ASRock Industrial’s 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series Brings Zen 3+ and USB4 40Gbps to UCFF Systems
ASRock Industrial’s NUC BOX (Intel-based) and 4X4 BOX (AMD-based) series of ultra-compact form factor machine lineups have become popular over the last few years. Being the first to market with the latest platform is one of the main reasons behind this. In 2022, the company launched his Intel Alder Lake and AMD Cezanne UCFF systems together, with the NUC BOX-1200 series and his 4X4 BOX-5000 series available for purchase within weeks. Earlier this year, his Intel Raptor Lake based NUC BOX-1300 series launched (review) and is already available for purchase. The company recently announced his 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 series based on AMD’s low-power Rembrandt-R APUs. These APUs will feature Zen 3+ cores along with RDNA2 iGPUs fabricated on TSMC 6nm process.
One of the key updates of the new 4X4 BOX system is the move to DDR5 SODIMM. Other updates to the platform, such as PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD and support for USB4 40 Gbps, bring it closer to parity with premium UCFF systems based on Intel processors. Full-fledged USB4 support, including PCIe tunneling, has been a bit of a hit or miss on AMD platforms. This is because many OEMs refrain from integrating and enabling the necessary board components. AMD itself had to do some work on the firmware side before this feature was baked into Rembrandt’s hardware and his subsequent APUs enabled. The good news here is that ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 series has two USB4 ports that can support DisplayPort 1.4 signaling and PCIe tunneling. That means your Thunderbolt 3 peripherals should work when plugged into these Type-C ports.
There are two types of 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 series. The specifications of both models are summarized in the table below.
| ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 (Rembrandt-R) Lineup | ||||
| model | 4X4 BOX-7735U/D5 | 4X4 BOX-7535U/D5 | ||
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 7735U 8C/16T 2.7 GHz (up to 4.75 GHz) 28W |
AMD Ryzen 5 7535U 6C/12T 2.9GHz (up to 4.55GHz) 28W |
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| CPU | AMD Radeon 680M (12 CU / 768 Shaders) @ 2.2 GHz |
AMD Radeon 660M (6 CU / 384 shaders) @ 1.9 GHz |
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| DRAM | Two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots Up to 64 GB DDR5-4800 in dual channel mode |
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| motherboard | 4.02″ x 4.09″ UCFF | |||
| depository | SSD | 1x M.2-22(42/60/80) (PCIe 4.0 x4 (CPU Direct)) | ||
| DFFMore | 1 × SATA III port (for 2.5″ drives) | |||
| wireless | Mediatek MT7922 (RZ616)? Wi-Fi 6E 2×2 802.11ax Wi-Fi (2.4Gbps) + Bluetooth 5.2 module |
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| ethernet | 1x 2.5GbE RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8125) 1x GbE RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8111EPV with DASH support) |
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| USB | front | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A 2x USB4 with DisplayPort 1.4a Alt Mode |
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| backward | 2x USB 2.0 Type A | |||
| display output | 1 x HDMI 2.1 (rear, up to 8Kp60) 1 × DisplayPort 1.4a (rear, up to 4Kp60) 2 × DisplayPort 1.4a (using front panel Type-C port, up to 4Kp60) |
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| audio | 1 × 3.5mm audio jack (Realtek ALC233) | |||
| PSUs | External (19V/90W) | |||
| size | Length: 117.5mm Width: 110mm Height: 47.85mm |
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Note that M.2 2280 support is enabled by a separate bracket, similar to previous NUC BOX and 4X4 BOX systems with 2.5 inch drive support and dual LAN capability.
Overall, these systems put the AMD UCFF scene on par with high-end Intel NUCs and their clones. Except for the new NUC BOX-1300/D5 series which has a Thunderbolt 4 port which also has USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support for 20Gbps PSSD. The USB4 port of 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 only supports up to USB 3.2 Gen 2 speed in legacy USB (non-PCIe tunneling) mode. The RDNA2 iGPUs in the new machines will also help these systems perform similarly to Alder Lake and Raptor Lake mini PCs in graphics-intensive workloads.
To clarify the market availability date and price, we have reached out to ASRock Industrial and will update the article as soon as we receive the details.
