A number of Tom's Hardware editors are excited about the trend towards smaller, faster PCs after witnessing Chris Angelini’s love affair with Falcon Northwest's Tiki. At the same time, we still remember that expensive pre-built systems were outside of our budgets back when we actually had to pay for the latest hardware (Ed.: Hey, I paid for the Tiki with my own money). Sharp memories like those help us keep a proper perspective on the reasons enthusiasts like to build their own boxes.
ASRock thinks it has the perfect do-it-yourself solution in the M8 PC. But is this system really all that special? Isn’t it just another fancy case with conventional, standardized parts inside? Couldn’t we just buy a mini-ITX motherboard, an SFX power supply, and a slim gaming case of our choosing?

Designed with a riser to accommodate extra-large graphics cards, enclosures that leveraged this concept aren't very common any more. Maybe they were ahead of their time, or perhaps enthusiasts simply didn't "get it". But with compact towers introducing us to flagship-class hardware in ever-small spaces, ASRock sees this as the perfect time to re-introduce the concept to our do-it-yourself community.
Rather than forcing builders to figure out on their own (the hard way) that they need special cables to connect a standard board to a slim optical drive, the company even goes so far as to include the drive itself. And rather than watch us all argue over the various power supply form factors that erroneously get labeled microATX, ASRock installs a 450 W SFX unit at its own factory. And since ASRock just so happens to be a motherboard manufacturer, it ties everything together using an upgraded version of its Z87-ITX.
| ASRock M8 Barebones PC Configuration | |
|---|---|
| Chassis | |
| Model | ASRock M8 miniITX Slim Tower |
| Expansion Slots | 2 x full-height on riser card |
| Internal Bays | 5 x 2.5", or 1 x 2.5" + 1 x 3.5" |
| Power Bay | SFX, front-mounted, internal extension cable |
| Optical Bay | 5.25" slim, front-loading-only |
| Front Panel I/O | 4 x USB 3.0, headset, flash media interface (SD/MMC/MS PRO) |
| Fans | 2 x 70 mm bottom, 2 x 70 mm top |
| Dimensions | 15.8" (H), 4.9" (W), 14.7" (D), 16.25 Pounds |
| Motherboard | |
| Model | ASRock Z87-M8: LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express |
| External Data | 4 x USB 2.0, 4 x USB 3.0, eSATA, 1x gigabit Ethernet |
| External Audio | 5 x Analog, 1 x S/PDIF |
| External Video | 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI |
| Internal Ports | 6 x SATA 6Gb/s (shared w/eSATA), 2 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0 |
| Internal Slots | 1 x PCIe x16, 1 x mini-PCIe (filled w/Wi-Fi), 2 x SO-DIMM |
| Maximum Memory | 2 x DDR3 SO-DIMM (all standard speeds and capacities) |
| Gigabit Ethernet | Intel WGI217V PHY |
| Wireless Network | Broadcom BCM4352 802.11ac dual-band, 867 Mb/s |
| Audio Controller | Creative Sound Blaster Core3D |
| Other Features | |
| Optical Drive | Lite-On DC-8A2SH 8x DVD-RW (slot-loading) |
| Power Supply | FSP450-60GHS(85)-R: 450 W, dual eight-Pin PCIe, 80 PLUS Bronze |
| Cooling | 4 x 70 mm 4000 RPM Fans |
| Warranty | One Year |
| Price | $550 |
| CPU, CPU Cooler, Hard Drives, RAM, Operating System And Peripherals Not Included | |
If we subtract the cost of its expensive slot-loading optical drive and power supply, we end up paying $400 for a very nice compact motherboard and BMW-designed feature-packed case. Two hundred dollars each for a motherboard and case isn’t cheap, but it still pushes us towards a far less expensive build compared to the pre-configured systems we’ve recently tested. We'reready for a closer look!
Flipping the case around from our cover photo, we see that ASRock's M8 is actually an upside-down tower. The benefit of this design is that most of its cables will be closer to the desk. You didn’t plan on putting this on the floor, did you?

A pop-down panel up front fills the space between the main chassis and one of its handles, exposing a USB 2.0-based flash media interface, along with microphone and headphone jacks. Four USB 3.0 ports above it are always exposed and improperly color-coded to visually blend in.

The M8 top panel features two 70 mm fans behind a fractal-pattern grill. A lock towards the rear secures magnetically-attached side panels.

The M8’s base repeats the pattern on top, holding two more 70 mm fans.

Though it has two slots, the M8’s rear panel can hold a single card up to 1.7” thick with all bays filled. We found an additional ¾” of GPU cooling space available without drives in its two closest drive bays, though a mounting bracket protrudes 3/16" inward from the slot brackets. Drive thickness and GPU cooler design dictate how far we can overstuff this area of the case.

ASRock similarly quotes an 11.4” card length limit, although we measure 12.5”.
The M8’s flashy side is actually the back of its motherboard tray, which is highlighted with an X-shaped red anodized ribbon and M8-logo power cable guide. Eight moderately strong magnets secure its unlocked cover panel.

Flipping around to the “business” side, we see that the Z87-M8 motherboard’s PCH, mini-PCIe slot, and SATA connectors are all moved forward compared to its Z87E-ITX sibling, making room around Creative’s Sound Blaster Core3D processor. Since the SATA ports now cross into the space occupied by the Z87E-ITX’s DIMMs, ASRock substitutes shorter SO-DIMM slots on the Z87-M8.

The 450 W power supply by FSP surprises us with its two 6+2-pin auxiliary power connectors. In theory, that would allow the platform to power a GeForce GTX 690, except that all of that output is carried by only three +12 V leads. ASRock recommends a graphics power limit of 200 W, probably because each of the PSU's two rails has a 216 W limit. Still, that gets you into GeForce GTX 680 territory.

Graphics cards load from the top, and getting there requires you to remove one of the handle brackets along with two bars. A slide-in card holder is found inside.

The top panel features an exhaust fan up front and an intake around back, likely configured to assist cooling of cards that vent from both ends (such as the aforementioned GeForce GTX 690). Bottom-panel fans feature the same configuration.

Opening the system up is just the first step before actually getting hardware into ASRock's M8. With the card bracket out of the way, we can more clearly see into the enclosure's top section.

The upper hard drive tray is attached to the top of the motherboard tray, and is easily viewed with the riser card removed.

This is what the graphics card bracket, riser card with bracket, and multi-drive tray look like once they’re taken out. There's more than meets the eye when it comes to that tray, too.

It splits into two pieces to support two 2.5” drives on the top, one 2.5” drive on the bottom, and one 2.5” drive under the stepped-down section of the top. The bottom is also compatible with a single 3.5” drive, though putting one there prevents the top from fitting. In the end, you can choose between four 2.5” drives or one 3.5” disk mounted here.

Another 2.5” drive bay resides under the power supply. This extends the maximum number of supported 2.5” drives to five, though you could also use the one 3.5" repository in the drive tray and one 2.5" storage device under the PSU.

The M8’s installation kit includes four medium-length and two extra-short SATA cables, a power cord, screws, a hex key for the exterior handles, a card support bracket, keys for the side-panel lock, rubber side-panel feet for horizontal installations, and an ASRock-branded ballpoint pen.

ASRock doesn’t support screw-on CPU coolers in the M8, but we do. Installation difficulties are caused by a motherboard tray that lacks access hole (which we imagine the BMW team found too ugly) and installed cables that make the motherboard tedious to remove.

Maximum supported heat sink height is approximately 80 mm, minus whatever space above that the cooler needs to function properly. Most of the coolers in this lab are either too big to fit or too small to facilitate any meaningful overclocking. The Xigmatek Janus fits with 20 mm to spare, so I upgraded its 120 x 15 mm fan to Noctua’s thicker NF-120 120 x 25 mm fan. We even arranged an upcoming cooling round-up to explore our other low-profile options.

Because the lower drive bay is tough to access, I decided to mount an SSD on the upper tray. I also chose the most unusual position of that tray to show how the fourth drive fits. Unfortunately, support tabs for the drive mount above it block access to its screws. Thanks again, BMW?

A double-slot graphics card can be secured using screws, a flip-down bracket, or both. The bracket is shown unlatched.

The double-slot graphics card has plenty of breathing room, even with the drive cage installed.
Everything fits nicely, and we get an extra 10 mm of space between the fan and side panel to keep air flowing properly. Since the bottom panel's front fan is an intake and its rear fan an exhaust, we only hope that the exhaust fan is able to pull heat away from this cooler.

The side-panel windows have dark tint, inviting flashy users to install a lighted fan on their CPU cooler. My hopes of improved thermal performance prevented me from using the lighted fan supplied with my chosen CPU cooler.

The front-panel button features an OLED screen with system status monitoring, time, audio system volume, and power profile settings all available at the turn of a knob.
Unfortunately, our build did not end there. Even with a moderately-sized heat sink and oversized fan, the system throttled any time we ran the eight-thread AVX-optimized copy of Prime95 we like to use for burn-in. You might be tempted to call that an unrealistic or even unreasonable load, but we always test for worst-case scenarios. After all, who’s to say that someone won’t develop a similarly-stressful method to accelerate something practical, such as Folding@home?
Thermal throttling probably wouldn’t affect our benchmark suite, and I want that baseline to represent a stock configuration. Yet, before I could run any overclocking tests, I had to find a solution to the M8’s thermal issues. The most obvious answer would have been to pop a hole in its side panel over the CPU fan. That would have destroyed the enclosure's clean look, though. A platform test on an open bench showed that the case added at least 20 °C to CPU temperature, so it was time to reconsider ASRock's intake and exhaust configuration.
Both the top and bottom panel had fans configured as forward updraft and aft downdraft. ASRock's image shows how the power supply is supposed to get air from the lower updraft fan, the graphics card from the aft downdraft fan, and the CPU from...perhaps a hole in the side panel?

Since air follows the path of least resistance, it would appear that most of what was being drawn into the case was being expelled by the nearby exhaust fan before it could reach any internal components. To test my theory, I needed to make a couple of adjustments. The old saying that hot air rises is usually true because it's less dense. To take advantage of this phenomenon, I flipped the bottom exhaust and top intake fans. Both bottom fans were now intakes, both top fans were now exhaust, and all I needed to do was:
- Completely gut the system, since the bottom panel is secured from the inside with four screws.
- And then slice up the wire sleeves, since the guide on each fan frame was farther apart.
CPU load temperature immediately dropped by roughly 20°, but at the expense of messier cabling.
The next problem was noise. Anyone with experience overclocking AMD's Athlons probably remembers the whine of 70 mm fans screaming at 4000 RPM. ASRock's M8 has four of these. Noise (at one meter) ranges from 31 to 49 dB(A) with all four fans running. What's more, the firmware's fan modes appear to only affect the temperature at which fan speed is increased within its 2000 to 4000 RPM range.
Disconnecting the top fans dropped idle noise by two decibels (to 29) and full-load noise by six (to 43) with only a 2 °C CPU temperature increase. That also means the two bottom-panel intake fans outperform the factory delivered four-fan split configuration in nearly every way imaginable. At least the problem is fixable!
Update October 28
ASRock has informed us that it has shipped the M8 with upgraded fans that have a wider RPM range, with an 800 RPM minimum, to reduce low-load noise. We can only hope that they also fix the fan direction.
A second look at the airflow diagram above appears to indicate that the chassis designer intended the CPU fan to receive air through vents in the side panel. The second photo from the top of this page shows that this side panel is molded with faux louvers. Actual louvers have slots, and modders would likely find additional cooling benefits by slotting these louvers.
ASRock includes its standard suite of manufacturer-customized applications and freeware in the M8 PC’s installation disc, but its upgraded audio chip adds Creative’s Sound Blaster Recon3D application.

Most interesting of the application’s features is its ability to make your opponents noisier in games through Scout Mode. More familiar controls include equalization, reverberation, and noise reduction.


ASRock A-Tune doesn’t change, but its tuning limits are motherboard-defined. I grabbed a couple of screen shots to show how far this motherboard lets users push system settings.
| ASRock Z87-M8 O/C Settings | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Clock | 90-300 MHz (0.1 MHz) | DRAM Voltage | 1.05-2.40 V (5 mV) |
| CPU Multiplier | 8.0-120x (1x) | CAS Latency | 4-15 Cycles |
| DRAM Data Rates | 800-4000 (200/266.6 MHz) | tRCD | 3-20 Cycles |
| CPU Vcore | 0.80-2.00 V (1 mV) | tRP | 4-15 Cycles |
| PCH Voltage | 0.98-1.32 V (5 mV) | tRAS | 9-63 Cycles |
Thermal limits hampered my overclocking efforts. Theoretically, if there was an unlocked dual-core processor, we'd probably have more room to play. ASRock's Z87-M8 motherboard offers all of the settings most overclockers need to push either the limits of their CPU and DRAM or thermal limits of the entire system.
The easiest way to start overclocking on this ASRock board is to choose from a built-in profile that approximates your goal. From there, fine tune. I picked the 4.2 GHz profile and gradually dropped core voltage until I eliminated thermal throttling. Stability at 1.060 V necessitated a step back to 4.1 GHz.

Though the board supports XMP and manual voltage controls, our memory didn’t respond well to increased voltage. Unable to produce a DRAM overclock, I instead found added performance by decreasing timings from the stock 9-9-9-24 to 8-9-8-21.
What should we compare to something as unique as a mini-ITX-based barebones configuration filled partly with our own gear? After building ASRock’s $550 barebones setup into a $1535 PC with the parts I had on hand, I picked our most closely-matching System Builder Marathon machines to compare. Overclocking won’t be a fair fight this time, since cooling was an issue for ASRock's compact case, but I’ll simply put a little more emphasis on its stock benchmark results.
| Test Hardware Configurations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock M8 Custom Build | SBM $1300 Enthusiast PC | SBM $2550 Performance PC | |
| Processor (Overclock) | Intel Core i7-4770K 3.2 GHz, Four Physical Cores O/C to 4.10 GHz, 1.08 V | Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40 GHz, Four Physical Cores O/C to 4.30 GHz, 1.25 V | Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20 GHz, Six Physical Cores O/C to 4.20 GHz, 1.25 V |
| Graphics (Overclock) | GeForce GTX 760: 980-1033 MHz GPU, GDDR5-6008, O/C to 1200 MHz GDDR5-7200 | GeForce GTX 770: 1037-1089 MHz GPU,GDDR5-7000, O/C to 1239 MHz GDDR5-7500 | 3 x GeForce GTX 760: 980-1033 MHz GPU,GDDR5-6008, O/C to 1130 MHz GDDR5-6680 |
| Memory (Overclock) | 8 GBKingston DDR3-1600 CAS 9-9-9-24, O/C to DDR3-1600 8-9-8-21, 1.5 V | 8 GB Corsair DDR3-1600 CAS 9-9-9-24, O/C to DDR3-1800 CL 9-11-11-28, 1.535 V | 16 GB Mushkin DDR3-1600 CAS 9-9-9-24, Not Overclockable |
| Motherboard (Overclock) | ASRock Z87-M8: LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express, Stock 100 MHz BCLK | Gigabyte Z87X-OC: LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express, Stock 100 MHz BCLK | ASRock X79 Extreme6: LGA 2011, Intel X79 Express, Stock 100 MHz BCLK |
| Optical | Lite-On DC-8A2SH 8x DVDRW | Samsung SH-224: 24x DVD±R | Pioneer BDR-2208: 15x BD-R |
| Case | ASRock M8 mini-ITX Slim Tower | Antec GX 700 | Lian Li PC-9NA |
| CPU Cooler | Xigmatek CAC-EXAI6-U01 With Noctua NF-F12 Fan | Corsair H50 | Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung MZ-7PD256BW: 256 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSD | Samsung 840 MZ-7TD120BW 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD | Mushkin Chronos Deluxe DX 240 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSD |
| Power | FSP450-60GHS(85)-R: 450 W, SFX, 80 PLUS Bronze | Corsair 650TX: 650 W Modular, ATX12V v2.3, 80 PLUS Bronze | Corsair HX850: 850 W Modular, ATX12V v2.3, 80 PLUS Gold |
| Software | |||
| OS | Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 | ||
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce 320.49 WHQL | Nvidia GeForce 326.80 Beta | Nvidia GeForce 326.80 Beta |
| Chipset | Intel INF 9.4.0.1017 | Intel INF 9.4.0.1017 | Intel INF 9.3.0.1026 |
That doesn’t mean I won’t mention overclocking at all, though. Don Woligroski’s $1300 PC faced significant CPU overclocking issues, despite his larger CPU cooler, and 4.3 GHz is barely a step above the 4.1 GHz I achieved.
His system also topped-out at DDR3-1800 CAS 9. I believe my DDR3-1600 CAS 8 will be a close performance match.
A single GeForce GTX 760 overclocks far easier in the M8 compared to three GeForce GTX 760s in SLI. ASRock’s M8 now has the GeForce GTX 760/Core i7-4770K configuration previously recommended by one of our readers for the $1300 build.

Though Nvidia's graphics cards also support Surround mode up to 5760x1080, StarTech's MDP2DVID DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter gives us the flexibility of even higher resolutions in the future, without the need to buy new dual-interface monitors. The adapter also enables Surround 3D mode with our current 5760x1080 configuration.
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Battlefield 3 | Campaign Mode, "Going Hunting" 90-Second Fraps Test Set 1: Medium Quality Defaults (No AA, 4x AF) Test Set 2: Ultra Quality Defaults (4x AA, 16x AF) |
| F1 2012 | Steam Version, In-Game Test Test Set 1: High Quality Preset, No AA Test Set 2: Ultra Quality Preset, 8x AA |
| The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | Update 1.5.26, Celedon Aethirborn Level 6, 25-Second Fraps Test Set 1: DX11, High Details No AA, 8x AF, FXAA enabled Test Set 2: DX11, Ultra Details, 8x AA, 16x AF, FXAA enabled |
| Far Cry 3 | V. 1.04, DirectX 11, 50-second Fraps "Amanaki Outpost" Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA, Standard ATC., SSAO Test Set 2: Ultra Quality, 4x MSAA, Enhanced ATC, HDAO |
| Adobe Creative Suite | |
| Adobe After Effects CS6 | Version 11.0.0.378 x64: Create Video which includes 3 Streams, 210 Frames, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneosly |
| Adobe Photoshop CS6 | Version 13 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Adobe Premeire Pro CS6 | Version 6.0.0.0, 6.61 GB MXF Project to H.264 to H.264 Blu-ray, Output 1920x1080, Maximum Quality |
| Audio/Video Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version 11.0.4.4 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format |
| LAME MP3 | Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s) |
| Handbrake CLI | Version: 0.99: Video from Canon Eos 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000 Hz, Two-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile) |
| TotalCodeStudio 2.5 | Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV |
| Productivity | |
| ABBYY FineReader | Version 10.0.102.95: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages |
| Adobe Acrobat X | Version 11.0.0.379: Print PDF from 115 Page PowerPoint, 128-bit RC4 Encryption |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 | Version 15.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080 |
| Blender | Version: 2.67b, Cycles Engine, Syntax blender -b thg.blend -f 1, 1920x1080, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Render THG.blend frame 1 |
| Visual Studio 2010 | Version 10.0, Compile Google Chrome, Scripted |
| File Compression | |
| WinZip | Version 17.0 Pro: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r" |
| WinRAR | Version 4.2: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3" |
| 7-Zip | Version 9.28: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5" |
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | |
| 3DMark 11 | Version: 1.0.3, Benchmark Only |
| PCMark 8 | Version: 1.0.0 x64, Full Test |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2013 | Version 2013.10.19.50, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Cryptography, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
A higher Physics score for Intel’s Core i7 CPU looks good for ASRock’s M8. I can't take credit for that though, since the -4770K is simply a better processor. My GeForce GTX 760 is similarly slower than Don’s GeForce GTX 770.
These benchmarks are really just setting up a baseline for combined performance versus cost, and I’d still like to win.


Sandra prefers the M8 build’s Core i7 to the $1300 machine’s Core i5, and its memory benchmark also shows DDR3-1600 CAS 8 (overclocked) beating DDR3-1800 CAS 9 (overclocked).



I was hoping that a better processor in the M8 would boost Battlefield 3 frame rates at low detail settings, but the $1300 machine’s superior GPU cannot be ousted in any combination of options. I haven't lost this war yet, though!


What I said about Battlefield 3 also applies to Far Cry 3. The M8's loss is the fault of my hardware choice though, not ASRock's platform. After all, the M8 starts life as a barebones system.


A game that’s typically bottlenecked by either the CPU or DRAM at most settings, F1 2012 hands the combined win to my ASRock M8-based build. Just as I took the blame for losses in both of the two previous games, I’ll take the credit for a win here.


Skyrim sets up the perfect dichotomy between GPU and CPU bottlenecks, showing the Core i7-boosted ASRock M8 leading at low-detail settings and the GeForce GTX 770-based $1300 machine ruling the high ground.


Lower is better when it comes to encode times, and the Core i7 in my M8 starts off with a higher base clock rate. The $1300 machine overclocks better, with predictable performance improvements to match.




Adobe After Effects loves two things, at least in the context of our benchmark workload: high clock rates and as much memory per core as you can give it. With memory capacity and core count matched between my M8 and our previous $1300 builds, frequency takes priority.




Our productivity suite benefits from Core i7 enhancements that are disabled or reduced in the $1300 machine’s Core i5, such as its extra 2 MB of shared L3 cache and Hyper-Threading technology for improved utilization of the execution pipelines.




The Core i7's architectural advantages continue to triumph over the $1300 machine’s Core i5 in our file compression suite. The M8 also benefits from a slightly faster SSD and better memory timings, all chosen by yours truly.



Low power consumption from my M8 configuration leads me to believe that there's enough output headroom to accommodate a GeForce GTX 690. Then again, the 216 W-per-rail limit would give me a moment of pause before even powering such a beast up.

CPU temperature is the M8’s biggest issue. It hit a thermal barrier at stock settings when loaded up with eight threads in Prime95, optimized for AVX. Switching the enclosure's fans to bring air in from the bottom and exhaust it from the top gave me enough room to overclock.

Looking back at our recent System Builder Marathon, one reader asked if the $1300 PC might have performed better with a GeForce GTX 760 and Core i7-4770K than it did with the GeForce GTX 770 and Core i5-4670K. As seen from my M8 build, the answer is yes.

In fact, if I use the $1300 PC as a baseline, I measure the alternative hardware used in the M8 12.4% faster, overall, giving it an efficiency victory of 34.8% in spite of its thermal issues.

Those same thermal issues forced me to cap core voltage at 1.06 V when overclocking, which is slightly less than the processor’s default maximum. As a result, overclocking pushed efficiency up by another 3.9%.
Lacking any other barebones PC to compare, I built ASRock’s M8 up as a competitor to Don’s $1300 System Builder Marathon machine. And it did well, enjoying a 12.4% performance lead. There’s still a matter of value though:

A value loss of 3% is still a loss, even if it is marginal. And I have to take credit for that, if only because the parts I chose made this configuration lose its value race. It might look like I over-spent on my effort. In reality, though, I over-saved. Rather than picking and choosing what I wanted to put inside the M8 during an online shopping trip, I used hardware I had in the lab.
The $550 ASRock M8 includes $150 worth of overpriced optical drive and power supply, and style is the justification for that disc drive. The remaining parts include a $180 motherboard and a case that, based on subtraction, needs to be worth $220. Since M8 buyers are paying over $100 extra for a bit of pizazz, I experimented with the charts and found that the parts I picked really weren't bad. If the M8 sold for $450, I would have even beaten Don's $1300 machine. Ouch.
It's not that there aren't enthusiasts who'll pay an extra $100 or so for style. We simply don't like paying for it with money and a performance compromise (that's why Chris was so stoked about the Tiki, with its then-fastest GTX 680 and a then-fastest -3770K at a constant 4.3 GHz). The M8 is supposed to be a high-end gaming machine, but it runs too hot for that. And if you want to make a case for HTPC placement, let me assure you that it's too noisy. And yet, everyone I’ve asked still loves the machine, with its thick aluminum side panels, cast aluminum handles, and splendid good looks. ASRock could justify its price by simply pointing to how much it costs to make.
I won't blame ASRock for the M8’s shortcomings. DesignworksUSA conceptualized this thing, after all. And even if BMW Group hadn’t specified the easily-correctable (and poor-performing) fan orientation, there are still problems with the size of these fans. The limited airflow of 70 x 10 mm fans forces ASRock to use 4000 RPM models, and the design team could have switched to 80 x 25 mm fans early on without significantly altering the case’s size or shape.
With the tooling paid for, there are few things ASRock could do to turn this barebones system into more of a winner. First, it could start shipping the machine with the fans configured for bottom-to-top airflow, since that solved the worst of my thermal issues. Second, it might want to include (and even charge for) a custom-fit CPU cooler to maximize surface area within its confined space. Third, it could lower the minimum fan speed below 1000 RPM, so that the machine at least idles quietly. None of those changes require ASRock to sacrifice the money already spent on manufacturing the M8.
Update October 28
ASRock has informed us that it has shipped the M8 with upgraded fans that have a wider RPM range, with an 800 RPM minimum, to reduce low-load noise. We can only hope that they also fix the fan direction.
A second look at the Page 6 airflow diagram appears to indicate that the chassis designer intended the CPU fan to receive air through vents in the side panel. Another photo on that page shows that this side panel is molded with faux louvers. Actual louvers have slots, and modders would likely find additional cooling benefits by slotting these louvers.


















