Hi, just letting you know I got a GTR7 Pro and I am trying to get in touch with other owners to diagnoise driver problems. I found that with multiple monitors and several different desks and setups I could cause the computer to crash and generate visual artifacts on screen. It also cannot run a 3DMark Firestrike DX11 Test. Bios and drivers are up to date
Any legitimate review would include benchmarks/comparisons, but any youtube review needs to be taken with a grain of salt, many of these 'reviewers' receive these units for free and post amazon links...
I have a UM690. I sold the RAM that came with it and installed 32GB of 5600 MHz. Also bumped up the power limit and set the VRAM allocation to 8GB. I use it for general computing and older games I never finished. Works great!
It would be nice to see how a 680M with 32GB performs, even the "lowly" Iris Xe on my laptop saw ~20% fps gain after upgrading to 32GB so it's definitely not a bottleneck exclusive to the 780M.
I bought the um790 32gb version and so far been impressed with it. Amazing how much performance you can get from a little PC these days. Reflected on this when I disposed of an old desktop PC recently that weighed a ton.
Thanks that helped a lot. I cant wait for the AMD 8700G with 780M. I will built a fanless 8700G with 32 Gig DDR5 6400 system in a Akasa case. 55-65W while gaming is absolutely possible to cool fanless. But Intel said they will bring "something ARC-XE-ish" for the dektop-CPU-line. To your last question: The 8700G will also have a 780M. But its RAM and CPU is slightly faster. So I think this will perform about 10% faster. Yes you can put more compute units (CU) inside, but it will become unefficient and the RAM will limit. Intel tried this with the Iris XE MAX graphics. It was quite fast but very unefficient and cancelled it and realeased the ARC GPU. The only solution is to put the RAM onto the APU. The latancies got shorter and you can use more than Dual-Channel. What about Octa-Channel. Like 8x4GB DDR5 with 7200Mhz. This could be 2-3 faster than the Radeon 780M. This is why Apple got so fast internal graphics.
If you're interested in playing 1080p medium settings, getting the barebones minisforum and adding in 32 or even 64GB of ram and a decent sized ssd, could give you a really solid starter PC.
Awesome video, Daniel! APU's success is something I also hope for. Things will only improve from here. The bandwidth will double once we get quad channel DDR5 mobos.
@@GewelReal What exactly will never happen? Improvement of APU, doubling the bandwidth, quad channel mobos? You have to be a little specific in your claims.
@@alexsmirnoveu Probably referring to quad channel on consumer grade stuff. Multi channel memory bus designs usually have a single channel going to a DIMM slot. If that remained normal, then you'd need 4 dimms and slots for a quad channel system. So designs that only have 2 slots couldn't use it and that includes most SFF and portable designs. You could make modules and slots that support dual or quad channel inherently, the old RAMBUS memory did this with 2x16bit channel modules a couple of decades ago, hovever I don't see that being planned today.
@@molochi I see your point. Thank you for the clarification. Aren't GPUs already out of "consumer grade stuff" in terms of price? I could imagine future builds with the more expensive mobo, APU, and RAM that could compete with builds with low-budget GPU. Of course, it's a dubious speculation and dependents on a lot of variables, but it is within the possible future (maybe a bit far future). What do you think?
I’m excited for the future of APU’s. It’s just something about having a such small pc give out comparable performance to flagship gpus. Make it’s good if you are living somewhere temporary like dorms.
I would call it "comparable performance to flagship GPUs". "Flagship" GPU means the best high-end graphics card from a given company. So, the 4090 and 7900 XTX are "flagship" GPUs. Intel's 16GB A770 is arguably their "flagship" GPU, but nobody actually calls it that because it was never a high end product, but even that GPU is not really "comparable" to these integrated GPUs. I mean, you CAN compare them, but they are still in very different performance classes. It is a convention with native English speakers that "comparable" in this context does not literally mean that it's possible to compare the two, the meaning is supposed to be that they are roughly similar. For example, the RX 7800 XT and RTX 4070 are definitely "comparable". The 4090 and the 7900 XTX are arguably comparable, but even those two have a fairly significant gap between them on average, so even calling those two "comparable" is arguably not correct, especially with heavy ray tracing workloads (and the price difference between them is enormous, significantly greater than their average performance gap, with the 7900 XTX currently going for about half or less than half the price).
Great video! I would love to see a comparison between the BeeLink GTR7 Pro with its impressive specs of 780M with 32GB, and the trusty GTX 1060. It would be interesting to see how these two graphics stack up against each other in terms of performance and power efficiency. Keep up the great work!
I think I'd give a shared system memory computer like this at least 24GB or 32GB, with 8GB or more (like 10-12GB) allocated to video. Looking at the Minisforum page on the 790Pro barebones at 519 and the 64GB w/ 2TB drives at 789 I could see just going with the latter if they are using good memory and drives and preinstalled and licensed windows.
Just a tangent off your later comment. I think more power in the chips only goes so far. Fundamentally design limited. But, what I would LIKE to see, is these chips being ported to AM4/AM5 socket options so we could use them in standard builds. A 1060 alike IGP perf, at low wattage...
I’m trying to decide between UM790 and GTR7 Pro at the moment so have watched & read lots of reviews. My understanding is that there is one other factor at play between those two apart from the 16GB/32GB difference in your units. Minisforum is set by default in the BIOS to run the 7940HS at auto power which I think keeps it within a 54W power envelope whereas the GTR7 Pro has the power limit set to 65W (bigger case probably gives scope for better cooling) so even in synthetic benchmarks the GTR7 Pro does slightly outperform the UM790 (mostly).
The 790Pro is currently selling from Minisforum for under $389 bare bones right now and they seem to be shipping fast right now. I got mine in the US in under a week.
You are very thorough in your benches. I have a Beelink Ser6 pro as my secondary gaming PC, it has the 680n which is still impressive for an IGPU. After AMD hyping up the 780m as this massive upgrade, it was disappointed in how little performance difference it actually seems to be. No one is going to upgrade to something that's 10 percent more powerful. Ridiculous.
It seems a lot of people still don't know how memory allocation work for iGPU. The dedicated vram for iGPU only means that amount of ram is reserved for iGPU, but it doesn't mean iGPU can only use that amount of vram. If a game requires more vram, the system will allocate more ram as vram dynamically, if there is still free memory available. However, if you are not running games, but some big applications, such as rendering high resolution videos or big projects, which are memory insensitive, but not vram intensive, the system cannot shrink the dedicated vram. Here is the simple fact, the performance of iGPU is impacted by 1. the frequency of RAM (the higher the better) 2. the total amount of RAM (the more the better).
It appears the 680M is running at 45W TDP whereas the 780M is running at 55W TDP? What if both were to set at 55W TDP? I wonder how close will the results be. Also note that the 780M performance is boosted by the higher speed RAM. If both were at 55W TDP and both using same speed RAM, and both GPU clock at 2400MHz GPU speed, the 780M probably perform almost at similar level as the 680M. In other words, the 780M is only "better" thanks to it running at 2800MHz, uses 5600MHz DDR5 memory, with high 55W TDP.
Nice to see this comparison! My Minisforum HM80 has a BIOS option to reserve memory for the iGPU, up to 16GB. From one review of the GTR7 non pro I take it the Beelink one only goes up to 6GB. What are the possibilities in the GTR7 Pro and this new Minisforum UM790?
That 21GB RAM usage/reservation for 'The Last of Us Part 1' at 1080p Low is scary, and it's even scarier when knowing iGPU can use up to half of your current RAM amount as shared VRAM. I can be wrong but iGPU is already having 4GB as "proper" VRAM, and additionnally needing these 21GB of RAM (up to 14/15 of them probably as shared VRAM) is just too much... Maybe it's a problem with purging memory of unused assets as the Medium preset only uses 4GB VRAM+10GB allocation...
It would be nice to compare the same system with 16GB vs 32GB memory so we can get a better understanding of the real impact of memory capacity to gaming performance. Comparing the UM790 16GB model to the GTR7 32GB model is not a very direct comparision as there are too many variables.
I believe the uptick in performance on the 32GB system is probably due to dual rank memory giving a nice boost in bandwidth for the apu to stretch its legs a bit. Nice video, thanks!
Thanks for the video Daniel! It would be awesome if you could test some fighting games on these mini PCs. Having one that can run current/near future FGs (Tekken 8, Strive, MK1) at 1080p60 would be huge for us to bring to tournaments/locals/meetups. I'm pretty sure this already is powerful enough but I'm curious about upcoming heavier games like tekken 8. Unlike other games fighting games are only 60fps, and due to the generally smaller environments tend to be less demanding. Having a model that is affordable and capable for this use could be gamechanging for the FGC
ETAPrime already test SF6, for example. That ran without issue on the latest Minisforum machine. I'm interested to see how it handles Tekken 8 (UE5) as you said.
That's a FANTASTIC question at the end. How could these APUs could get if they were given more oomph. For the moment all I am wondering about is whatever and whenever the "880m" will come out. Cool video, thank you for sharing.
The SER 6 w/32GB (4800) and 1TB NVMe is ~$500 w/win 11 pro at the big online reseller, you know the one... 7735HS 680M. Seems it will be mid 2025 before the 8000 series APUs drop so this seems a good bang/buck setup in the interm. Dual USB 4 doesn't hurt.
Yes, when I'm editing the side by side footage I just divide the results at the end of the benchmark run and type it in. I'm sure I could automate it, but it doesn't really take long to add in by hand.
One thing I've been seeing is that Beelink limits memory support to DDR5 4800 while the Minisforum seems to allow faster - there is no advertised limit, at least. This would be very interesting to investigate - how sensitive are iGPU's to Memory speed
I've just got the UM790 Pro with 64GB of RAM. It's a Mini Beast 😆 Idle's at under 10 watts with loads of tabs open, stays cool nearly all the time unlike my last Mini PC. I pad £735 for 64GB and 1TB MVNE Gen 4 drive. Absolute bargain.
The stock ram speeds will make a huge difference, also how much ram is ringfenced for the GPU in the BIOS. Older UM690 has cooling issues, UM690S appears to have solved this.
I actually don't look for the GPU nowadays. AMD 680M is enough for me. the reason why I got my UM773 was: 1. its a Mini PC (on my temporary home I have not enough space for a huge Desktop) 2. it has DDR5 RAM 3. its somehow upgradeable more than the System actually was made (there are videos of it) 4. 30-60fps is enough for me. im not a competitive gamer I only play for fun (also mostly story games)
Boy, if I was a young teen when these mini PC's came out, (and interested in playing older titles) The budget gaming would be off the charts, what with steam sales and all. But also I guess a top tier GPU when I was a teen was well under 500 bucks.... (Radeon HD 7950 for ~350 bucks when I got mine, we didn't know how good we had it...)
I have a 4800u in a pssive cooled case, so basically a 2kg heatsink. I just ordered the UM790 as a barebone, if i can upgrade it's cooling, this will be my new rendering machine 😃
Just today, on my 690S, I was able to run Cyberpunk medium settings, FSR2.1balanced, 55fps average at 1080p and 35 fps at 1440p. Honestly both playable. More surprising was GTA V at 1440p medium-ish preset no upscaling between 60 and 95 fps in all benchmark areas of the canned benchmark and gameplay is very smooth. Crysis 2 1440p high preset 60 fps, Fallout 4 60fps at 4k medium preset (!!). I've coaxed the UM690S to run 5200MT memory and am using the Universal Tuning Utility to give it 85 watts (though during gaming the iGPU and the CPU seem to be battling for wattage....so I've ordered a 180 watt power brick....)
I have the Ayaneo Geek (680M with 16GB), and my only disappointment is that I made a mistake in the RAM configuration by choosing 16GB instead of 32GB. With my setup using an eGPU (67000XT), some games reach the limitation for system RAM because the iGPU takes 3GB away. However, overall, the 680M is very impressive by itself (with some overhead of 32GB). By the way, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Intel iGPU in Core Ultra Performance compares with the 780M
Nicely done. Put an APU = to or greater then the Current Gen Console APU's for PC's paired with other standard pc parts ; like desktop ram ; desktop pc cpu coolers - etc to let them operate to the Maximum possible.
Hey Daniel, could you please compare 780M with Arc A370M? It's basicallly the closest we have to intel's next gen Meteor Lake iGPU. It's expected to have higher clocks even while being more power constrained thanks to the new node (N6 to N5), have similar actual bandwidth with 128bit LPDDR5X and possibly greater effective bandwidth if extra 'Adamantine' cache in the base tile comes true on top of all the architectural optimizations of its LPG arc. But still A370M is the best approximation we have.
a performance for dollar comparison. seeing this technology comes from laptops, its quite possible to gauge how much performance we can get on those too. curious to see what the used market has to offer though. those prices for a mini pc just makes more sense to go for an outright laptop seeing it would have the portability as well
Way better than an Apple TV, Roku or Fire Stick for a smart hub. I think these are pretty great little devices that outperform top of the line gaming PCs from less than a decade ago.
As I saw a few ch about Minisforum in Japanese, so happy to find your video out! Do you think the durability of this manufacturer's computers is good in your opinion? I am interested in whether they have good heat exhaustion.
Definitely want to check your RAM when you get a mini PC. My GMKtec came with 16GB but I was disappointed to discover it was a single stick and not dual channel. It was Crucial though so that's nice. Added a second 16GB stick to up performance. Still watching the video but definitely curious to see performance metrics comparing the different RAM speeds. Mine is 4800MHz.
I preordered an Ayaneo kun 32gb windows handheld based on the 780m and after watching this video I'm glad I went with a 32gb model instead of a cheaper Rog Ally or Legion go with only 16gb ram.
In order to test the difference in GPU you need to keep resolution as high as possible. A lot of the difference you see when you enable upscallers is the faster CPU coming into play. Edit: some problems with this review: 1. the GTR7 seems to be running a 65w power profile and the minisforum 50W. Om games where the 32 GB version runs a lot better. That is the main difference here. Not the total available memory. Those gains seem marginal at best though they are consistent so maybe. Without knowing the memory timings it is hard to say (and I can't seem to find 16GB kits of 5600 MT/s SoDimm... Which means you might be getting 2 8GB sticks which might bot work as well as a kit where memory is meant to work in dual channel). 2. For testing purposes you should've swapped the ram on the 680M system to the faster ram of the 780M. These APUs are very dependent on memory speed for performance and going from 4800 to 5600 MT/s is a significant bump. For an interesting comparison due to the absurdly low prices of 6800H/6900HX systems, an overclock would be interesting to measure. Basically if you could match the clocks of the 780M we could them see true generational improvements.
now cap the 780M systems at 45w and you have a valid comparison ... of course the newer iGPU with 15w more power available to it will be faster ... question is, can you move the 6900HX tdp UP ?
I'm testing them at out-of-the-box configurations. I'd like to test with customized settings, but honestly I have a massive amount of benchmarking to do right now for some upcoming GPU reviews, which is my main content, so I don' think I have time.
@@bulletpunch9317 Both are dual channel. 89.6 GB/s bandwidth for BeeLink against 76.8 GB/s for Minisforum UM690. Quad channel would double that. In the year or two DDR5 quad channel will reach 4060 bandwidth lol.
I don`t thing it is extra memory banks. the ddr5 2x32bit transfers do a lot even on single bank sticks. I thing the boost here is the spare RAM for the APU to use
The Beelink GTR7 PRO uses as standard the crucial ddr5 5600 C46 1.1v 2x16GB sodimm memory which is quite slow. On APUs like the 7840HS as the CPU and iGPU share memory, fast memory is very important for better performance. It would be very interesting to know the difference and test the performance with a Kingstom FURY DDR5 6400 C38 1.35v or better fast memory.
It's not only the capacity of the RAM, it's also about he frequency of the memory and if it is thermal throttling. The BeeLink has good cooling for the RAM. Also what's the power delivery of the APU.
You're comparing apples and oranges. I am looking to purchase a ryzen 9 mini and my choice is between the minisforum um790 and beelink gtr7 pro each with the exact same specs: ram, ssd, etc. I would like to see such a comparison since both machines are expensive and I want to know which one is better and for what reasons.
Damn thats impressive. Cant imagine how the 780m would look like in a bigger case, with higher clocks, more power, better cooling, faster memory and 3Dvcache. Would be a low end GPU killer
default bios settings assign 4gb of ram to the igpu. I m wondering changing to 8gb if that would make a difference. 8/16 would not be recommended i guess, but on the 32gb it should be ok
would it be smoother if u gave it permission to use more ram as vram, if i remember from randomgaming hd, u can set 2, 4, 6gb as vram, not sure for more
I'd also be curious to know what the UMA buffer is set to on the different PCs. My GMKtec had it set to 3GB and I upped it to 4GB. I know that was something that really helped performance on Steam Decks which came from the factory only set to 1GB.
Dont do barebones with Minisforum unless you want to swap parts from your current computer... you want those under warranty. TEST these units IMMEDIATELY when you get them, my XTX came with hardware issues out of the box, so I had to return. Expect poor product support.
Would you be able to compare the MinisForum 790 Pro 64GB vs the GTR7 w/64GB,? Closer to an apples tp apples comparison. This test showed that Minisforum did their homework in tuning the system, as it kept up w/GTR (which is more expensive by 100$)
I was curious if that 32gb on the 780m would do anything and it looks like, it's not the extra RAM increasing performance but rather access to the dual rank for the 32gb ram where it is accessible allows that 10% boost in performance. I wonder what happen if it was even faster RAM how much performance boost would it have.
Can you test and compare performance between different egpu setups? Minipcs are great for that too. Maybe do pcie 4.0 x4 to x16 riser egpu vs oculink 4i egpu vs thunderbolt egpu vs similar performing cpu desktop
How would you rate the MINISFORUM NUCXI7? A I7-11800H + NVIDIA 3070m combo feels amazingly cost-effective from where I stand and I'm seriously considering it... the only problem is that 8gb of vram will be obsolete in a couple years.
Nice comparison. Thanx. Have you checked how much RAM the integrated GPU is allowed to use though ? It should auto allocate based on the amount of RAM you have, but manual adjustments to check the effect RAM has should be possible.
I wish it had been tested with 64 bare minimum... I was actually looking at the new packages which go up to 192 4x48. There are many configurations in between though 96 2x48 4x32 I would also like to see tested. I'm not 100% sure any of that could work but it's likely you could we'll see I guess thanks for the video
Btw The only reason I'm interested in going into a mini PC situation is because of the new external GPUs that you can get if it wasn't for that I'd probably stick to a handheld. (Which also can use that newer technology) it's a tough choice I think the best thing right now is to wait ;)
Since the 780M with 32GB of ram is significantly faster than the 16GB version would this mean that a 680M with 32GB of ram beat or tie a 780M with 16GB? 🤔
I've been hearing how popular your channel is, and I'm disappointed in your test setup. The 780M is consuming 30% more power, so other than "out of the box" comparison, these devices aren't being tested the same.
So is the performance difference between the Minisforum UM790 and the BeeLink GTR7 Pro because of the extra 16gb of memory or does the BeeLink GTR7 Pro have better thermals?
Daniel thanks soo much for this review. Just wondering if you could do a similar test with all the systems matching at 32gb or even bumped to 64gb? I am only asking as I'm deciding which one to get, and right now the beelink seems the way to go. But would the 790 Pro have performed better/the same with 32Gb? I'm currently thinking of getting the barebones minisforum with a samsung 790pro ssd and kingston fury memory with 64Gb.
cannot imagine if the next gen 880M can be double the current, how this will help improving the laptops battery with indeed a powerful iGpu! thanks to AMD indeed help improving the direct competition with MacBooks.
These are better value than building a PC. Just an 8-core AMD CPU and a motherboard is the same price. Before you account for a PSU, a case, CPU fan etc.
to be honest I think the EM680 is the way to go at the current point in time... can pick up a 16gb for just 420$ and it has a R7 6800u with a 680m and Is so small it literally fits in the palm of your hand... talking just 3.2" x 3.2" x 1.5" It's insane how much of a punch that tiny thing packs
If you are interested in any of these Mini PCs here are some links:
Buy a Minisforum PC: bit.ly/43K8u2V
Buy a Beelink GTR7 Pro: bit.ly/3WsShfP
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I am indeed interested in a mini PC. Thanks, Daniel!
Hi, just letting you know I got a GTR7 Pro and I am trying to get in touch with other owners to diagnoise driver problems. I found that with multiple monitors and several different desks and setups I could cause the computer to crash and generate visual artifacts on screen. It also cannot run a 3DMark Firestrike DX11 Test. Bios and drivers are up to date
I would love to see some testing on New World with these things.
I was surprised with the low cpu thread usage.
Excellent job. It's nice that you look into APUs. That 780M vs 1060 was a great comparison, not so easy to find on the internet.
Its much faster. You can compare it to the 1650.
@@Crustenscharbap What? That's way lower end.
The way other reviewers of these 2 systems acted like the 780M was WAY faster. It's a nice bump but not quite as a large as they acted like it was.
telemarketers
Eta Prime cough cough
I think the thing is that bump means going from fps in the high 20s to mid 30s which takes games from unplayable to playable
Any legitimate review would include benchmarks/comparisons, but any youtube review needs to be taken with a grain of salt, many of these 'reviewers' receive these units for free and post amazon links...
@@mosesdavid5536 he is prime marketing device now, good for him because he gets this devices early but there is almost nothing worth anyone's time
I have a UM690. I sold the RAM that came with it and installed 32GB of 5600 MHz. Also bumped up the power limit and set the VRAM allocation to 8GB. I use it for general computing and older games I never finished. Works great!
I have a UM690 and I regret buying it. It is unstable and crashes all the time. Their support doesn't help much
@meistereder7169how do you over clock?
It would be nice to see how a 680M with 32GB performs, even the "lowly" Iris Xe on my laptop saw ~20% fps gain after upgrading to 32GB so it's definitely not a bottleneck exclusive to the 780M.
Did you dedicate more ram to the iris xe or was it just by default?
I bought the um790 32gb version and so far been impressed with it. Amazing how much performance you can get from a little PC these days. Reflected on this when I disposed of an old desktop PC recently that weighed a ton.
Glad to hear, I get my um790 pro barebone in a few days. I also bought Kingston Fury 5600 CL40 and WD Black SN850x, that should be a mini beast
@@samothco hows yo um790 works after few months, did you noticed any issues? Greets
If you make an other Test with these APU's similar RAM speed would be nice to see the real differences. Charts are great, love the work, thanks.
Yeah. Only performance difference is because of DDR4 vs DDR5. They have the same exact core quantity.
Thanks that helped a lot. I cant wait for the AMD 8700G with 780M. I will built a fanless 8700G with 32 Gig DDR5 6400 system in a Akasa case. 55-65W while gaming is absolutely possible to cool fanless. But Intel said they will bring "something ARC-XE-ish" for the dektop-CPU-line.
To your last question: The 8700G will also have a 780M. But its RAM and CPU is slightly faster. So I think this will perform about 10% faster. Yes you can put more compute units (CU) inside, but it will become unefficient and the RAM will limit. Intel tried this with the Iris XE MAX graphics. It was quite fast but very unefficient and cancelled it and realeased the ARC GPU. The only solution is to put the RAM onto the APU. The latancies got shorter and you can use more than Dual-Channel. What about Octa-Channel. Like 8x4GB DDR5 with 7200Mhz. This could be 2-3 faster than the Radeon 780M. This is why Apple got so fast internal graphics.
If you're interested in playing 1080p medium settings, getting the barebones minisforum and adding in 32 or even 64GB of ram and a decent sized ssd, could give you a really solid starter PC.
64gb is a massive overkill
if 32 is too little, 48 is an option
@@GewelReal 64GB should be enough for anyone. 🤔
@@molochi I'm still fine with 8
This thing is +600 bucks without ram storage screen... a laptop isnt much more expensive but way more powerful
@@GewelReal With the ram being used as VRAM, more is better, and with ram being sold in 2 stick kits, it's just easier to buy a 4x or 2 2x kits.
would be cool to see a barebones version with 32GB 6000MT/s RAM. If possible the APU overclocked to 3GHz
I think 5600mt/s is the fastest sodimm ram at the moment
Edit: seems like Kingston makes ddr5 sodimm rated at 6400mt/s
Awesome video, Daniel! APU's success is something I also hope for. Things will only improve from here. The bandwidth will double once we get quad channel DDR5 mobos.
that will never happen for non-professional tier
@@GewelReal What exactly will never happen? Improvement of APU, doubling the bandwidth, quad channel mobos? You have to be a little specific in your claims.
@@alexsmirnoveu Probably referring to quad channel on consumer grade stuff. Multi channel memory bus designs usually have a single channel going to a DIMM slot. If that remained normal, then you'd need 4 dimms and slots for a quad channel system. So designs that only have 2 slots couldn't use it and that includes most SFF and portable designs. You could make modules and slots that support dual or quad channel inherently, the old RAMBUS memory did this with 2x16bit channel modules a couple of decades ago, hovever I don't see that being planned today.
and of course the cpu and motherboard would also need to support it.
@@molochi I see your point. Thank you for the clarification. Aren't GPUs already out of "consumer grade stuff" in terms of price? I could imagine future builds with the more expensive mobo, APU, and RAM that could compete with builds with low-budget GPU.
Of course, it's a dubious speculation and dependents on a lot of variables, but it is within the possible future (maybe a bit far future). What do you think?
I’m excited for the future of APU’s. It’s just something about having a such small pc give out comparable performance to flagship gpus. Make it’s good if you are living somewhere temporary like dorms.
Exactly. Their efficiency in terms of performance and space savings means they have a lot of utility. They're also very portable.
I would call it "comparable performance to flagship GPUs". "Flagship" GPU means the best high-end graphics card from a given company. So, the 4090 and 7900 XTX are "flagship" GPUs. Intel's 16GB A770 is arguably their "flagship" GPU, but nobody actually calls it that because it was never a high end product, but even that GPU is not really "comparable" to these integrated GPUs. I mean, you CAN compare them, but they are still in very different performance classes.
It is a convention with native English speakers that "comparable" in this context does not literally mean that it's possible to compare the two, the meaning is supposed to be that they are roughly similar. For example, the RX 7800 XT and RTX 4070 are definitely "comparable". The 4090 and the 7900 XTX are arguably comparable, but even those two have a fairly significant gap between them on average, so even calling those two "comparable" is arguably not correct, especially with heavy ray tracing workloads (and the price difference between them is enormous, significantly greater than their average performance gap, with the 7900 XTX currently going for about half or less than half the price).
32gb is a massive upgrade, id upgrad any laptop to 32gb striaghtaway with these apus
I enjoyed the video.
I'd appreciate swapping memory between the 780m units.
Also note that bigger DRAM tends to be slower / higher latency.
Great video! I would love to see a comparison between the BeeLink GTR7 Pro with its impressive specs of 780M with 32GB, and the trusty GTX 1060. It would be interesting to see how these two graphics stack up against each other in terms of performance and power efficiency. Keep up the great work!
I think I'd give a shared system memory computer like this at least 24GB or 32GB, with 8GB or more (like 10-12GB) allocated to video. Looking at the Minisforum page on the 790Pro barebones at 519 and the 64GB w/ 2TB drives at 789 I could see just going with the latter if they are using good memory and drives and preinstalled and licensed windows.
Just a tangent off your later comment. I think more power in the chips only goes so far. Fundamentally design limited.
But, what I would LIKE to see, is these chips being ported to AM4/AM5 socket options so we could use them in standard builds.
A 1060 alike IGP perf, at low wattage...
I'd be very interested in 64Gb results AND faster DDR5 and faster NVMe drives, to see the bandwidth / frequency differences.
64gb won't do shit, faster ddr5 will most likely help
I’m trying to decide between UM790 and GTR7 Pro at the moment so have watched & read lots of reviews. My understanding is that there is one other factor at play between those two apart from the 16GB/32GB difference in your units. Minisforum is set by default in the BIOS to run the 7940HS at auto power which I think keeps it within a 54W power envelope whereas the GTR7 Pro has the power limit set to 65W (bigger case probably gives scope for better cooling) so even in synthetic benchmarks the GTR7 Pro does slightly outperform the UM790 (mostly).
The 790Pro is currently selling from Minisforum for under $389 bare bones right now and they seem to be shipping fast right now. I got mine in the US in under a week.
Also, I just use the Universal Tuning Utility to run my minis at 85 watt (as needed, not as a constant 😉
You are very thorough in your benches. I have a Beelink Ser6 pro as my secondary gaming PC, it has the 680n which is still impressive for an IGPU. After AMD hyping up the 780m as this massive upgrade, it was disappointed in how little performance difference it actually seems to be. No one is going to upgrade to something that's 10 percent more powerful. Ridiculous.
It seems a lot of people still don't know how memory allocation work for iGPU. The dedicated vram for iGPU only means that amount of ram is reserved for iGPU, but it doesn't mean iGPU can only use that amount of vram. If a game requires more vram, the system will allocate more ram as vram dynamically, if there is still free memory available. However, if you are not running games, but some big applications, such as rendering high resolution videos or big projects, which are memory insensitive, but not vram intensive, the system cannot shrink the dedicated vram. Here is the simple fact, the performance of iGPU is impacted by 1. the frequency of RAM (the higher the better) 2. the total amount of RAM (the more the better).
It appears the 680M is running at 45W TDP whereas the 780M is running at 55W TDP?
What if both were to set at 55W TDP? I wonder how close will the results be.
Also note that the 780M performance is boosted by the higher speed RAM.
If both were at 55W TDP and both using same speed RAM, and both GPU clock at 2400MHz GPU speed, the 780M probably perform almost at similar level as the 680M.
In other words, the 780M is only "better" thanks to it running at 2800MHz, uses 5600MHz DDR5 memory, with high 55W TDP.
I often find it costing +50%
Nice to see this comparison! My Minisforum HM80 has a BIOS option to reserve memory for the iGPU, up to 16GB. From one review of the GTR7 non pro I take it the Beelink one only goes up to 6GB. What are the possibilities in the GTR7 Pro and this new Minisforum UM790?
That 21GB RAM usage/reservation for 'The Last of Us Part 1' at 1080p Low is scary, and it's even scarier when knowing iGPU can use up to half of your current RAM amount as shared VRAM. I can be wrong but iGPU is already having 4GB as "proper" VRAM, and additionnally needing these 21GB of RAM (up to 14/15 of them probably as shared VRAM) is just too much...
Maybe it's a problem with purging memory of unused assets as the Medium preset only uses 4GB VRAM+10GB allocation...
It would be nice to compare the same system with 16GB vs 32GB memory so we can get a better understanding of the real impact of memory capacity to gaming performance. Comparing the UM790 16GB model to the GTR7 32GB model is not a very direct comparision as there are too many variables.
I second this request. I'm trying to decide between the two systems. Or even a 64 vs 64.
I believe the uptick in performance on the 32GB system is probably due to dual rank memory giving a nice boost in bandwidth for the apu to stretch its legs a bit. Nice video, thanks!
The 16gb are duel rank as well 2x8gb sticks
Thanks for the video Daniel! It would be awesome if you could test some fighting games on these mini PCs. Having one that can run current/near future FGs (Tekken 8, Strive, MK1) at 1080p60 would be huge for us to bring to tournaments/locals/meetups.
I'm pretty sure this already is powerful enough but I'm curious about upcoming heavier games like tekken 8. Unlike other games fighting games are only 60fps, and due to the generally smaller environments tend to be less demanding. Having a model that is affordable and capable for this use could be gamechanging for the FGC
ETAPrime already test SF6, for example. That ran without issue on the latest Minisforum machine. I'm interested to see how it handles Tekken 8 (UE5) as you said.
That's a FANTASTIC question at the end. How could these APUs could get if they were given more oomph.
For the moment all I am wondering about is whatever and whenever the "880m" will come out.
Cool video, thank you for sharing.
The SER 6 w/32GB (4800) and 1TB NVMe is ~$500 w/win 11 pro at the big online reseller, you know the one... 7735HS 680M. Seems it will be mid 2025 before the 8000 series APUs drop so this seems a good bang/buck setup in the interm. Dual USB 4 doesn't hurt.
Been waiting for this one, thanks. : )
I really like the relative performance percentages on the left, do you calculate that stuff yourself?
Yes, when I'm editing the side by side footage I just divide the results at the end of the benchmark run and type it in. I'm sure I could automate it, but it doesn't really take long to add in by hand.
@@danielowentechCould you make a quick video of how you do the benchmarks? And the calculations...
Daniel, try to allocate 8 Gigs vram in bios on 32 Gig model
Bro he's a math teacher this is nothing for him
The math calculates itself out of fear.
Short comment , the Minisforum 690 is only running at 45w while the other 2 are at 60W.
One thing I've been seeing is that Beelink limits memory support to DDR5 4800 while the Minisforum seems to allow faster - there is no advertised limit, at least. This would be very interesting to investigate - how sensitive are iGPU's to Memory speed
I've just got the UM790 Pro with 64GB of RAM. It's a Mini Beast 😆 Idle's at under 10 watts with loads of tabs open, stays cool nearly all the time unlike my last Mini PC. I pad £735 for 64GB and 1TB MVNE Gen 4 drive. Absolute bargain.
13:34 that fire effect for iGPU are amazing…. Even at 30fps!!
The stock ram speeds will make a huge difference, also how much ram is ringfenced for the GPU in the BIOS. Older UM690 has cooling issues, UM690S appears to have solved this.
I actually don't look for the GPU nowadays.
AMD 680M is enough for me.
the reason why I got my UM773 was:
1. its a Mini PC (on my temporary home I have not enough space for a huge Desktop)
2. it has DDR5 RAM
3. its somehow upgradeable more than the System actually was made (there are videos of it)
4. 30-60fps is enough for me. im not a competitive gamer I only play for fun (also mostly story games)
Boy, if I was a young teen when these mini PC's came out, (and interested in playing older titles) The budget gaming would be off the charts, what with steam sales and all. But also I guess a top tier GPU when I was a teen was well under 500 bucks.... (Radeon HD 7950 for ~350 bucks when I got mine, we didn't know how good we had it...)
I have a 4800u in a pssive cooled case, so basically a 2kg heatsink. I just ordered the UM790 as a barebone, if i can upgrade it's cooling, this will be my new rendering machine 😃
Just today, on my 690S, I was able to run Cyberpunk medium settings, FSR2.1balanced, 55fps average at 1080p and 35 fps at 1440p. Honestly both playable. More surprising was GTA V at 1440p medium-ish preset no upscaling between 60 and 95 fps in all benchmark areas of the canned benchmark and gameplay is very smooth. Crysis 2 1440p high preset 60 fps, Fallout 4 60fps at 4k medium preset (!!). I've coaxed the UM690S to run 5200MT memory and am using the Universal Tuning Utility to give it 85 watts (though during gaming the iGPU and the CPU seem to be battling for wattage....so I've ordered a 180 watt power brick....)
I have the Ayaneo Geek (680M with 16GB), and my only disappointment is that I made a mistake in the RAM configuration by choosing 16GB instead of 32GB. With my setup using an eGPU (67000XT), some games reach the limitation for system RAM because the iGPU takes 3GB away. However, overall, the 680M is very impressive by itself (with some overhead of 32GB). By the way, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Intel iGPU in Core Ultra Performance compares with the 780M
Nicely done. Put an APU = to or greater then the Current Gen Console APU's for PC's paired with other standard pc parts ; like desktop ram ; desktop pc cpu coolers - etc to let them operate to the Maximum possible.
Hey Daniel, could you please compare 780M with Arc A370M? It's basicallly the closest we have to intel's next gen Meteor Lake iGPU. It's expected to have higher clocks even while being more power constrained thanks to the new node (N6 to N5), have similar actual bandwidth with 128bit LPDDR5X and possibly greater effective bandwidth if extra 'Adamantine' cache in the base tile comes true on top of all the architectural optimizations of its LPG arc. But still A370M is the best approximation we have.
a performance for dollar comparison. seeing this technology comes from laptops, its quite possible to gauge how much performance we can get on those too. curious to see what the used market has to offer though. those prices for a mini pc just makes more sense to go for an outright laptop seeing it would have the portability as well
Way better than an Apple TV, Roku or Fire Stick for a smart hub. I think these are pretty great little devices that outperform top of the line gaming PCs from less than a decade ago.
Very nice video keep up the work!
As I saw a few ch about Minisforum in Japanese, so happy to find your video out! Do you think the durability of this manufacturer's computers is good in your opinion? I am interested in whether they have good heat exhaustion.
Definitely want to check your RAM when you get a mini PC. My GMKtec came with 16GB but I was disappointed to discover it was a single stick and not dual channel. It was Crucial though so that's nice. Added a second 16GB stick to up performance. Still watching the video but definitely curious to see performance metrics comparing the different RAM speeds. Mine is 4800MHz.
I preordered an Ayaneo kun 32gb windows handheld based on the 780m and after watching this video I'm glad I went with a 32gb model instead of a cheaper Rog Ally or Legion go with only 16gb ram.
In order to test the difference in GPU you need to keep resolution as high as possible. A lot of the difference you see when you enable upscallers is the faster CPU coming into play.
Edit: some problems with this review:
1. the GTR7 seems to be running a 65w power profile and the minisforum 50W. Om games where the 32 GB version runs a lot better. That is the main difference here. Not the total available memory. Those gains seem marginal at best though they are consistent so maybe. Without knowing the memory timings it is hard to say (and I can't seem to find 16GB kits of 5600 MT/s SoDimm... Which means you might be getting 2 8GB sticks which might bot work as well as a kit where memory is meant to work in dual channel).
2. For testing purposes you should've swapped the ram on the 680M system to the faster ram of the 780M. These APUs are very dependent on memory speed for performance and going from 4800 to 5600 MT/s is a significant bump.
For an interesting comparison due to the absurdly low prices of 6800H/6900HX systems, an overclock would be interesting to measure. Basically if you could match the clocks of the 780M we could them see true generational improvements.
I think UM690 takes DDR4, the other two DDR5, so they can't use the same RAM.
@@Tommi462 nope. All DDR5.
Great work. I am deciding between the 680M and 780M. And also wondering about taking the barebone.
now cap the 780M systems at 45w and you have a valid comparison ... of course the newer iGPU with 15w more power available to it will be faster ... question is, can you move the 6900HX tdp UP ?
Why are you limiting the 32GB system to only 4GB of video RAM and not 8GB?
I'm testing them at out-of-the-box configurations. I'd like to test with customized settings, but honestly I have a massive amount of benchmarking to do right now for some upcoming GPU reviews, which is my main content, so I don' think I have time.
The extra bank groups on 32GB helps a ton in terms of bandwidth for both the cpu and igpu.
Is 32gb in quad channel?
it's not for bandwidth but yes
and no, this is dual channel but "technically" DDR5 is running in "quad channel"
@@bulletpunch9317 Both are dual channel. 89.6 GB/s bandwidth for BeeLink against 76.8 GB/s for Minisforum UM690. Quad channel would double that. In the year or two DDR5 quad channel will reach 4060 bandwidth lol.
@@alexsmirnoveu what is this bank groups this guy is talking about?
I don`t thing it is extra memory banks. the ddr5 2x32bit transfers do a lot even on single bank sticks. I thing the boost here is the spare RAM for the APU to use
What if we slapped 32GB on 680M 🤔… that would bring up the 1% lows making it super solid
The Beelink GTR7 PRO uses as standard the crucial ddr5 5600 C46 1.1v 2x16GB sodimm memory which is quite slow.
On APUs like the 7840HS as the CPU and iGPU share memory, fast memory is very important for better performance.
It would be very interesting to know the difference and test the performance with a Kingstom FURY DDR5 6400 C38 1.35v or better fast memory.
When will you release RX 7600 vs 6700 XT comparison?
It's not only the capacity of the RAM, it's also about he frequency of the memory and if it is thermal throttling. The BeeLink has good cooling for the RAM. Also what's the power delivery of the APU.
Thank you for this video! Can you do a video with the BeeLink GTR7 Pro & GPD G1 eGPU
Very informative video , nice work. Got one question. 64G DDR5 would be overkill ? Does Win11 or the AMD 780 APU will even benefits of it ?
your UM690 is configured to 45W, vs 65W for the others (see osd power reading).
not an accurate comparison, at 65W it'll be much closer
You're comparing apples and oranges. I am looking to purchase a ryzen 9 mini and my choice is between the minisforum um790 and beelink gtr7 pro each with the exact same specs: ram, ssd, etc. I would like to see such a comparison since both machines are expensive and I want to know which one is better and for what reasons.
Great comparison it really matters !!!
What will future APUs' bring? any news on the succesor of 5700G?
nothing so far
Wanna play a drinking game? Take a shot every time the guy says 'uhhh'.
yeah my main pc/gaming pc, is the beelink ser5pro
has 5600h,32gb ram, 500gb and its beast
Damn thats impressive. Cant imagine how the 780m would look like in a bigger case, with higher clocks, more power, better cooling, faster memory and 3Dvcache. Would be a low end GPU killer
Already it's thermally limited for sharing cpu and igpu die 3dvcache can make little worse but increase ram bandwidth.
it's just 12CUs. You can't suddenly make it 50% faster
@@GewelReal adding addition 12CU can be done, due to the fact moving to 4nm from 6nm made die area half. so why cant suddenly....
default bios settings assign 4gb of ram to the igpu. I m wondering changing to 8gb if that would make a difference. 8/16 would not be recommended i guess, but on the 32gb it should be ok
would it be smoother if u gave it permission to use more ram as vram, if i remember from randomgaming hd, u can set 2, 4, 6gb as vram, not sure for more
Of course, at 11 months old, this video is out-dated. We are on to Oculink support and Mini touch screens now.
I'd also be curious to know what the UMA buffer is set to on the different PCs. My GMKtec had it set to 3GB and I upped it to 4GB. I know that was something that really helped performance on Steam Decks which came from the factory only set to 1GB.
Dont do barebones with Minisforum unless you want to swap parts from your current computer... you want those under warranty. TEST these units IMMEDIATELY when you get them, my XTX came with hardware issues out of the box, so I had to return. Expect poor product support.
Would you be able to compare the MinisForum 790 Pro 64GB vs the GTR7 w/64GB,? Closer to an apples tp apples comparison. This test showed that Minisforum did their homework in tuning the system, as it kept up w/GTR (which is more expensive by 100$)
Now put an Oculink card in them and test them with an eGPU like the GPD G1.
It's hilarious seeing these APUs using 16/32GB system memory as VRAM and comparing them to desktop GPUs with 8GB.
I was curious if that 32gb on the 780m would do anything and it looks like, it's not the extra RAM increasing performance but rather access to the dual rank for the 32gb ram where it is accessible allows that 10% boost in performance. I wonder what happen if it was even faster RAM how much performance boost would it have.
Can you test and compare performance between different egpu setups? Minipcs are great for that too. Maybe do pcie 4.0 x4 to x16 riser egpu vs oculink 4i egpu vs thunderbolt egpu vs similar performing cpu desktop
How would you rate the MINISFORUM NUCXI7? A I7-11800H + NVIDIA 3070m combo feels amazingly cost-effective from where I stand and I'm seriously considering it... the only problem is that 8gb of vram will be obsolete in a couple years.
would like to see UM790 pro with egpu tested with USB4 and M2NVME connections
Nice comparison. Thanx.
Have you checked how much RAM the integrated GPU is allowed to use though ? It should auto allocate based on the amount of RAM you have, but manual adjustments to check the effect RAM has should be possible.
I wish it had been tested with 64 bare minimum... I was actually looking at the new packages which go up to 192 4x48. There are many configurations in between though 96 2x48 4x32 I would also like to see tested. I'm not 100% sure any of that could work but it's likely you could we'll see I guess thanks for the video
Btw The only reason I'm interested in going into a mini PC situation is because of the new external GPUs that you can get if it wasn't for that I'd probably stick to a handheld. (Which also can use that newer technology) it's a tough choice I think the best thing right now is to wait ;)
Since the 780M with 32GB of ram is significantly faster than the 16GB version would this mean that a 680M with 32GB of ram beat or tie a 780M with 16GB? 🤔
hopefully we get a 680m in mid range laptops like the 5500u and 5700u on the lenovo ideapads
I know it’s not hardware but I’m curious, what is your favorite math to do and/or teach.
I've been hearing how popular your channel is, and I'm disappointed in your test setup. The 780M is consuming 30% more power, so other than "out of the box" comparison, these devices aren't being tested the same.
So is the performance difference between the Minisforum UM790 and the BeeLink GTR7 Pro because of the extra 16gb of memory or does the BeeLink GTR7 Pro have better thermals?
I don't understand.. the 780m is fine.. but why propose it if AMD already has the Z1 Extreme?
Which system is better for Unreal Engine 5 game development/virtual Production, AMD or Intel and does the GPU matter?
Why not switch the RAM between both 780 computers? That would explain if there is increase in performance.
Daniel thanks soo much for this review. Just wondering if you could do a similar test with all the systems matching at 32gb or even bumped to 64gb? I am only asking as I'm deciding which one to get, and right now the beelink seems the way to go. But would the 790 Pro have performed better/the same with 32Gb? I'm currently thinking of getting the barebones minisforum with a samsung 790pro ssd and kingston fury memory with 64Gb.
Question - did you try changing the iGPU memory size on the Minisforum systems in BIOS? They both default to 2GB...
Still waiting for a 8GB HBM APU on the same level as the RX6600.
So it's better to take UM790 with 32GB of RAM (thought about basic 16GB). What about 64GB? Will it help or overkill?
cannot imagine if the next gen 880M can be double the current, how this will help improving the laptops battery with indeed a powerful iGpu! thanks to AMD indeed help improving the direct competition with MacBooks.
These are better value than building a PC. Just an 8-core AMD CPU and a motherboard is the same price. Before you account for a PSU, a case, CPU fan etc.
I'd like to ask, as im more into virtualisation. Would making it a 64GB ram be an overkill?
Thats for the GTR7 pro
i hope next gen mini pcs come with oculink for egpu
i have been asking that question for months
had to build a ryzen 3 4350g system because they haven't release the next gen consumer's desktop APUs
Hx77g with 6600m is the current one to get.
The big question is does a 680 32gb ddr4 can defeat a 780m 16gb ddr5 ?
680 is ddr5
to be honest I think the EM680 is the way to go at the current point in time... can pick up a 16gb for just 420$ and it has a R7 6800u with a 680m and Is so small it literally fits in the palm of your hand... talking just 3.2" x 3.2" x 1.5" It's insane how much of a punch that tiny thing packs
not really, the 790 has heat sinks for the ram not mitigating the freeze issues previous models have