The ASRock 4X4 BOX-4800U is a truly insane piece of kit. While barebones mini PCs are a dime a dozen, higher performance offerings are not. That is where the 4X4 BOX-4800U comes in; its 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 4800U mobile CPU dominates the benchmark charts compared to other mini-PCs, including the ECS LIVA Z3 Plus, which is in a similar price bracket. Even ASRock's A300 Deskmini, which uses a desktop processor and I highly recommend, gets left in the dust. Suffice it to say, the AMD's Ryzen 7 4800U may be a mobile chip, but it packs a huge punch considering its power-sipping ways. Using just 8 watts at IDLE, 44 watts when gaming, and around 60–65 watts when fully stressed, it's definitely not going to drive up the power bill. As for clock speeds, with the CPU and GPU maxed out, the CPU averaged 2.1 GHz, which is 300 MHz higher than the base clock AMD has set. When stressing just the CPU alone, clock speeds hover around 3.0 GHz. Of course, under very light workloads, the CPU regularly boosted to 4.0 GHz+. So with that said, the system definitely handles CPU tasks well, but more surprising is how well the AMD Radeon Vega 8 IGP performed. In some situations, it beat out the Vega 11 IGP in the Ryzen 5 2400G, which is impressive in its own right considering the latter is not as constrained by its TDP. It put out playable performance at 720P with GTA V and Fallout 4, as both ran quite well. The games even ran acceptably at 1080P, but it wasn't quite fluid enough for a truly enjoyable experience. As for emulation, the system knocked it out of the park, easily passing our PS2 tests, which include Metal Gear Solid 3, Onimusha Warlords, and Suikoden IV.

The overall build quality of the unit is very good as well, with no real complaints. Accessing the internals is easy, and even a complete teardown for cleaning is a breeze. ASRock also made sure to actually provide some level of upgradeability, and while not on the same level as with the Deskmini A300, it is still exceptional. Users have two SODIMM slots with a maximum capacity of 64 GB, an M.2 slot for NVMe or SATA SSDs, and a single 2.5-inch bay for a SATA HDD or SSD. That alone allows for a good deal of customization, which alleviates the issue of its high price tag somewhat. At nearly $600, the system is a touch expensive, and as configured, it balloons out to $880, which doesn't include the OS. ASRock does have other SKUs with more affordable pricing, including the 4X4 BOX-4500U and 4X4 BOX-4300U, which come in at $430 and $340, respectively.

The price can be lowered drastically by using a more reasonable amount of system memory and an entry-level SSD. Going with 16 GB of DDR4 3200 MHz, for example, drops the cost of memory from $220 to just $60, and with a bit of searching, you can save around $10 on the SSD. Those changes shave $170 off the top, which is enough to cut the as-tested price without an OS down to $700—a far more realistic price considering the performance one can expect.

Operating temperatures are one of the only major issues I have with the system. 90°C under heavy loads was regularly pushed, and while I didn't detect any thermal throttling, a slightly beefier heatsink would make for a quieter and cooler experience. That is not to say the system is exceptionally loud. In fact, it peaked at 44 dBA and sat at around 40–42 dBA on average. That said, making the unit slightly taller for a larger heatsink and improving ventilation would go a long way in helping. I imagine the Ryzen 4500U and 4300U based units likely don't encounter these issues as quickly or to the same extent, but considering the Ryzen 4800U is an 8c/16t CPU, it is going to put out some heat even if it has a tame TDP.

A few other thoughts also come to mind one of which is the fact the system has an extremely simplistic BIOS. This doesn't hurt performance, but it does mean you are not going to be doing a lot of tweaking. Essentially what you see is what you get. Another potential issue is the limited I/O, however, ASRock does offer great flexibility to make up for that. The USB 3.2 Type-C ports on the front can be used as DisplayPort 1.2a outputs, allowing users to connect up to four displays at 4K resolution and 60 Hz. That is something unique to the ASRock 4X4 BOX series. It also has dual LAN, so it's possible to set the system up as a PF sense box as well. Not to mention that it can easily be used as an HTPC or Home office system because of its performance. Honestly, the system is rather versatile and can fill many roles, which helps separate it from the pack.

Overall, the ASRock 4X4 BOX-4800U is an excellent system. While a tad expensive, it easily makes up for it with its versatility and high performance, which is comparable to an actual desktop without a bulky tower case.