Asrock Ryzen V2000 embedded board - 199 USD (US-CA, local pickup LA area)

[WANg]

Mine T740 runs just fine with quad sfp+ xl710 with all ports used and two of those ports use rj45 10g sticks.

yeah well, mine ran for years with a Solarflare SFN5122 (10GbE SFP DACs), a Mellanox MCX354A (with 40GbE DACs) or a SuperMicro 10GbE dual port X710 (also on SFP DACs)…but that’s because I had to find cards that have known low heat output (ballparking it to less than the ~20w TDP or similar to the E9173 quad port GPUs that used to be on them, but those boards are GCN4 and had a low profile cooler).

I also had SolarFlare 7 series and Celsio Terminator T4 cards lock up the t740 within 20 minutes due to heat build-up. The same cards ran fine if I leave the t740 open, card connected via a PCIe slot extender and away from the chassis with a USB powered fan slapped directly on top of the heat sink for the card, so I know it’s a cooling and not a power draw issue.

Once again, it depends on which card you have, and whether it can withstand the effects of having almost no active airflow path in the enclosure for hours, if not days or weeks at a time.

 

[louie1961]

Here's my first report. With two 8gb memory sticks and an NVME SSD drive, the lowest wattage I could achieve, while running pfSense was 20 watts. This isn't terrible compared to my N100 pfSense machine which runs at 17 watts idle. With the Emulex/IBM four port 10gbe NIC I picked up for $20 (https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/quad-10gb-sfp-nic-for-20.47492/) it idles at 30 watts with one DAC in it.

pfSense supported theIBM/Emulex card right out of the box, no drivers necessary. Surprisingly, it will work with 10 base T transceivers, sort of. With one transceiver, it seemed to work fine, with two, I couldn't complete the installation of pfSense. I am not sure if it is a power draw issue, or what. But the video would blank out half way through the install with two 10 base T transceivers. No issues with DACs.

The Realtek RTL8125BG LAN port would not work in pfSense at first. Once I got pfSense installed, I was able to install the required driver with a couple of simple commands and it seems to work fine Realtek Driver Upgrade Instructions for pfSense 2.7.2 – Blueprint Coders

I used this brick to power it. There is probably a more efficient power supply out there. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW598HV8

I think my biggest hassle was finding a DisplayPort to HDMI connector as this board only has DisplayPort outputs, and I don't use those here at all.

I may try to find a quieter CPU cooler/fan for this board. With the fan speed turned to its lowest of 5 settings, its still a little loud even though the CPU is sitting at 33 degrees. Overall I am pretty pleased so far, with both the motherboard and the Emulex 10gbe card.

 

[cmmh]

For what its worth, I low-balled an offer of 125 that got countered with 160. They still have a number of these in stock and I was hoping they were close to becoming motivated sellers.

 

[louie1961]

I have been playing with this board for a few days now and overall I am happy with it for the price. I will say, the cooling fan is way too loud and the the fan curve is not really adjustable. I swapped out the Everflow 80mm slim fan for an 80mm Noctua. I also removed the heat sink and replaced the thermal compound, which looked like it was from the tomb of an ancient Egyptian. In pfSense, before I made those changes, CPU temps were hitting 70+ degrees during an iperf3 test. After, it is hitting 59 degrees during the same test, even though the Noctua fan has a lower CFM rating. Also, for anyone playing with one of these and pfSense, turn off PowerD altogether. It doesn't save any wattage at all with this board but it does slow down the performance. I swapped out the no name power supply for a 90% efficient Meanwell GST120A24-P1M. Idle power consumption including fans and 10gbe card is 29 watts, and max during an iperf3 test is 65 watts

 

[hmartin]

Does anyone know of compatible heat sinks? The included heat sink seems very inadequate for the TDP of the CPU.

I haven't measured yet, but it looks like the standard Intel 75mm spacing. I am assuming that since the CPU has no IHS that the Z-height of a standard LGA115x heat sink won't work though.

 

[Phate]

I was playing around with this a bit ago. The heat sink mount points match perfectly with the LGA115x spacing. However, as you suspected the Z-height for the Ryzen v2718 doesn't come anywhere near what it should be for the LGA115x spec. I was using a Thermalright AXP90-X36 heatsink and swapped out the included standoffs for some M3 washers. It was not a very close contact, but it seemed to work, just not as good as the stock cooler. As I was paranoid with cracking the die so I didn't try and get any closer and eventually swapped back to the stock cooler.

I've been planning to get some proper messurements and 3d printing a LGA115x brace that would allow for the correct z-height, just haven't done it yet. Might try this next week while I've got some downtime.

 

[louie1961]

I used one of these, but I had to modify the screws to make it work. I ground off the little nubs on top and put them in upside down.

Amazon.com: Thermalright AXP90-X53 Black Low Profile ITX CPU Air Cooler, 53mm Height, TL-9015B Slim PWM Fan ITX CPU Heatsink Cooler Low Noise 22.4dba, 2700RPM, for AM4/ AM5/Intel 1700/1150/1151/1200/1851(Black) : Electronics

Buy Thermalright AXP90-X53 Black Low Profile ITX CPU Air Cooler, 53mm Height, TL-9015B Slim PWM Fan ITX CPU Heatsink Cooler Low Noise 22.4dba, 2700RPM, for AM4/ AM5/Intel 1700/1150/1151/1200/1851(Black): CPU Cooling Fans - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

 

[WANg]

Here's my first report. With two 8gb memory sticks and an NVME SSD drive, the lowest wattage I could achieve, while running pfSense was 20 watts. This isn't terrible compared to my N100 pfSense machine which runs at 17 watts idle. With the Emulex/IBM four port 10gbe NIC I picked up for $20 (https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/quad-10gb-sfp-nic-for-20.47492/) it idles at 30 watts with one DAC in it.

pfSense supported theIBM/Emulex card right out of the box, no drivers necessary. Surprisingly, it will work with 10 base T transceivers, sort of. With one transceiver, it seemed to work fine, with two, I couldn't complete the installation of pfSense. I am not sure if it is a power draw issue, or what. But the video would blank out half way through the install with two 10 base T transceivers. No issues with DACs.

The Realtek RTL8125BG LAN port would not work in pfSense at first. Once I got pfSense installed, I was able to install the required driver with a couple of simple commands and it seems to work fine Realtek Driver Upgrade Instructions for pfSense 2.7.2 – Blueprint Coders

I used this brick to power it. There is probably a more efficient power supply out there. Amazon.com: 24V Power Supply, 24V 6A Power Supply 100V-240V AC to 24V DC Power Supply with LED Terminal Connector, 24 Volt 6 Amp Power Supply 5A 4A 3A 2A 1A DC Adapter with 5.5x2.1mm Jack : Electronics

I think my biggest hassle was finding a DisplayPort to HDMI connector as this board only has DisplayPort outputs, and I don't use those here at all.

I may try to find a quieter CPU cooler/fan for this board. With the fan speed turned to its lowest of 5 settings, its still a little loud even though the CPU is sitting at 33 degrees. Overall I am pretty pleased so far, with both the motherboard and the Emulex 10gbe card.

Yeah, my t755 also idles at 19-20w, and that’s with 64GB of RAM, a single 1TB NVMe SSD and a Mellanox ConnectX-3 with a pair of 40GbE DACs (doing nothing connected to my N40L Microserver G7) while on Proxmox 7.4 running about 5-6 small VMs. The AMD Zen2s can be fairly efficient if it idles down. The Displayport adapter requirement also exists for the HP “big” thin clients - had to buy/use them for the t730/740/755s.

Did the Asus board support ECC out of the box? (The Ryzen embedded platform claims to support it, but it’s up to the implementors to add it).

 

[louie1961]

I didn't test it

 

[hmartin]

I used one of these

Did it lower CPU temperature at all? Or just a quieter alternative to the stock heat sink?

Did the Asus board support ECC out of the box? (The Ryzen embedded platform claims to support it, but it’s up to the implementors to add it).

I have not tested in Linux yet, but memtest showed ECC without any further configuration.

edit: ECC appears to be function OOB

[    0.408076] EDAC MC: Ver: 3.0.0
[    6.864114] EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module amd64_edac controller F17h_M60h: DEV 0000:00:18.3 (INTERRUPT)
[    6.864119] EDAC amd64: F17h_M60h detected (node 0).
[    6.864120] EDAC MC: UMC0 chip selects:
[    6.864122] EDAC amd64: MC: 0:  8192MB 1:  8192MB
[    6.864124] EDAC amd64: MC: 2:     0MB 3:     0MB
[    6.864126] EDAC MC: UMC1 chip selects:
[    6.864127] EDAC amd64: MC: 0:  8192MB 1:  8192MB
[    6.864129] EDAC amd64: MC: 2:     0MB 3:     0MB

# dmidecode 3.6
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.2.0 present.

Handle 0x000A, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
    Location: System Board Or Motherboard
    Use: System Memory
    Error Correction Type: Multi-bit ECC
    Maximum Capacity: 32 GB
    Error Information Handle: 0x0009
    Number Of Devices: 2

I haven't been able to get it to POST with 2x32GB ECC SODIMM modules, but I also haven't yet updated the BIOS from P1.10

edit2: 2x32GB is working after the BIOS update to P1.50, 2133MHz is the limitation of my memory, not the CPU




I have a really hard time believing the TDP of this CPU is 25W though. memtest86+ power consumption is 58W and memtest86 (not the open-source memtest86+) was 95W. Sure, the TFX PSU I'm using will add 10-15% though overhead, but there is no way a board with only two SODIMMs and no other devices is drawing 95W with a 25W TDP CPU.

 

[louie1961]

yes it definitely lowered the temp quite a bit. The original heat sink was not the same shape as the die on the Ryzen chip. Quieter to boot.

 

[Wasmachineman_NL]

Did it lower CPU temperature at all? Or just a quieter alternative to the stock heat sink?



I have not tested in Linux yet, but memtest showed ECC without any further configuration.

edit: ECC appears to be function OOB
View attachment 44577
View attachment 44576

[    0.408076] EDAC MC: Ver: 3.0.0
[    6.864114] EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module amd64_edac controller F17h_M60h: DEV 0000:00:18.3 (INTERRUPT)
[    6.864119] EDAC amd64: F17h_M60h detected (node 0).
[    6.864120] EDAC MC: UMC0 chip selects:
[    6.864122] EDAC amd64: MC: 0:  8192MB 1:  8192MB
[    6.864124] EDAC amd64: MC: 2:     0MB 3:     0MB
[    6.864126] EDAC MC: UMC1 chip selects:
[    6.864127] EDAC amd64: MC: 0:  8192MB 1:  8192MB
[    6.864129] EDAC amd64: MC: 2:     0MB 3:     0MB

# dmidecode 3.6
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.2.0 present.

Handle 0x000A, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
    Location: System Board Or Motherboard
    Use: System Memory
    Error Correction Type: Multi-bit ECC
    Maximum Capacity: 32 GB
    Error Information Handle: 0x0009
    Number Of Devices: 2

I haven't been able to get it to POST with 2x32GB ECC SODIMM modules, but I also haven't yet updated the BIOS from P1.10

edit2: 2x32GB is working after the BIOS update to P1.50, 2133MHz is the limitation of my memory, not the CPU

View attachment 44583
View attachment 44582

I have a really hard time believing the TDP of this CPU is 25W though. memtest86+ power consumption is 58W and memtest86 (not the open-source memtest86+) was 95W. Sure, the TFX PSU I'm using will add 10-15% though overhead, but there is no way a board with only two SODIMMs and no other devices is drawing 95W with a 25W TDP CPU.

TDP is not a indication of power use.

 

[hmartin]

TDP is not a indication of power use.

Yes, Thermal Design Power (TDP) is what the sustained thermal output of the CPU should be, not necessarily the power limit that it will remain under in all circumstances.

And it definitely seems like on this motherboard, it is not the power limit because the system will happily draw multiples of the 25W TDP. No wonder the stock heat sink sucks at keeping this cool.

 

[WANg]

TDP is not a indication of power use.

Not directly. it's indicating how much heat the APU die is allowed to generate during operations, and it's specified in firmware settings by the vendor and sometimes tunable. The higher the wattage limit, the more power the silicon package is allowed to consume to do useful tasks, although certain things on the entire machine (RAM, SSD, attached peripherals) will/can draw more.
You still have to take into account the cooler's efficiency and the point of thermal hysteresis (the point where the heat generated equals the heat sink's ability to wick/shed it to the environment) which can lead to throttling. Of course, having a CPU better microarchitecture and lithography/fab process helps as well.

 

[louie1961]

No wonder the stock heat sink sucks at keeping this cool.

I think the main issue with the stock heat sink is has a square contact surface that barely covered half of the rectangular CPU.

 

[smstewart_9554]

Does the PCIe slot support x4x4 bifurcation?

 

[louie1961]

Does the PCIe slot support x4x4 bifurcation?

Not that I saw in the BIOS

 

[smstewart_9554]

Not that I saw in the BIOS

Darn. Thanks!

 

[louie1961]

Just a follow up report on this motherboard. I am happy with it for the $150 I paid. I am not sure I would be too enthused about it if I paid more. I bought it with the intent of building a 10gbe router. Its kind of overkill for that, CPU-wise, and the Realtek NICs are a real PITA to deal with. Using either OPNsense or pfSense, I couldn't get those NICs to operate stablely. This board sat idle for a while, until I cam up with a different idea. I installed Proxmox on it, used DKMS to install the latest realtek drivers, and virtualized pfSense. It works great, but I also went further and turned this into my "edge server". I have a second VM installed as a docker host running nginx proxy manager, uptime kuma, and open speed test. I have three separate LXC containers for my cloudflared connector, crowdsec, and Pihole. So far its great. I have the board equipped with a 256 GB SATA drive, 16gb of memory and an intel x520 SFP+ dual port NIC. I am using the two onboard Realtek NICs as my WAN ports (I run redundant WANs) and one of the SFP + ports to connect to my managed switch (pfsense LAN) and the other for the Proxmox management interface. I decided to not use the M.2 NVME slot because it is on the bottom of the board, and I was having heat issues with it. Seems to be working very well so far.