** UPDATE: It has been discovered that a batch of AceMagic PCs shipped w/ Chrome pre-installed and potentially have a virus or malware. This review unit from May 2023 did not. However be aware that AceMagic has posted about the problem here: www.acemagic.com/pages/addressing-concerns-and-offering-solutions-for-acemagic-mini-pcs
Imagine if you were to tell Sony that you can emulate a PS3 on something 3/4 the size of a PS3. And yet I still can't play PS3 games on my PS5 unless it's streaming
I would have loved this back in the day for lan parties, this and a flat panel monitor I would have been in heaven lol. I miss those days, gaming online is fun, but there was something special about cramming a bunch of us into a room playing Diablo 2 or StarCraft for a whole day.
The way the prices fluctuate on Amazon is annoying, so use the checkout code on their website "MetalJesus" for 15% Code + $25 Coupon. 👍 Or just wait a week for another Amazon sale 😂
They have decent CPUs, but for only $200 dollars more you could have a dedicated GPU which would run things a bit better. Fred Meyer has a RTX 3060 rig right now with a 512 GB SSD and a nice i5-13400F that’s on sale for $670.
I bought one of these after watching several reviews back in February and I'm pretty satisfied with it (mine wasn't called Ace Magician, but "Kamrui"... essentially the same thing). I bought it with emulation in mind since I'm not much a gamer, but everything works pretty well. Most of the WiiU games running on Cemu run fine (even BotW after a little tweaking). Most of my Steam games run without any noticeable problems (MGSV, RE2, Fallout:NV, Sims 4). Like I said, I'm not much of a gamer and don't have any interest in playing current gen games, but most last gen games seem to run just fine.
I was about to make this comment but scrolled down to check if someone else has mentioned it first! Its a dead ringer for a closed HyperScan that someone put on its side lol.
I've always loved small form factor PCs, since the early-mid 00s and some of the micro ATX builds at the time. Lately I have been really considering one, I'll have to compare this to some of the ones I've been looking at from Beelink
Seems like a good living room / streaming PC, lots of ports and good enough performance that you won't have issues with streaming from a more powerful PC in the house, but it will also handle older games natively too
These mobile ryzen processors since the 4x00 series have been awesome. When they were released they blew all the Intel offerings out of the water, most of them were still at 2 cores, while these budget Ryzens had 6!
this is actually perfect for a second pc for content creation due to the size and with the specs its perfect for video capture and wont clutter your desk when you have a main PC next to it
I would love to see how far you could upgrade the hardware to play at 4k. Could you upgrade the cpu and ram and maybe add an external GPU for a hard core gaming PC. These are definitely interesting.
Honestly this is really something I’m dying to see. I want to see someone use a mini PC case/body (something close the the HeroBox made by some Chinese company) and see how close to a God Tier gaming PC they could get. Honestly one of the best kept secrets rn is what they’re doing with Eluktronics. Making budget gaming laptops because the cases allow for it. I got one off of eBay only used once and it runs Halo Infinite and THATS saying something lol.
I wonder if you would get better performance on the emulation using a Linux batocera build. This should be more than enough to run GC and PS2 well. Might need some setting tweaks
Been looking into these small PCs. I really don't know much about PCs at all but I want to dive in just for the purpose of emulation. What triggered my interest was trying to get an original xbox working and dealing with that headache. So really, I want to start emulating because upkeep on the 20+ game consoles I have is just too much at this point. It's making my favorite passtime stressful to the point I've even considered just giving up on gaming altogether.
It's a cool little machine, but in this day and age, why spend this kind of money on something that struggles to run at 30 fps at 1080p. Yes, it's a viable option for people that don't have a lot of money. But I say, be patient, save up, and get with the times. These days, if a machine can't run 4K at 60 fps, skip it. I have a Steam Deck, and it's more trouble than it's worth.
This is NOT a good device, please stay away from it, I hope MJ is just not a computer guy, because it looks kinda like a paid promotion of a "scam". This SOC is 3 generation old and when it was new it wasn't even the top, it was mid model, and the iGPU is complete and utter trash: 7 graphics cores of Radeon RX Vega 7 For 400$ you can get a super device that slaps this one silly. This Ace Magician AMR5 from the video can be customized, this version above with 16Gb of ram and 512gb nvme is 328$ on aliexpress + you get 10% auto discount during checkout so - 32$ = 296$ [Shipping is free]! So its 100$ cheaper vs the above. for 364$ you can get the superior 5800U version [again with 10% auto discount], so - 36$ = 328$ But why even consider it if we can do better? we can do 7th gen SOC [current is 7 gen] A quick search on Aliexpress, and i found [ without even trying]: "GMKtec K2" with AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS SOC: 419USD [16Gb RAM/512gb NMVME and its customizable, you can choose more RAM/SSD or less] This mini PC comes with RDNA2 680M iGPU [12 graphical units], which is nigh and day vs the above. Basically for same price you can get a device that has CPU that 50% Faster in single core, that has 8c/16t and is 80% faster in multi core and in graphics? its 3-4 times faster: 7 cores of Vega vs 12 cores of RDNA2. If you don't have medium to advanced understanding in PC parts, all these "sweet" looking amazon deals are Chinese scams, re-sellers that buy on aliexpress or aliababa and re-sell in USA, lots of time even shipping directly from china, so why not go to Aliexpress and buy one for cheaper or a better model? Also if you live in America, just go to minisforum website, its the biggest or second biggest mini-PC manufacturer and buy directly with USA warranty and service, i think they even have an amazon direct store, but web site can have more sales and discounts, so try both
Might as well buy a steam deck, it's more powerful. this is extremely weak spec considering they've tried to give it a gaming aesthetic, I know it's cheap, but the U processors are for power saving and mobile. You need a H or HX for gaming with RDNA graphics or else you're gonna be playing in less resolution than steam decks small screen 800p lol. Dedicated mini PC manufactures like minis forum / b-link make gaming capable machines that are better value.
I just recently got a very similar mini but it runs the AMD Ryzen 5 5500U. Rest of the specs are pretty much the same. I am using it as my OBS machine. I have a separate computer for gaming, and my mini (and this one, too) handles the demands of 1080p 30f perfectly. It does struggle a bit with the 60, but just tune it to 720p and it's all good again. The things one can do with these minis is fantastic. What a time to be alive!
How recently? That was a mistake, the 5000 series is very old and uses VEGA iGPU thats why you have issues. If you got last years 6000 series, it has RDNA2, it can encode, using hardware encoder 4K HEVC 10 bit + HDR file with great speeds [obviously everything below is even faster] Such mini PC is 415USD on aliexpress P.C. you have USB capture card connected to it?
I bought one six months ago to replace an aging desktop that I finally got tired of trying to keep running. I'm not a "Gamer" but I like to play retro stuff and a little bit of newer games, nothing close to competitive, for me it's been great so far. (I'm Atari age (mid 50's) and remember when Pac-Man was first out, played games with my now grown kids, but not much past PS1 and have never owned a gaming rig. So I wouldn't know a good gaming computer if it spit in my eye or even what a really good retro gaming experience is. So take anything I say with a grain of salt. I used a shield and kodi to do retro with before this one. This smokes the nvidea shield for emulating higher end games and even for using Steam with, but my internet sucks so I can't really use all the shields' abilities with Steam. So for me, the performance on Steam is better with this computer than the shield or with my old desktop. I added one of the 1tb retro-bat Hard-drives from ali-express that are sold pre-loaded with retro games, (lot's of multiple games, but still more than I'll ever play and they work.) It emulates PS2 ok at least the ones I've played like SSX3. Not perfect but plenty good for this old non-Gamer. emulates PSP really well. I bought the hard-drive because my internet sucks, so downloading roms takes forever and screws up my wife's internet time. Between the two and a new switch controller I've got $500 or so into it and it's my main computer as well. I don't play more than an hour a day max, If I get four years out of this machine I'll be happy. I even like the windows 11 so far, although I hate having a password, that's annoying.
Nice looking small pc I wonder if it’s possible to use a m.2 adapter for an external graphics card that is if it has a m.2 slot on the mother board ,I have seen some people doing this with laptops and other pc`s useing the adapters to run fast graphics cards external,love your videos
I'm looking for an affordable, reliable, and small unit that can play Guild Wars 2 while using Discord on dual displays, and having a RUclips page up simultaneously. That is about the extent of how much I need to push a system.
Attractive price tag for a small form factor PC. I think it's looking pretty decent for a mini-PC with how you've dialed some game settings back a bit but for that price it's quite reasonable. Definitely great for old school game emulation and even from a few years ago. Good stuff MJR!
Literally exactly what I've been looking for, I have mostly every system from 1985-2005 and just want to stream- but can't through my Mac because Apple likes to be difficult, don't need/ can't afford a real PC so- yea, I'm grabbin one of these
I've actually built my first PC that includes an: i7 13700 3.40GHz NVidia GTX 4080 with 16GB VRam (the 4090 was too expensive at the moment) 64GB Ram I can't wait to mess around with it :)
MJR out here calling 35-45 FPS "acceptable" and "playable" and here I am hoping those comments cause PC "gamers" to froth at the mouth and pass the hell out. :D Great hardware review as usual!
CPU seems pretty decent in this one, but recent games are all down to GPU. I've run some pretty good recent games on a Celeron Gold with a 3060 for fun and it's been absolutely playable. I wonder if it would be possible to plug an eGPU into one of these and see how it copes. Heck, even a 1080 in an eGPU casing plugged into this thing.
Series S user but I’ve been eying some ultra compact PCs as of late and even considering this exact one. So awesome to see someone I trust unbox and test out cuz you never know to trust the ratings. Ty for sharing your opinion
I mean, there's a little wiggle room for accuracy. Right at the start, "This was sent to me for review" Like how a food critic gets above average treatment in a restaurant, test a few machines and send the best one. Certainly comforting to see one in action though.
If you liked this video, consider supporting my channel by becoming a Patreon member. For as little as $2 a month get access to behind the scenes info, input into which video get made and more. Go to: www.patreon.com/MetalJesusRocks - Thanks!
This with a better APU will probably be my next main PC. I don't care one bit about modern AAA games anymore and my PC is basically a movie streaming and old games machine at this point.
I upgraded my PC from a Ryzen 7 2700X to a Ryzen 5700G ad have a GTX 1060 6GB. I just use the onboard APU atm. Flatout 4 at 4k average 104fps max settings. Battlefield 3 at 4k average 74fps max settings. I have only done it due to the excessive energy costs in the UK! But AMD are really upping their game and Zen 5 APUs are going to be a game changer allegedly! Love your content and I am a metalhead too!
I'm a 2d artist. My workstation is a flat 5600g in a mini-itx build. I don't think I'll replace it in a bunch of years. It's still overpowered for my needs. I used to have a 3600x with a GPU and this is actually faster for the use I give it. And the size is so nice!
I'm almost considering getting this instead of a laptop. If you think about it, I can get one of these, AND a Mac Mini (since i use both Mac and windows) and it would still be cheaper than a gaming laptop, all while having a small PC powerful enough to run most of the games I would play on it. I'm primarily wanting to get both a Mac Mini and a small PC because i want to study to get some IT certs to get into an IT related job, so i figure its best to know how to handle both platforms efficiently. I already have an iPad Air if I wanted something portable
uhh a price drop is very rare in our post apocalyptic times right now, just grab it! but there are a lot of competitors especially in that price range, an a/b comparison would be nice, cheers 🎸🎸
This isn't that unusual actually. The Minisforum Ryzen 9 mini computer and the OneXPlayer2 handheld I reviewed recently both came with full Windows 11 licenses too.
Picked one of these up mainly for emulation. I upgraded both ssd's and make sure to change bios to change graphics memory to 4gb. The wii u, gamecube, and ps2 emulators have just blown me away.
Cool system. If this was provided by a company I’d highly recommend wiping the SSD and reinstalling Windows or even buy a new M2 drive and install a fresh copy of Windows. I wouldn’t just put a preinstall from China on my network at home.
Excellent Review, i use since a year nos a Chuwi RZ-Box Ryzen 7 5800H, it replaced my Desktop PC Ryzen 5 5600 Nvidia RTX 2060 . I use Gecko Linux with 32Gb Ram and for my Casual Gaming and Day-Tasks it have enough Power , I operate it in 15W Mode so it is silent too and have the Power in need in a Compact Size and as a Sideeffect I safe Power. Kind Regards from Germany I hope my English wasn't to bad.
It struggled to hit 30 fps with 1080p while playing red dead??? I would assume you had the settings on high? Just saying because the framerate wasnt terrible on the original ps4 if i recall correctly, which is significantly less powerful. I could be remembering wrong
This seems cool on paper, but overall, it seems like a low end gaming PC for sure,... I think where it would shine is with Emulation,... but there are probably cheaper options for just emulation, Im sure,... good video.
I saw this little bastard and caught my attention and my curiosity led me to to your review (I gave you thumbs up and you also earned another subscriber), can you either tell me or make another review about or if this mini PC runs Gears of war? (Let's say 1,2 or 3). Thank you so much in advance and greetings from Panamá (Central America).
I would have to wonder what would happen if you added raid zeroed 2x 8T ssd's and and see if there was an updated ram solution of 128-512G ram My guess target audience is likely retro mid-late 80' to mid-late 2005 as for pc gaming 1080p and that specification has only been within the pc realm in the 5-8 years from a vga perspective as for DP and HDMI don't know, I think 3 monitors might onlty be functional from the usb-c connection either paired with an external gpu or with an cpu upgrade
Nice Vid. I hope you use an extra Network for those China machines. Some of them have malware preinstalled and i guess you don't want to lose your RUclips channel and money in the bank.
@@mushieslushieyou mean the steamdeck is nowhere close to the performance of this mini PC, or this mini PC is nowhere close to the performance of the steamdeck?
Welp, there was a digital coupon for $50 on Amazon bringing it down to $390, so I ended up pulling the trigger. Looking forward to checking it out. Thanks again @metaljesusrocks!
Been keeping an eye on this, I'm thinking of dual booting this with a Linux distro as an all rounder PC. I mainly play retro games, so raw horsepower would be good for working.
Can this run 4K HDR movies ? Also as a side note, I don't know why every Mini-PC reviewer on youtube *COMPLETELY* ignore the Media-consumption part. There are many people who are exclusively interested in using this as their main "Media Box" for their living room, we will never use it for games, so I believe getting that covered in the review is pretty important too. Thanks for the effort :)
Ignore this product, its overpriced and uses a mid-range [ancient] soc from 3 generations back that still uses VEGA core for iGPU and ZEN3 [not even ZEN3+] for CPU this same exact product/model is 300$ on aliexpress, for 415$ you can get one with RDNA2 680m iGPU! Basically if you watch reviews of mini PCs, if its 6000 series, its RDNA2 and they all do HDR and hardware encode/decode video, even 4K with zero issues. if its 7 thousand series [the current one], you need to google the model name, 7th series identification is with SECOND number, model names like 7840U/7940U are RDNA3. But if the second number is 7, its last gen RDNA2, from last year,still Great unlike VEGA lol] For example this mini pc: "GMKtec K2" has AMD 7735HS SOC, is 415$ on aliexpress, it has the high end iGPU of last gen 680m [its RDNA2, 12 execution units, the top of a mobile soc] [RDNA3 top iGPU is 780m, also 12 execution units] If you only care about WATCHING video they both identical, HDR, Hardware Decode of AV1, Hardware Decode and Encode of HEVC etc BUT the RDNA3 part also hardware Encode of AV1 [if you need it]
I've had my eye on one of these mini pc's for about a year now. I am a console only player now but these are perfect for still getting to use my insane steam catalogue
@@agamersinsanity Because that "clunky machine" costs the same and is multiple times more powerful, which results in multiple times better game experience. It's also supported by the owner of Steam, Valve.
Just for reference "thread" isn't a get up to. If it says 6 cores and 12 threads. that means each core has 2 threads. Not get up to 12 threads. Its constant!
I got the Atari VCS bundle for $200 from Best Buy recently and wondering how it would compare to a mini pc like this in performance especially after I max out the ram and upgrade the storage
hey if you would like to sell that sample one you have , ill buy it for 150$ just pm me. And thank you for showing this because i was looking into getting a mini pc instead of a laptop this time.
i would like to know why many of these can run games from xbox/ps2 up to 360/ps3 and maybe some newer ones. BUT for some reason they struggle in the PS1/N64 era? Seems to the the same thing with a lot of these devices.
My question is can it play lack ops 6 gta5 modern warfare 3 black ops coldwar zombies gaming with. No lagging just I like run smoothly in gaming pc can u add 512 the add a 1tb
@@Neo_X90X This thing is the exact same price as them and many many times weaker. It makes no sense to buy this thing when there are much better options.
@@MegaPieru3000 I'll give you a reason why I wouldn't and surely others have in mind too but not double dipping on games plus I already got a pc that shits on the consoles so this would be great for my living room to just grab my ps5 controller from my main build and just bring it into the next room and load up whatever game (mostly single player or indie game) or even emulators and chill on the big screen, giving us a break from sitting at the desk. imo of course.
** UPDATE: It has been discovered that a batch of AceMagic PCs shipped w/ Chrome pre-installed and potentially have a virus or malware. This review unit from May 2023 did not. However be aware that AceMagic has posted about the problem here: www.acemagic.com/pages/addressing-concerns-and-offering-solutions-for-acemagic-mini-pcs
Is cool we dont buy what is sent to you we know is bad
Hey don't give him crap for telling us about the issue. Also Definitely not a bad mini PC @@ralphtaylor7448
They're still having the same problem. It's called spyware 😂😂😂😂 redline red flags all over
They're still being tested and still showing spyware (redline spyware).
Imagine if you were to tell Sony that you can emulate a PS3 on something 3/4 the size of a PS3. And yet I still can't play PS3 games on my PS5 unless it's streaming
Buy an series x
You can play almost everything
I Play Manhunt on series x right now
But you can't. He just said the system is a hit or miss on PS2 games l
@@extranationrecordsofficial1826but series x has no games...
@@extranationrecordsofficial1826 buy a M2 Pro Mac Mini that can even emulate Xbox original games
@dirozx that's why I play ps1 games at 4k on series x😭😭😭 hopefully Starfield is decent tho
I would have loved this back in the day for lan parties, this and a flat panel monitor I would have been in heaven lol. I miss those days, gaming online is fun, but there was something special about cramming a bunch of us into a room playing Diablo 2 or StarCraft for a whole day.
Halo CE, Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike, Mt. Dew, cords everywhere. Those were good days 😢
@@1Jbeats I agree with you both. It was great playing ice wind Dale and 1942 with the kids on our LAN. I really miss those days.
Melee is where i still get my fix of this, all the boys on a couple of crts drinks flowing and tempers flaring. Great fun.
Best time ever playing command and conquer 2
@@invadernate3985 Yes!! I totally forgot about that gem!! We played a
lot of that as well!
The way the prices fluctuate on Amazon is annoying, so use the checkout code on their website "MetalJesus" for 15% Code + $25 Coupon. 👍 Or just wait a week for another Amazon sale 😂
Great video, brother. I'm looking forward to another pickups video with you and Reggie.
try to use on their website but it says invalid coupon code?
@tallpoppy "MetalJesus" should work. I just tried it myself and the price went down to $380 USD
@@MetalJesusRocks thanks this works!
They have decent CPUs, but for only $200 dollars more you could have a dedicated GPU which would run things a bit better. Fred Meyer has a RTX 3060 rig right now with a 512 GB SSD and a nice i5-13400F that’s on sale for $670.
I could realistically see something like this replacing the Raspberry Pi in my arcade machine in a couple of years when prices are even lower.
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@@RocketRentonthe Pi is something you have to want to make work. It isn’t the cheap monster it used to be.
I was gonna say this would probably be a great PC for those With atgame legend pinball tables
They're great
Would this be a good computer for editing videos?
I bought one of these after watching several reviews back in February and I'm pretty satisfied with it (mine wasn't called Ace Magician, but "Kamrui"... essentially the same thing). I bought it with emulation in mind since I'm not much a gamer, but everything works pretty well. Most of the WiiU games running on Cemu run fine (even BotW after a little tweaking). Most of my Steam games run without any noticeable problems (MGSV, RE2, Fallout:NV, Sims 4). Like I said, I'm not much of a gamer and don't have any interest in playing current gen games, but most last gen games seem to run just fine.
I legit thought that was a Hyperscan for a second
It doesn't look like hyperscan at all lol
Well i thought so too so i guess ur not alone
I thought so aswell
I was about to make this comment but scrolled down to check if someone else has mentioned it first! Its a dead ringer for a closed HyperScan that someone put on its side lol.
IKR in the thumbnail it looks exactly like it lmao
I've always loved small form factor PCs, since the early-mid 00s and some of the micro ATX builds at the time. Lately I have been really considering one, I'll have to compare this to some of the ones I've been looking at from Beelink
Me to
Their power supplies tend to crap out within a year or two though. And the warranty on these chinese companies are pretty useless.
Beelink are smaller and cute
Seems like a good living room / streaming PC, lots of ports and good enough performance that you won't have issues with streaming from a more powerful PC in the house, but it will also handle older games natively too
Yep. This is exactly the expectation people should have going in with this.
These mobile ryzen processors since the 4x00 series have been awesome. When they were released they blew all the Intel offerings out of the water, most of them were still at 2 cores, while these budget Ryzens had 6!
u had a ryzen 3 3250 u that did way more than it should have
The price may be less expensive than cutting edge hardware, but by no means is it cheap.
The magnetic access panel is such a genius idea.
Yeah, as soon as I saw that, I was like, OK essay to clean and upgrade.
Looks like a good PC for a console guy to play fan mod games. I had a used Alienware alpha for that but it didn't last long.
This is probably perfect for digital audio work stations and video editing. I like it. Might get one in the future.
this is actually perfect for a second pc for content creation due to the size and with the specs its perfect for video capture and wont clutter your desk when you have a main PC next to it
I think these mini PCs are great value and even cheaper when buying from China
Yeah i need one for my programming and web dev and u could always boot linux or dual so W
I would love to see how far you could upgrade the hardware to play at 4k. Could you upgrade the cpu and ram and maybe add an external GPU for a hard core gaming PC. These are definitely interesting.
Honestly this is really something I’m dying to see. I want to see someone use a mini PC case/body (something close the the HeroBox made by some Chinese company) and see how close to a God Tier gaming PC they could get.
Honestly one of the best kept secrets rn is what they’re doing with Eluktronics. Making budget gaming laptops because the cases allow for it. I got one off of eBay only used once and it runs Halo Infinite and THATS saying something lol.
No one has released a video doing it yet but I'm buying one this month and testing it out with an egpu dock using the second nvme ssd slot
@@RookieMistakeYTI will be getting a mini pc to stream with I’ll let you know how it works
I wonder if you would get better performance on the emulation using a Linux batocera build. This should be more than enough to run GC and PS2 well. Might need some setting tweaks
Switch emulation?
Been looking into these small PCs. I really don't know much about PCs at all but I want to dive in just for the purpose of emulation. What triggered my interest was trying to get an original xbox working and dealing with that headache. So really, I want to start emulating because upkeep on the 20+ game consoles I have is just too much at this point. It's making my favorite passtime stressful to the point I've even considered just giving up on gaming altogether.
Just get another Xbox. Lol
Cool vid.
Hey does this come with games on it or do I gotta go look for a coin ops, etc.?
get a steam deck instead of this imo
cost more and less poweful
It's a cool little machine, but in this day and age, why spend this kind of money on something that struggles to run at 30 fps at 1080p. Yes, it's a viable option for people that don't have a lot of money. But I say, be patient, save up, and get with the times. These days, if a machine can't run 4K at 60 fps, skip it. I have a Steam Deck, and it's more trouble than it's worth.
This is NOT a good device, please stay away from it, I hope MJ is just not a computer guy, because it looks kinda like a paid promotion of a "scam".
This SOC is 3 generation old and when it was new it wasn't even the top, it was mid model, and the iGPU is complete and utter trash: 7 graphics cores of Radeon RX Vega 7
For 400$ you can get a super device that slaps this one silly.
This Ace Magician AMR5 from the video can be customized, this version above with 16Gb of ram and 512gb nvme is 328$ on aliexpress + you get 10% auto discount during checkout so - 32$ = 296$ [Shipping is free]! So its 100$ cheaper vs the above.
for 364$ you can get the superior 5800U version [again with 10% auto discount], so - 36$ = 328$
But why even consider it if we can do better? we can do 7th gen SOC [current is 7 gen]
A quick search on Aliexpress, and i found [ without even trying]: "GMKtec K2" with AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS SOC: 419USD [16Gb RAM/512gb NMVME and its customizable, you can choose more RAM/SSD or less]
This mini PC comes with RDNA2 680M iGPU [12 graphical units], which is nigh and day vs the above.
Basically for same price you can get a device that has CPU that 50% Faster in single core, that has 8c/16t and is 80% faster in multi core and in graphics? its 3-4 times faster: 7 cores of Vega vs 12 cores of RDNA2.
If you don't have medium to advanced understanding in PC parts, all these "sweet" looking amazon deals are Chinese scams, re-sellers that buy on aliexpress or aliababa and re-sell in USA, lots of time even shipping directly from china, so why not go to Aliexpress and buy one for cheaper or a better model?
Also if you live in America, just go to minisforum website, its the biggest or second biggest mini-PC manufacturer and buy directly with USA warranty and service, i think they even have an amazon direct store, but web site can have more sales and discounts, so try both
Thx man.
ok
I recently just started playing Prodeus and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Definitely a hidden gem you need to pick up.
I got the physical game on PS5 recently. 👍
Might as well buy a steam deck, it's more powerful.
this is extremely weak spec considering they've tried to give it a gaming aesthetic, I know it's cheap, but the U processors are for power saving and mobile. You need a H or HX for gaming with RDNA graphics or else you're gonna be playing in less resolution than steam decks small screen 800p lol. Dedicated mini PC manufactures like minis forum / b-link make gaming capable machines that are better value.
Really hard to beat the Steam Deck on price and performance. Next time I may directly compare the two. Good suggestion. 👍
I added an external 3070 to this and I play CoD:MWII at max settings (except for normal textures) and I get over 100fps reliably. Great machine.
I just recently got a very similar mini but it runs the AMD Ryzen 5 5500U. Rest of the specs are pretty much the same. I am using it as my OBS machine. I have a separate computer for gaming, and my mini (and this one, too) handles the demands of 1080p 30f perfectly. It does struggle a bit with the 60, but just tune it to 720p and it's all good again. The things one can do with these minis is fantastic. What a time to be alive!
How recently? That was a mistake, the 5000 series is very old and uses VEGA iGPU thats why you have issues.
If you got last years 6000 series, it has RDNA2, it can encode, using hardware encoder 4K HEVC 10 bit + HDR file with great speeds [obviously everything below is even faster]
Such mini PC is 415USD on aliexpress
P.C. you have USB capture card connected to it?
I always appreciate yours reviews on legitimate gaming options. This thing could be a real option for a lot of people.
to play 16 bit games via emulation today you do not really need a 400 dollar PC, all you need is a 10 dollar android tv box and a Bluetooth controller
I bought one six months ago to replace an aging desktop that I finally got tired of trying to keep running. I'm not a "Gamer" but I like to play retro stuff and a little bit of newer games, nothing close to competitive, for me it's been great so far. (I'm Atari age (mid 50's) and remember when Pac-Man was first out, played games with my now grown kids, but not much past PS1 and have never owned a gaming rig. So I wouldn't know a good gaming computer if it spit in my eye or even what a really good retro gaming experience is. So take anything I say with a grain of salt.
I used a shield and kodi to do retro with before this one. This smokes the nvidea shield for emulating higher end games and even for using Steam with, but my internet sucks so I can't really use all the shields' abilities with Steam. So for me, the performance on Steam is better with this computer than the shield or with my old desktop.
I added one of the 1tb retro-bat Hard-drives from ali-express that are sold pre-loaded with retro games, (lot's of multiple games, but still more than I'll ever play and they work.) It emulates PS2 ok at least the ones I've played like SSX3. Not perfect but plenty good for this old non-Gamer. emulates PSP really well. I bought the hard-drive because my internet sucks, so downloading roms takes forever and screws up my wife's internet time. Between the two and a new switch controller I've got $500 or so into it and it's my main computer as well.
I don't play more than an hour a day max, If I get four years out of this machine I'll be happy. I even like the windows 11 so far, although I hate having a password, that's annoying.
Nice looking small pc I wonder if it’s possible to use a m.2 adapter for an external graphics card that is if it has a m.2 slot on the mother board ,I have seen some people doing this with laptops and other pc`s useing the adapters to run fast graphics cards external,love your videos
I'm looking for an affordable, reliable, and small unit that can play Guild Wars 2 while using Discord on dual displays, and having a RUclips page up simultaneously. That is about the extent of how much I need to push a system.
Attractive price tag for a small form factor PC. I think it's looking pretty decent for a mini-PC with how you've dialed some game settings back a bit but for that price it's quite reasonable. Definitely great for old school game emulation and even from a few years ago. Good stuff MJR!
💀
Literally exactly what I've been looking for, I have mostly every system from 1985-2005 and just want to stream- but can't through my Mac because Apple likes to be difficult, don't need/ can't afford a real PC so- yea, I'm grabbin one of these
So when looking this up, what is the graphics card/GPU?
I've actually built my first PC that includes an:
i7 13700 3.40GHz
NVidia GTX 4080 with 16GB VRam (the 4090 was too expensive at the moment)
64GB Ram
I can't wait to mess around with it :)
And how much did you pay to build it out of curiosity?
@@shadowspeare1145 £3066
You need to test Batocera with that PC
MJR out here calling 35-45 FPS "acceptable" and "playable" and here I am hoping those comments cause PC "gamers" to froth at the mouth and pass the hell out. :D
Great hardware review as usual!
CPU seems pretty decent in this one, but recent games are all down to GPU. I've run some pretty good recent games on a Celeron Gold with a 3060 for fun and it's been absolutely playable. I wonder if it would be possible to plug an eGPU into one of these and see how it copes. Heck, even a 1080 in an eGPU casing plugged into this thing.
At least get a pentium gold for that poor 3060. Celerons are basically ewaste
@@PrinceRoyceFan667 Ah yes. Sorry I mean Pentium Gold. I have an old habit of calling them celeron
@@christianfowler3267 based
It's even got a handlebars, only the best boxes have those
Series S user but I’ve been eying some ultra compact PCs as of late and even considering this exact one. So awesome to see someone I trust unbox and test out cuz you never know to trust the ratings. Ty for sharing your opinion
I should have mentioned they have a 3 year warranty too...so you should be covered if anything happens. 👍
@@MetalJesusRocks totally narly dudeamondo you rock !!!!
I mean, there's a little wiggle room for accuracy. Right at the start, "This was sent to me for review" Like how a food critic gets above average treatment in a restaurant, test a few machines and send the best one. Certainly comforting to see one in action though.
If you liked this video, consider supporting my channel by becoming a Patreon member. For as little as $2 a month get access to behind the scenes info, input into which video get made and more. Go to: www.patreon.com/MetalJesusRocks - Thanks!
This doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather rock a mid range PC and/or a PS5. If it was $300 or less it would maybe be worth it.
Great design. However, if I were to get an APU, I would choose one with 7840HS.
It looks like a PS5 with a flashlight on top that had a baby with something from the Asus MSI family.
10:49 ...that's what she said? 🤔😏
It's insane how fast these mini PCs are!
They're just laptop CPUs on a box
Yeah, 25 FPS on 1080p is very fast lol
And what do you think the Series S is
@@David-gr8rh Better! 120 / 1080p and 60 / 1440p
Solid review my man. I like that you don’t just throw numbers at us but you try to use realistic comparisons for us newbs
This with a better APU will probably be my next main PC. I don't care one bit about modern AAA games anymore and my PC is basically a movie streaming and old games machine at this point.
Im lucky on amazon it was 700 but a 42% discount saves and only had to pay 400
400$ is not cheap its about what i take home after 40hrs of work each week.. So a week of work for this cheap pc
Would this theoretically be more than good enough to use for music production purposes?
I was wondering the same thing.
Been looking for a computer or laptop to edit photos and videos. Wow I never knew these existed! Thank you!
I upgraded my PC from a Ryzen 7 2700X to a Ryzen 5700G ad have a GTX 1060 6GB. I just use the onboard APU atm. Flatout 4 at 4k average 104fps max settings. Battlefield 3 at 4k average 74fps max settings. I have only done it due to the excessive energy costs in the UK! But AMD are really upping their game and Zen 5 APUs are going to be a game changer allegedly! Love your content and I am a metalhead too!
I'm a 2d artist. My workstation is a flat 5600g in a mini-itx build. I don't think I'll replace it in a bunch of years. It's still overpowered for my needs. I used to have a 3600x with a GPU and this is actually faster for the use I give it. And the size is so nice!
no one is going to spend 400$ to play at 720 30fps at medium when series s exist
Can this mini PC run software like Photoshop, blender or Unreal Engine 5?
Nice to find one if you could add a mini gpu. Eta prime find systems like that occasionally. So you could upgrade the cheap mini pc some point.
Love what you do, Sir!
I'm almost considering getting this instead of a laptop. If you think about it, I can get one of these, AND a Mac Mini (since i use both Mac and windows) and it would still be cheaper than a gaming laptop, all while having a small PC powerful enough to run most of the games I would play on it. I'm primarily wanting to get both a Mac Mini and a small PC because i want to study to get some IT certs to get into an IT related job, so i figure its best to know how to handle both platforms efficiently. I already have an iPad Air if I wanted something portable
uhh a price drop is very rare in our post apocalyptic times right now, just grab it! but there are a lot of competitors especially in that price range, an a/b comparison would be nice, cheers 🎸🎸
I find it quite amazing that it comes with a fully licensed copy of Windows for something out of China.
This isn't that unusual actually. The Minisforum Ryzen 9 mini computer and the OneXPlayer2 handheld I reviewed recently both came with full Windows 11 licenses too.
Is it truly licensed, or is it running one of those license generator programs that Linus Tech Tips points out all the time?
@dschult3 I'll have to watch Linus's video to see as I wasn't aware, but I was able to run all the current Windows updates just fine for each machine.
All computers are from China
@@JohnKelly2 Yeah, but the cheapy no name ones seem to be iffy at best.
Picked one of these up mainly for emulation. I upgraded both ssd's and make sure to change bios to change graphics memory to 4gb. The wii u, gamecube, and ps2 emulators have just blown me away.
For the price and your use a steam deck might have been a better investment.
I love these mini PC's. I have a little Dell I use just for retro games.
for that price, seems like the steam deck is FAR better option
Is Steam Deck better than PS5?
Do you know if these igpu's can do freesync?
Good for emulation?
Cool system. If this was provided by a company I’d highly recommend wiping the SSD and reinstalling Windows or even buy a new M2 drive and install a fresh copy of Windows. I wouldn’t just put a preinstall from China on my network at home.
Excellent Review, i use since a year nos a Chuwi RZ-Box Ryzen 7 5800H, it replaced my Desktop PC Ryzen 5 5600 Nvidia RTX 2060 . I use Gecko Linux with 32Gb Ram and for my Casual Gaming and Day-Tasks it have enough Power , I operate it in 15W Mode so it is silent too and have the Power in need in a Compact Size and as a Sideeffect I safe Power. Kind Regards from Germany I hope my English wasn't to bad.
It struggled to hit 30 fps with 1080p while playing red dead??? I would assume you had the settings on high? Just saying because the framerate wasnt terrible on the original ps4 if i recall correctly, which is significantly less powerful. I could be remembering wrong
That pc really looks like the one Gamers Nexus and others reported it comes with malware.
This seems cool on paper, but overall, it seems like a low end gaming PC for sure,... I think where it would shine is with Emulation,... but there are probably cheaper options for just emulation, Im sure,... good video.
It is low end but can still play AAA games at low settings and some config files tweaking(of course real gamer will complete game even low graphics)
I saw this little bastard and caught my attention and my curiosity led me to to your review (I gave you thumbs up and you also earned another subscriber), can you either tell me or make another review about or if this mini PC runs Gears of war? (Let's say 1,2 or 3). Thank you so much in advance and greetings from Panamá (Central America).
So basically low display settings for it to be playable
If Steam made something like this Id buy it.
I would have to wonder what would happen if you added raid zeroed 2x 8T ssd's and and see if there was an updated ram solution of 128-512G ram
My guess target audience is likely retro mid-late 80' to mid-late 2005
as for pc gaming 1080p and that specification has only been within the pc realm in the 5-8 years from a vga perspective as for DP and HDMI don't know, I think 3 monitors might onlty be functional from the usb-c connection either paired with an external gpu or with an cpu upgrade
Nice Vid. I hope you use an extra Network for those China machines. Some of them have malware preinstalled and i guess you don't want to lose your RUclips channel and money in the bank.
Honestly doesn’t seem too bad for basic 720p gaming. Any idea how many watts it uses?
Of course the price went back up lol.
Pretty nice, but kinda hard not to get a steamdeck for similar price, performance but then you add portability.
Nowhere close to same performance.
@@mushieslushieyou mean the steamdeck is nowhere close to the performance of this mini PC, or this mini PC is nowhere close to the performance of the steamdeck?
Could it handle trakov or dayz or sons or forest
Dang, guess the code expired and it’s $450 on Amazon currently.
Welp, there was a digital coupon for $50 on Amazon bringing it down to $390, so I ended up pulling the trigger. Looking forward to checking it out. Thanks again @metaljesusrocks!
Honestly I thought it was a battery charger at first. The dial on top looked like a battery. Then I saw the controller next to it. Lol
Thanks for the intel my sensei!
Xbox series S is better
Been keeping an eye on this, I'm thinking of dual booting this with a Linux distro as an all rounder PC. I mainly play retro games, so raw horsepower would be good for working.
Can this run 4K HDR movies ?
Also as a side note, I don't know why every Mini-PC reviewer on youtube *COMPLETELY* ignore the Media-consumption part.
There are many people who are exclusively interested in using this as their main "Media Box" for their living room, we will never use it for games, so I believe getting that covered in the review is pretty important too.
Thanks for the effort :)
Ignore this product, its overpriced and uses a mid-range [ancient] soc from 3 generations back that still uses VEGA core for iGPU and ZEN3 [not even ZEN3+] for CPU this same exact product/model is 300$ on aliexpress, for 415$ you can get one with RDNA2 680m iGPU!
Basically if you watch reviews of mini PCs, if its 6000 series, its RDNA2 and they all do HDR and hardware encode/decode video, even 4K with zero issues.
if its 7 thousand series [the current one], you need to google the model name, 7th series identification is with SECOND number, model names like 7840U/7940U are RDNA3.
But if the second number is 7, its last gen RDNA2, from last year,still Great unlike VEGA lol]
For example this mini pc: "GMKtec K2" has AMD 7735HS SOC, is 415$ on aliexpress, it has the high end iGPU of last gen 680m [its RDNA2, 12 execution units, the top of a mobile soc]
[RDNA3 top iGPU is 780m, also 12 execution units]
If you only care about WATCHING video they both identical, HDR, Hardware Decode of AV1, Hardware Decode and Encode of HEVC etc
BUT the RDNA3 part also hardware Encode of AV1 [if you need it]
Would be a great living room computer. Add a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse and your set.
First 🥇
Thank you for making this video. Is it better to have a small form factor and the ability to install a separate graphic card?
I love compact things especially when it comes to pc’s because I rather game then see a big box ! Might have to!
I've had my eye on one of these mini pc's for about a year now. I am a console only player now but these are perfect for still getting to use my insane steam catalogue
You're a console only player with an "insane" steam library?
No, these aren't good. Get a Steam deck.
@deathtrooper2048 console only "now". I was a pc player from 2009 till this year when I got my ps5
@@MegaPieru3000 why would someone get a clunky machine
@@agamersinsanity Because that "clunky machine" costs the same and is multiple times more powerful, which results in multiple times better game experience. It's also supported by the owner of Steam, Valve.
Just for reference "thread" isn't a get up to. If it says 6 cores and 12 threads. that means each core has 2 threads. Not get up to 12 threads. Its constant!
this is great to run shadow pc , 4k its great
Wish I had something like this as a kid! Man I bought so many xboxes and I wish I had this option to change my games up.
I feel like cyberpunk would be interesting to see on this mini pc
Yep! I'll do that on my next mini-PC review. Thanks for the suggestion
I got the Atari VCS bundle for $200 from Best Buy recently and wondering how it would compare to a mini pc like this in performance especially after I max out the ram and upgrade the storage
My diet: cheap and fast
Taco Bell baby. 🌯
hey if you would like to sell that sample one you have , ill buy it for 150$ just pm me. And thank you for showing this because i was looking into getting a mini pc instead of a laptop this time.
I want one
i would like to know why many of these can run games from xbox/ps2 up to 360/ps3 and maybe some newer ones. BUT for some reason they struggle in the PS1/N64 era? Seems to the the same thing with a lot of these devices.
Maybe because of the motorola chipsets with inverted bit order.
My question is can it play lack ops 6 gta5 modern warfare 3 black ops coldwar zombies gaming with. No lagging just I like run smoothly in gaming pc can u add 512 the add a 1tb
You should buy PS5/Xbox or Steam Deck instead of this.
naw I'm good.
@@Neo_X90X This thing is the exact same price as them and many many times weaker. It makes no sense to buy this thing when there are much better options.
@@MegaPieru3000 I'll give you a reason why I wouldn't and surely others have in mind too but not double dipping on games plus I already got a pc that shits on the consoles so this would be great for my living room to just grab my ps5 controller from my main build and just bring it into the next room and load up whatever game (mostly single player or indie game) or even emulators and chill on the big screen, giving us a break from sitting at the desk. imo of course.
@@Neo_X90X Steam Deck is better for that than this.
maybe even a serie S and save some money