results compared to other 2x2 solutions such as the Intel AC7260 when used in conunction with the Broadcom-based Netgear R7000 router. Ideally, the 420D and 471D should deliver similar performance. The raw numbers are quite good for the 471D, but, for reasons probably related to antenna placement and system noise, they are a bit worse off compared to the 420D. On the subject of networking, it is also heartening to see the Intel I217-V Ethernet adapter enabling the Gigabit NIC.