That may seem like a long wait
time, but After Effects is a CPU-
intensive program, and given the
complexity of the project we were
rendering, these timings are more
than acceptable. Comparatively, we
let the same project render on our
standard video editing PC in the
office (i7 processor, 16GB RAM,
GeForce 1070) and it took almost 12
minutes to render the Full HD file- almost twice as long.
We next tried out SPECviewperf
13 and SPECworkstation 3, which
run a variety of industry-leading
apps that focus on 3D animation
and rendering. The results showed
the true potential of the PA90 as a
powerhouse, regardless of the
application you’re running.
While the PA90 isn’t marketed as
a gaming PC, it’s more than capable
of running games as well. We fired
up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and
cranked everything up to
maximum detail settings. At 4K
resolution the game has an average
framerate of 38.97fps, but when we
dropped the resolution to 1080p,
the framerate jumped to 82.44fps.
So, you can jump into almost any
modern game and experience
smooth visuals and gameplay.
Summary
The PA90 isn’t to be messed with.
The sheer power this innocent-
looking PC doles out is ridiculous.
From 3D rendering to smoothly
handling 4K video, the PA90 can be
used in almost any scenario, and
can even handle the odd game.
The only sticking point, then, is
the PA90’s limited upgradeability. QAchingly expensive and hard to
upgrade it may be, but the PA90
is incredibly powerful, too.ensure peripherals such as graphic
tablets and other USB devices had
enough free ports to connect to.
The most bizarre thing about the
PA90 is the fact that it requires two
power bricks to run – one for the
CPU; and one for the GPU (each
230W and 180W).
Upgradeability
While most tower PCs are easy to
get into, upgrading the PA90 is
more of a challenge – you have to
not only unscrew four Philips
screws, but four Torx screws as well.
Once you’ve got the screws off,
the metal grille slides upwards,
revealing the core components on
each side. On one side you have a
small metal box which houses a
2.5-inch storage drive (SSD or HDD).
There’s a spare M.2 slot at the
bottom of the board for extra
storage, or Intel Optane memory.
On the other side you’ll see the
graphics card, which is further
protected by another four screws
and a piece of plastic. While the
card looks easy enough to swap
out, on closer inspection, it turns
out to be held in place by even
more screws at the back, while part
of the top is covered in black tape
- it’s clear, then, that whatever card
you configure the PA90 with, you’re
going to be stuck with it.
Our review unit came with 64GB
of RAM, but accessing the memory
slots is also tricky – they’re located
directly under the CPU heatsink,
which you’ll have to unscrew to
access the two memory slots.Performance
The PA90 handled all of our
benchmarks with ease, blitzing
through them one after the other
without any trouble at all. Stress
CPU testing using Prime95 saw core
CPU temperatures hit close to
90-degrees Celsius, but thenquickly dropped down to the
80-85-degrees Celsius range once
airflow increased. This hardly had
any effect on noise levels either.
Our next tests feature more
workstation-level testing as well as
real-world use. The Cadalyst
Benchmark Test – which specifically
benchmarks AutoCAD performance- hit an overall score of 733, which
shows a strong capability for 2D
and 3D rendering and calculations.
Adobe Premiere Pro took one
minute and 12 seconds to render a
one-minute 4K video file, and 21
seconds to render the same file in
Full HD. After Effects took around
eight minutes to render a 4K
animation file to MP4, and about
four minutes and 15 seconds to
render the same file in Full HD.
“The PA90 handled all of our benchmarks with
ease, blitzing through them one after the other”
Upgrade
Asus Mini PC ProArt PA90
June 2019 | |^79
KEYFEATURES
Asus Mini PC ProArt PA90
Supplier http://www.asus.com
CPU Intel Core i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz
Graphics Nvidia Quadro P4000
RAM 64GB DDR4 (2,666MHz)
Storage 256GB SSD; 1TB HDD
Connectivity 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth
5.0; 4x DisplayPort; 4x USB 3.0; 2x USB 3.0
Type C, 1x Ethernet; 1x headphone; 1x
microphone socket
Weight 5.8 kg
Size 176x176x365mm