Been using an Minisforum X400 (8 cores so 16 threads) for over a year now (paid nearly $1000 at that time). Amazing how powerful these mini-PCs are. :)
In our offices we use those little PC's already for couple years. We use HP ones with i5 CPU's. They are very good, some of them are running 24/7 and no problems at all with them.... Can only recommend...
@12:00 The oval slot on the Intel NUC is for expansion. I put an additional 2.5GbE + 2 USB port module there. Intel Part# NUCIOALUWS. They're hard to find here in U.S.
Same here. It was one of the first small computer that came out. Another thing I like about it is it is possible to screw it to the back of a monitor. Only if the monitor has a independent stand and doesn’t use the four screws in the back to attach it to the base. I’m not sure about the AMD, but the NUC comes with a metal piece that can attach to the back of the monitor. The support is also great. One of our units overheated and died. The damage was to the motherboard and one phone call to Intel and we had a new unit.
Ryzen IGPU in 6900 is so powerful you could use it for casual gaming, might be interesting to see how it handles creative productivity apps. I wonder how well it could handle casual video editing.
@@DeepteshLovesTECH Depends on your software, sometimes you get great results. For instance using Blender it does well, but using Lightroom it does really poorly. It's more a case of driver optimisation than it is having incapable hardware.
@@DailyCorvid it's really not as simple as blaming on drivers. When will AMD improve their drivers for productivity then? When will the RDNA2 iGPU help in Resolve like Intel's Quicksync. Why is Radeon falling behind I productivity performance when it was pretty good prior to RDNA?
Did you notice that all NUC 12 devices have problems with the WiFi speed? I tested three devices and all had poor speed. That's why I installed another WiFi card in the devices and these also had a bad speed in the NUC. That's why I unfortunately come to the realization that the NUC12 have a problem with the antenna design. Best regards
Doing also Music-Studio with it (UM690) with 64GB Ram and 2GB SSD. Big Data is on a Synology NAS. Works perfect and takes way less power than my Threadripper 2950X ... way less! Energy cost in Germany is crazy right now. So this is the best solution to save a lot of energy. And if you like to game, just use an eGpu. AMD has a USB4 (Thunderbolt 3) port on the front. And also ... next year (maybe even this year) there will be the new Ryzen 9 7940HS ... can't wait :D
Excellent points. I've never even heard of an eGPU. I'm going to have to re-think my whole upcoming build .. which might not be a "build" anymore.. lol
literally just bought one, I'm in the desert on deployment and I got a eGPU and a small desk with little space. I love the size factor and ability to take it with me on travel
NUCs are fine for everyday office computing tasks. My new Dell laptop i7-12700H is a fantastic performer. It's running Fedora. I can't even get the RTX 3050 working properly under Linux but the i7 iGPU is handling most ordinary tasks brilliantly/
Back then the Mac Mini M1 came out, I bought it simply because of saving energy. Now the modern windows based mini-PCs seem quite energy efficient as well. Interesting.
That's even an over kill... I3 4-5gen is more than enough even, just 16gb ram and ssd is enough... The nucs are way too expensive for it when an optiplex can provide what email and spreadsheet needs with far lesser the cost
Lots of business functions have been performed by computers like that for a long time. Also I see that a lot of companies are transitioning away from desktop computers to laptop computers. That way the employee can use a docking station at their desk to run normal desk mouse/keyboard/monitors, but they can detach the laptop and carry it with them to meeting or take it home for work at home days. My company did this transition starting about 4 years ago so when offices were closing for Covid lockdown all of our employees were already set to work at home. Those little Ryzen computers with relatively powerful integrated graphics can also do some gaming. Those little computers can be limited in the ability to expand or modify them, then have limited cooling that could affect you if you are doing continuous video processing. Another downside of those small computers is their cost- the hardware is similar to a laptop computer minus the battery, the keyboard and the display, but they can be more expensive than a laptop with similar power. If they were priced reasonably I would consider one for my home office, but I need the ability to also run a 3.5" spinning hard drive.
"I would consider one for my home office, but I need the ability to also run a 3.5" spinning hard drive." External drive bay, NAS etc. Pretty easy to solve.
These things would be perfect for my home office. I still do have a mid tower from my company that takes like half of my room :( I really hope that everything becomes small in the future in the PC component industry. Will be a life-saver.
Looking forward to going this route. Been upgrading and building PCs since DOS/Windows 3.11. Mid-towers mostly. In 2009, I went a bit taller to allow more external drive options. 2018, I got a Phanteks Enthoo Pro. I honestly wasn't paying enough attention to the size dimensions. Damn thing is huge! Family and friends inquired more than usual as to what I expect to do with it. Since it has an X370 board, I'll probably put a 5950x in it. It should be able to do everything I need for awhile and should make a fine server in it's twilight years. the R5 5700X3D might do as well, but the 5950 has the cores and seems less temperamental to heat. My PC's thereafter, I'm thinking SFF. I still want the slim DVD drives, or BD I should say. That would be an end of an era on how I do my builds. Just need Right of Repair codified in law. If companies want to be Green, then we need to reduce the E-wastes as much as possible.
Watched this video on a NUC 11. I like the NUC PCs and use several regularly but will check out the Minis Forum offerings. My NUC 11 and 8(s) have one or two USB-C ports (USA). The NUC 12 available in the US has two USB-C ports on the back. The Intel NUCs can be purchased without memory or storage so you can install what you want.
Alot of businesses are moving to this, just mount them to the back of the monitor go. Alot of them have standards that if something needs updating a patch can be rolled out faster.
The Beelink version of the 6900HX is different than the Minisforum version. Some things are better and some not as good. Shop around and find what you like ..
How are they with programs such as DXO DeepPrime and the Topaz programs (both use AI) which make heavy use of the GPU (or Neural Engine on Apple Silicon)? No one seems to test these sorts of programs with an iGPU, but many of us want to know.
It's faster than 1050ti, even laptop 6900hx performs similar to lower wattage laptop 1650,since this has much better cooler with a faster ram it will be much faster than its laptop counterparts.
We are using Intel NUC in our company since the first models came out. Most are still running. On the plus side was always the support which was around 5 years of regulär BIOS and driver updates. Since a few years we bought a few ASUS PN series Mini-PC with AMD cpus. The performance and loudness in the office environment is o.k. gut if you compare the support from ASUS then you might find only older driver. Will the drivers from other sources work? Generally yes, sometimes not, but at your own risk. That is why I still wait to buy Minisforum products at this time. I still wonder why both products don't offer DP connectors instead of HDMI. That's definitly better on ASUS PN5x models.
Same here. It was one of the first small computer that came out. Another thing I like about it is it is possible to screw it to the back of a monitor. Only if the monitor has a independent stand and doesn’t use the four screws in the back to attach it to the base. I’m not sure about the AMD, but the NUC comes with a metal piece that can attach to the back of the monitor. The support is also great. One of our units overheated and died. The damage was to the motherboard and one phone call to Intel and we had a new unit.
The NUC expansion slot takes a second 2.5 Ethernet Port and two further USBs I believe - but fitting it means the space for the SSD Drive reduced to a slim (up to 2T) SSD & not the thinker 4T SSD The internal short slot is for the Control unit to the panel devices
I’ve had several models of Intel Nucs and all have had to be sent back for failures - so disruptive. Then I bought a Lenovo Tiny and that has been flawless.
Thanks but it is more of comparison vid. I has hoped the conclusion would dwell more on the title question (ie "The END of 'BIG OFFICE PC' Era!?"). Or did miss this somewhere in the intro?
Good video, as ever. But for this and your other videos you need to do something about your audio... the clipping is horrendous and makes it hard to listen to! If you would like a few tips about the basics of capturing good source audio and then some mild enhancements in Audacity etc then drop me a line, I'd be happy to help.
Especially running Docker Containers or Asahi as Server it will blow both out of the water. Making the M2 best bang for the buck. Especially with a e-GPU
@@avalagum7957 The $200 upgrade for 16GB of RAM is necessary if you want to do anything intensive. Diskspace can be solved with hubs and external drives.
7:35 Sorry Sir, we can see about nothing on the PC because of the shimmering Lights. If you can use a spotlight to the Mini-PC we are propably able to see something
Where I work (hospital) they use these small HP units. I checked the specs they are all i5, 16gb units. All attached to an HP monitor with wired keyboard and mouse. Never hear fans and they are snappy. Only issue is there is a mess on the right side of each cubicle, desk, workstation... as there are tons of wires. Power cord for the computer and the monitor, ethernet cord, wires for mouse and keyboard. That's 5 cables cluttering the top right side of each station, not to mention where your feet go. It also looks like a mess.
The issue NUC will always face is they are expensive to deploy dozens or hundreds of them when you can buy pallets of lenovo tiny PC's with actual support or similar from HP/Dell. All while tons of companies in the US are using mac minis etc more and more. Probably efficiency etc through and through plus the recent price drops in those. I don't think people understand how massive Apple has become in the US market in many industries.
@@ernestoditerribile If you are looking to get into Apple devices then yeah it's tough to beat it. I wouldn't recommend it generally though as most often a comparable Windows PC will be far more powerful. It's a fantastic second PC though, or in my case a fantastic 7th PC :) This will be the most popular Mac they've offered for a while. 700 bux is kinda unbelievable.
@@ernestoditerribile I could be wrong but I doubt you can upgrade them and the largest ssd drive available is 512gb. So you will need to use external drives if allows you too but that kind of defeats the purpose for buying a mini pc. Actually I see they have a Mac studio version and if I configure it the way I wanted....64 GB ram, 2tb ssd, you are already at $3000 with the lower end GPU.
A $150 mini pc is now perfect for internet browsing or playing some smaller games. Even with a tiny AMD 300U 3.3GHz 2C/4T with iGPU Vega 3 running at 1.0GHz and supports 3200MHz ram with no problems. Perfect for internet browsing or playing some smaller at 35 watts maximums. With VR headsets getting better, it may be some individuals only display to run their office.
If these are made for office work like I saw when working in a big corporation, they will run the browser, MS Office and file explorer, maybe SAP and 1-2 others programs. Not much else and can have almost any graphics inside, will not see any game except Solitaire.
looooooool, that can be run in a Raspberry Pi or a Celeron 10W machine, this machines are perfectly capable of handling all of that at the same time plus some light Adobe/Autodesk work. Plus SAP runs on the server end not your PC.
RE: the back IO on this Intel NUC. You have the pointless model that removed the thunderbolt/USB C ports. The price difference is only $20-50, if you bought it bareboned and built it yourself you would have saved more than that and have a much better spec, also you have the full height chassis but no 2.5” drive or expansion bay so unless you plan on adding them you could have got the smaller NUC still with 2x thunderbolt/USB C ports
Hi, yesterday I bought the UM690 for £639 (hasn't arrived yet), at that price point I was also looking at the Minisforum NAD9 (intel core i9 12900H)=£639, the Minisforum HX80G (Ryzen 7 5800H with graphics card Radeon RX 6600M)=£672 and the Beelink GTR6 (Ryzen 9 6900HX with 4 HDMI 8K@60hz ports)=£617 (quoted on Beelinks own site, amazon price=£961). Come to think of it I should have gone for the Beelink, virtually the same specs as the UM690 but with 4 8k HDMI ports instead of USB4 port. Anyway a comparison between the UM690 and the NAD9 would be interesting, not just the CPU speed/power but also Radeon 680M vs Intel Iris xe.
I'm interested in trying out the AMD version this time so it's more compatible with Linux. I'm looking for a mini PC that is capable of supporting up to four external monitors for office related work, is at a decent budget, and support dual boot. I'm not interested in playing latest games on it as I have separate machines for that. Any suggestions? TIA
my bee-link mini amd ryzen 9 5900hx has 3 display outputs and can run 3 displays. its close to 4, but if u go to amd adreniline and update software to 7200, and play with setting i think u can get 4 monitors out of its functions, and it can do dual boot, if u know the boot up settings. also changing the amd settings from gaming to office/production mngment ect. will save on energy, and the m.board and driver cards are less likely to overheat. affordability it cost me $575, in october '22 for the bee-link gr9 amd rzer9 it might b cheaper if you get smaller ram or ssd. good luck
Good Video. Once you go NUC you never can go Back ! I am on my 5th Intel NUC for home use......mostly a large Plex Server, with Intel only becuase they have always had Thunderbolt ports. Question: Can you put a 32 TB micron 9400 pro pcie gen4 nvme 2.5 inch ssd inside a NUC?
what is the barrier to swapping the 6900HX for a 7940HS ? They both fit in the same FP7 socket and I believe the BIOS is all on the chip as well as the Ram Controller so what would prevent the end user from doing this upgrade to get faster ram and Radeon 780M graphics ?
@@emotionallyinvested1396 Thats not really a problem the right to repair guys are doing chip swaps on gaming systems in most regions of the world , so there is plenty of tech's capable of doing the swap I was more interested in knowing if there was a motherboard or firmware limitation .
when you are doing the speedometer you need to focus the browser window... not the hwinfo window otherwise it's useless test, also it's known chrome fares way better there, so try with both browsers next time (while focusing them).
I got the Asus mini pc PN52 and use it mainly to cloud game wtih Geforce Now Ultiimate (RTX 4080), great to play Cyberpunk 2077 with settings maxed out, without any disturbing fan noise, and a minimalistic setup on a small desk :D
I run a minisforum um-680, must fast that my Acer Predator laptop with I7 7700, 32 g Ram, Nvidia 1060. No comparison - and half the cost at 800 all in.
These little machines are really powerful and nice but if someone has 0 interest in mobility and wants something for the office where size doesn't matter you still get way more for your money when building something Desktop sized. I built a friend for about 1200€ a coding machine with: i9 13900, 2x 16GB of DDR5 5200Mhz Asus Prime Z690P-WIFI Some random case with 3 fans installed beforehand and good airflow Toshiba Premium M.2 PCIe 1TB Alpenföhn Gletscherwasser 280mm AIO I think it cost all about 1200€ and hes really fricking happy powering that thing to his 4k 120Hz panel with its iGPU and coding daily on it. Performance is plenty and System is quiet.
My only question would be about the USB4 port on the AMD. Afaik it might or might not be possible to connect a Thunderbolt device to a USB4 port. Did anyone try that on this one?
It does work but on some boards you have to enable thunderbolt compatibility (pcie over usb4) in the bios. There maybe a few boards that don't have it but a bios update would fix it when ever the board partner decides to do so.
Have had a Mini Forum for almost 2 years, great little computer! Mounts on the back of the monitor, dead silent, very fast, used for small business and accounting. Not going back to towers, sorry this unit is superior.
These should be made with 13th gen hx processors with desktop gpu slot or support like alienware graphics amplifier. Also with dedicated 770 mobile for av1. Those would sell if priced around 1500$. Display port 2.0
The Miniforum and Intel Nuc are great mini computers. I recommend them to anyone wanting a home setup. The Intel Nuc is a little easier to change the RAM & SSD, but the Miniforum has a better performance CPU in the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX.
I don't believe those are going to replace towers in offices even for a second. First off, except for CAD, office computers don't need high-end CPU or graphics performance. Businessmen are more interested in reliability and unit cost. At $800 to $1000 apiece, those units aren't attractive at all for someone outfitting a number of workstations. Also, I may have missed it being talked about, but packing all that CPU power into such a small package has always had cooling issues. I say "always" because tiny form factor computers aren't new. Attempts at them have been around for decades. There's also the fact that they are no better than a standard tower when it comes to needing peripheral devices like monitors and speakers to use. If I were outfitting an office, I wouldn't pay any attention at all to either of the units mentioned. I'd be purchasing all-in-one desktops that cost half as much per unit and don't require me to spend more money because the monitors and speakers are integrated.
Also factor in the home setup market. Many want customized speakers and monitors. QHD display with a high refresh rate (120hz+ refresh rate) for gaming, or a mix of work & movie entertainment on a 27-inch 4k display. The latter with an average refresh rate of 60hz. Also, it is easier to upgrade the RAM and SSD with the mini PCs.
The problems with an AIO desktop are that they aren't really upgradable or repairable and that you need to replace the monitor with every upgrade cycle. A separate monitor normally lasts for several processor generations.
I worked in a medical centre, the PCs in there were shitty micro PCs the size of an A5 notepad. They were slow as shit and the only fast PC in that building was a mid-tower system with a Core i5 in it but a girl had already claimed that corner PC as her work area so she didn't have to deal with the crappy PCs.
But what are the noise db levels idle and under load....those cinebench etc test mean very little really...needs real world use tests, give both a 4k video file to render out and compare times, etc, a big excel sheet to recalc etc etc...
This. It's a laptop that isn't portable. If I wanted portability, I would get a laptop. If I wanted power and expandability, I would get a full tower. This doesn't really fit either use case.
Since Sandy Bridge (eg. i5-2520qm) the IGPU is powerpul enough for Office-use even in 1440p / 60 FPS (since ivybridge the graphic is at least capable to run fortnite in low settings) , i assume in next Generation APUs the Graphics will be powerful enough for adequate 1080p gaming. The time of discrete GPUs (in their current optimization ) is ending (only interesting for a absolute minority), More insane wattage for a few frames more in gaming is dead, only for professional users there is a justification ( AND NO I DON'T MEAN YOUTOUBERS and INFLUENCERS i mean people doing serious work like scientific simulation), the ball is now in the area of the programmers to use the available resources well (take in account the major part of the titles is very poorly using multicore capabilities). For most gamers where next gen APUs is not enough, the way to console or rented GPU ist perhaps the right way, but a Geforce 5090 with 1600W TDP is not the future. if Nvidia manages a 5090 at 150 W TDP with the Performance of a 4090 or +30%, it could be interesting, mostly important is a high efficiency at low and medium load what ist the most probably run state. To be honest the efficiency in that run states is much more important than the efficiency at peak load. Unfortunatelythe influencer do not weigh that enough compared to peak levels.
Yeah, the next generation of AMD APUs (supposedly coming out later this year) is supposed to have RDNA3 graphics onboard which should provide a leap in graphics performance.
I currently have a 5600G APU build with standard desktop parts and the 680M runs circles around its iGPU for gaming. Socketed chips with Vega are already looking very dated.
As laptop without screen/keyboard/UPS these are pricey but the flexibility to use a much bigger screen & better I/O options balance it. However, I can buy a second hand ex corporate Laptop for a fraction of the price & 90% of the performance ... 🤔
I noticed someone else mention AMD is more power efficient (work done per watt hour) if it's cores are always busy. Intel is more power efficient if most of the time it's powered on and idling.
Sadly nucs in the Philippines are way too expensive for what you can get brandnew with a midtower case. For basic office works you wont need anything powerful and just get a slim optiplex would be more than enough but cost 50% less or even lesser of a nuc. And 50% smaller than a midtower case.... I just can't find any comparable benchmarks on spreadsheet rather than apps that office workers are not even using... Ive seen i3 6th gen laggs even with nvme ssd with 16gb when using a heavy coded spreadsheets... Honestly what is a typical office work where it can be realistically benchmarked that can translate better on how it would perform for office works like clerical, accounting and anything in-between
Depends entirely what you want to do. For gaming or productivity these things aren't even comparable to a 13900K/4090 full tower. Mine is self-built, overclocked and custom loop watercooled. Amazing machine. I do have a Beelink Intel Core I5 based 'MiniPC' in my collection. It's good for email, word processing etc but that's about it. The MiniPC often thermal throttles which, as a hardware and software engineer, worries me. Much better cooling needed!
@Garrus Vakarian Agreed. For 'normal' day to day office use a NUC would be fine. Or thin-client. I think they need a true single-plug docking station to make them preferable to a laptop for business purposes though (same machine at home and office). My machine actually cost over 5K USD plus another 1K for the LG48C1 OLED display 🙂. Worth it though.
@@ColinDyckes What I find insane is you could get 10 Beelinks for the price of that I9/4090. For non-gaming consumers on a budget, they'd be hard-pressed to get better value.
Serious question, do we really need that many efficient cores? Or Intel just use them as a "padding" so the core/thread count is the same as AMD? Last I saw, 13900k have like 16 e cores...
Been using an Minisforum X400 (8 cores so 16 threads) for over a year now (paid nearly $1000 at that time). Amazing how powerful these mini-PCs are. :)
With the amd one, you could use usb 4 to hook up an external graphics card system
Good to know, so it's a real nobrainer for me
Would have loved to see video editing performance comparison. Time-line smoothness and multiple tracks and export times
In our offices we use those little PC's already for couple years. We use HP ones with i5 CPU's. They are very good, some of them are running 24/7 and no problems at all with them.... Can only recommend...
Us over here in the business world have been using the HP mini, dell micro, and Lenovo tiny for almost 10 years now
10? Walmart has been using them for the past 20+ years!
Chinese mini pcs wont last 10 yrs😂😂😂
@12:00 The oval slot on the Intel NUC is for expansion. I put an additional 2.5GbE + 2 USB port module there. Intel Part# NUCIOALUWS. They're hard to find here in U.S.
Same here. It was one of the first small computer that came out. Another thing I like about it is it is possible to screw it to the back of a monitor. Only if the monitor has a independent stand and doesn’t use the four screws in the back to attach it to the base. I’m not sure about the AMD, but the NUC comes with a metal piece that can attach to the back of the monitor.
The support is also great. One of our units overheated and died. The damage was to the motherboard and one phone call to Intel and we had a new unit.
Ryzen IGPU in 6900 is so powerful you could use it for casual gaming, might be interesting to see how it handles creative productivity apps. I wonder how well it could handle casual video editing.
The RDNA architecture is great for gaming but sucks for compute.
@@DeepteshLovesTECH Depends on your software, sometimes you get great results. For instance using Blender it does well, but using Lightroom it does really poorly.
It's more a case of driver optimisation than it is having incapable hardware.
Also upgrade the ddr5 to something faster. The Radeon igp will do much better
@@DailyCorvid it's really not as simple as blaming on drivers. When will AMD improve their drivers for productivity then? When will the RDNA2 iGPU help in Resolve like Intel's Quicksync. Why is Radeon falling behind I productivity performance when it was pretty good prior to RDNA?
I think it's equivalent to a GTX 1050ti in many games, it's EXCELLENT for an igpu
Really appreciate these comparison videos. I'm tired of "reviews" that are just product ads.
Did you notice that all NUC 12 devices have problems with the WiFi speed? I tested three devices and all had poor speed. That's why I installed another WiFi card in the devices and these also had a bad speed in the NUC. That's why I unfortunately come to the realization that the NUC12 have a problem with the antenna design. Best regards
Doing also Music-Studio with it (UM690) with 64GB Ram and 2GB SSD.
Big Data is on a Synology NAS.
Works perfect and takes way less power than my Threadripper 2950X ... way less!
Energy cost in Germany is crazy right now. So this is the best solution to save a lot of energy.
And if you like to game, just use an eGpu. AMD has a USB4 (Thunderbolt 3) port on the front.
And also ... next year (maybe even this year) there will be the new Ryzen 9 7940HS ... can't wait :D
Excellent points. I've never even heard of an eGPU. I'm going to have to re-think my whole upcoming build .. which might not be a "build" anymore.. lol
Is the mini pc reliable today? No issues?
literally just bought one, I'm in the desert on deployment and I got a eGPU and a small desk with little space. I love the size factor and ability to take it with me on travel
NUCs are fine for everyday office computing tasks. My new Dell laptop i7-12700H is a fantastic performer. It's running Fedora. I can't even get the RTX 3050 working properly under Linux but the i7 iGPU is handling most ordinary tasks brilliantly/
Back then the Mac Mini M1 came out, I bought it simply because of saving energy.
Now the modern windows based mini-PCs seem quite energy efficient as well. Interesting.
Still nowhere near Apple silicone at any load
@@shauneverywhere based on what?
@@HaggardPillockHD based on a wattage meter?
Because mac mini is still waiting on propper app support, so no load at all 😂
Blown away omg that amount of power with such a small compact size wow 😲
That's what she said
Would be interesting to see how the AMD unit handles 1080p or 4k video work.
Thank you for the videos. Great work.
It goes up to even 8K :D No problems with 4K.
I have the minisforum HX90 with a Ryzen 5900HX and it rips through video encoding no problem. The 6900HX will be even better.
as for now rdna2 amd gpus can't decode av1 8k60 without dropping frames (they can do 8k30 max),Intel works fine at 8k60
@@xellaz what video editing software do u use? I only edit 1080p video but my laptop sucks at that even. Will your mini pc run resolve 18 good?
If the people in the office are only doing emails spreadsheets and word processing
All they would need is a system with an i3 1215u
That's even an over kill... I3 4-5gen is more than enough even, just 16gb ram and ssd is enough...
The nucs are way too expensive for it when an optiplex can provide what email and spreadsheet needs with far lesser the cost
@@paulssnfuture2752
I am more talking about the new hardware you would consider for a home office
Lots of business functions have been performed by computers like that for a long time. Also I see that a lot of companies are transitioning away from desktop computers to laptop computers. That way the employee can use a docking station at their desk to run normal desk mouse/keyboard/monitors, but they can detach the laptop and carry it with them to meeting or take it home for work at home days. My company did this transition starting about 4 years ago so when offices were closing for Covid lockdown all of our employees were already set to work at home. Those little Ryzen computers with relatively powerful integrated graphics can also do some gaming. Those little computers can be limited in the ability to expand or modify them, then have limited cooling that could affect you if you are doing continuous video processing. Another downside of those small computers is their cost- the hardware is similar to a laptop computer minus the battery, the keyboard and the display, but they can be more expensive than a laptop with similar power. If they were priced reasonably I would consider one for my home office, but I need the ability to also run a 3.5" spinning hard drive.
"I would consider one for my home office, but I need the ability to also run a 3.5" spinning hard drive." External drive bay, NAS etc. Pretty easy to solve.
Nice comparison video.
These things would be perfect for my home office. I still do have a mid tower from my company that takes like half of my room :( I really hope that everything becomes small in the future in the PC component industry. Will be a life-saver.
Looking forward to going this route. Been upgrading and building PCs since DOS/Windows 3.11. Mid-towers mostly. In 2009, I went a bit taller to allow more external drive options. 2018, I got a Phanteks Enthoo Pro. I honestly wasn't paying enough attention to the size dimensions. Damn thing is huge! Family and friends inquired more than usual as to what I expect to do with it. Since it has an X370 board, I'll probably put a 5950x in it. It should be able to do everything I need for awhile and should make a fine server in it's twilight years. the R5 5700X3D might do as well, but the 5950 has the cores and seems less temperamental to heat.
My PC's thereafter, I'm thinking SFF. I still want the slim DVD drives, or BD I should say.
That would be an end of an era on how I do my builds. Just need Right of Repair codified in law. If companies want to be Green, then we need to reduce the E-wastes as much as possible.
Too many driver issues with also probably not the best warranties is why they wont replace the dell or lenovo workstations
Great review - thanks!
Watched this video on a NUC 11. I like the NUC PCs and use several regularly but will check out the Minis Forum offerings. My NUC 11 and 8(s) have one or two USB-C ports (USA). The NUC 12 available in the US has two USB-C ports on the back. The Intel NUCs can be purchased without memory or storage so you can install what you want.
Alot of businesses are moving to this, just mount them to the back of the monitor go. Alot of them have standards that if something needs updating a patch can be rolled out faster.
The Beelink version of the 6900HX is different than the Minisforum version. Some things are better and some not as good. Shop around and find what you like ..
6900 vs base M2 please! 👍 Also keep up the excellent videos!
How are they with programs such as DXO DeepPrime and the Topaz programs (both use AI) which make heavy use of the GPU (or Neural Engine on Apple Silicon)? No one seems to test these sorts of programs with an iGPU, but many of us want to know.
Especially DXO and Topaz programs run way better on M1 and M2 compared to any AMD, Intel or NVidia chipset.
Not to mention the AMD one can actually game with the performance levels akin to a 1050.
It's faster than 1050ti, even laptop 6900hx performs similar to lower wattage laptop 1650,since this has much better cooler with a faster ram it will be much faster than its laptop counterparts.
@@vmafarah9473 Welp that's even better then
I would like to see one with the new solid-state cooling.
We are using Intel NUC in our company since the first models came out. Most are still running. On the plus side was always the support which was around 5 years of regulär BIOS and driver updates. Since a few years we bought a few ASUS PN series Mini-PC with AMD cpus. The performance and loudness in the office environment is o.k. gut if you compare the support from ASUS then you might find only older driver. Will the drivers from other sources work? Generally yes, sometimes not, but at your own risk. That is why I still wait to buy Minisforum products at this time. I still wonder why both products don't offer DP connectors instead of HDMI. That's definitly better on ASUS PN5x models.
One of the most popular uses for a NUC is home theater. For that HDMI is better.
Same here. It was one of the first small computer that came out. Another thing I like about it is it is possible to screw it to the back of a monitor. Only if the monitor has a independent stand and doesn’t use the four screws in the back to attach it to the base. I’m not sure about the AMD, but the NUC comes with a metal piece that can attach to the back of the monitor.
The support is also great. One of our units overheated and died. The damage was to the motherboard and one phone call to Intel and we had a new unit.
Beware of minisforum. When you have issues, sa goodbye to your cash😂
The NUC expansion slot takes a second 2.5 Ethernet Port and two further USBs I believe - but fitting it means the space for the SSD Drive reduced to a slim (up to 2T) SSD & not the thinker 4T SSD The internal short slot is for the Control unit to the panel devices
I’ve had several models of Intel Nucs and all have had to be sent back for failures - so disruptive.
Then I bought a Lenovo Tiny and that has been flawless.
Years from now kids will be like, looking at the pc case, grandpa is that a dog house?
Hahahahahaha good one
Thanks but it is more of comparison vid. I has hoped the conclusion would dwell more on the title question (ie "The END of 'BIG OFFICE PC' Era!?"). Or did miss this somewhere in the intro?
Good video, as ever. But for this and your other videos you need to do something about your audio... the clipping is horrendous and makes it hard to listen to! If you would like a few tips about the basics of capturing good source audio and then some mild enhancements in Audacity etc then drop me a line, I'd be happy to help.
Honestly for light office use 200$ Celeron (N5105) Mini PCs are more than enough.
Non concordo, l'ho collaudato il Celeron n5105 e ha molti lag anche su navigazioni leggere, oltre ad avere una scheda video molto mediocre.
Would be interesting if you can compare these to the new m2 mac mini
Especially running Docker Containers or Asahi as Server it will blow both out of the water. Making the M2 best bang for the buck. Especially with a e-GPU
I heard that m2 Mac mini had better $/power if we went with 8GB ram 256GB disk. Above that, the m2 Mac mini price goes up crazily.
@@avalagum7957 16 GB/1Tb is definitely the minimum spec you want with that. And it is the best bang for your buck for price/benchmark.
Macs are never best bang four the buck.
@@avalagum7957 The $200 upgrade for 16GB of RAM is necessary if you want to do anything intensive. Diskspace can be solved with hubs and external drives.
7:35 Sorry Sir, we can see about nothing on the PC because of the shimmering Lights. If you can use a spotlight to the Mini-PC we are propably able to see something
Where I work (hospital) they use these small HP units. I checked the specs they are all i5, 16gb units. All attached to an HP monitor with wired keyboard and mouse. Never hear fans and they are snappy. Only issue is there is a mess on the right side of each cubicle, desk, workstation... as there are tons of wires. Power cord for the computer and the monitor, ethernet cord, wires for mouse and keyboard. That's 5 cables cluttering the top right side of each station, not to mention where your feet go. It also looks like a mess.
Split loom could tame that wiring and it's cheap.
You don't hear a fan, because most of the SBCs (single board computers) are passively cooled.
Love the content!!!
For an office environment BOTH of these mini PCs are well capable (and maybe even over-powered) for any normal office tasks.
Yep
Make great thin clients back to the servers in the basement.
err ... did I hear that right .. after listing the parts saying one has 12 cores and the other saying 8 cores, you stated they are both 16 cores?
The issue NUC will always face is they are expensive to deploy dozens or hundreds of them when you can buy pallets of lenovo tiny PC's with actual support or similar from HP/Dell. All while tons of companies in the US are using mac minis etc more and more. Probably efficiency etc through and through plus the recent price drops in those. I don't think people understand how massive Apple has become in the US market in many industries.
True!
happy i subbed to this channel
Very interesting. I am an Intel guy through and through, but if I was looking for something like these PCs, I would be tempted by AMD.
Intel own your mind lol they should give you free upgrades for life!
@@DailyCorvidI do think the M2 Mac Mini is the best bang for your buck. Very cheap computers that will blow all those mini NUCS out of the water.
@@ernestoditerribile If you are looking to get into Apple devices then yeah it's tough to beat it.
I wouldn't recommend it generally though as most often a comparable Windows PC will be far more powerful.
It's a fantastic second PC though, or in my case a fantastic 7th PC :) This will be the most popular Mac they've offered for a while. 700 bux is kinda unbelievable.
@@DailyCorvid Most of my company work is done on Cisco, NetApp, IBM and Lenovo systems running Linux and VMware. But at home I certainly love my Mac.
@@ernestoditerribile I could be wrong but I doubt you can upgrade them and the largest ssd drive available is 512gb. So you will need to use external drives if allows you too but that kind of defeats the purpose for buying a mini pc. Actually I see they have a Mac studio version and if I configure it the way I wanted....64 GB ram, 2tb ssd, you are already at $3000 with the lower end GPU.
My i3 version of this NUC has two Thunderbolt 4 ports above the two HDMI ports. Strange to see them missing here...
A $150 mini pc is now perfect for internet browsing or playing some smaller games. Even with a tiny AMD 300U 3.3GHz 2C/4T with iGPU Vega 3 running at 1.0GHz and supports 3200MHz ram with no problems. Perfect for internet browsing or playing some smaller at 35 watts maximums. With VR headsets getting better, it may be some individuals only display to run their office.
Perfect for cloud gaming AAA titles with Geforce Now Ultimate on max settings without fan noise :D
If these are made for office work like I saw when working in a big corporation, they will run the browser, MS Office and file explorer, maybe SAP and 1-2 others programs. Not much else and can have almost any graphics inside, will not see any game except Solitaire.
looooooool, that can be run in a Raspberry Pi or a Celeron 10W machine, this machines are perfectly capable of handling all of that at the same time plus some light Adobe/Autodesk work. Plus SAP runs on the server end not your PC.
@@RicardoReview Every 3 years aprox the corporation changed every computer. So no, no Raspberry Pi.
@@ContraVsGigibetter change SAP for Odoo all your employees in your company will thank you.
RE: the back IO on this Intel NUC. You have the pointless model that removed the thunderbolt/USB C ports. The price difference is only $20-50, if you bought it bareboned and built it yourself you would have saved more than that and have a much better spec, also you have the full height chassis but no 2.5” drive or expansion bay so unless you plan on adding them you could have got the smaller NUC still with 2x thunderbolt/USB C ports
Hi, yesterday I bought the UM690 for £639 (hasn't arrived yet), at that price point I was also looking at the Minisforum NAD9 (intel core i9 12900H)=£639, the Minisforum HX80G (Ryzen 7 5800H with graphics card Radeon RX 6600M)=£672 and the Beelink GTR6 (Ryzen 9 6900HX with 4 HDMI 8K@60hz ports)=£617 (quoted on Beelinks own site, amazon price=£961). Come to think of it I should have gone for the Beelink, virtually the same specs as the UM690 but with 4 8k HDMI ports instead of USB4 port. Anyway a comparison between the UM690 and the NAD9 would be interesting, not just the CPU speed/power but also Radeon 680M vs Intel Iris xe.
Is this intel mini pc work fast ?, do multi task ? , Suitsble to work for photoshop, video editing, gaming ???
Please check both on video editing !
I'm interested in trying out the AMD version this time so it's more compatible with Linux. I'm looking for a mini PC that is capable of supporting up to four external monitors for office related work, is at a decent budget, and support dual boot. I'm not interested in playing latest games on it as I have separate machines for that. Any suggestions? TIA
my bee-link mini amd ryzen 9 5900hx has 3 display outputs and can run 3 displays. its close to 4, but if u go to amd adreniline and update software to 7200, and play with setting i think u can get 4 monitors out of its functions, and it can do dual boot, if u know the boot up settings. also changing the amd settings from gaming to office/production mngment ect. will save on energy, and the m.board and driver cards are less likely to overheat. affordability it cost me $575, in october '22 for the bee-link gr9 amd rzer9 it might b cheaper if you get smaller ram or ssd. good luck
Good Video. Once you go NUC you never can go Back ! I am on my 5th Intel NUC for home use......mostly a large Plex Server, with Intel only becuase they have always had Thunderbolt ports. Question: Can you put a 32 TB micron 9400 pro pcie gen4 nvme 2.5 inch ssd inside a NUC?
@Garrus Vakarian Yes, but it really isn't a fair comparison. A comparison of an i9-12900hk mini pc to a 6900hx mini pc would be fairer.
@@arbyc8736 Not unless the i9 version is still in the same price class as the NUC and AMD minipcs
what is the barrier to swapping the 6900HX for a 7940HS ? They both fit in the same FP7 socket and I believe the BIOS is all on the chip as well as the Ram Controller so what would prevent the end user from doing this upgrade to get faster ram and Radeon 780M graphics ?
They are soldered to the motherboard. Most mobile processors are.
@@emotionallyinvested1396 Thats not really a problem the right to repair guys are doing chip swaps on gaming systems in most regions of the world , so there is plenty of tech's capable of doing the swap I was more interested in knowing if there was a motherboard or firmware limitation .
Cooling.....
What camera are you using bro? It looks amazing. BM?
If these mini PCs are serving business I would pick Intel, because it is easier to get and use drivers from Intel.
@n n he lived in the past
I play Battlefield 1 on a regular basis on the UMUM690 and it works absolutely fabulous!
when you are doing the speedometer you need to focus the browser window... not the hwinfo window otherwise it's useless test, also it's known chrome fares way better there, so try with both browsers next time (while focusing them).
I got the Asus mini pc PN52 and use it mainly to cloud game wtih Geforce Now Ultiimate (RTX 4080), great to play Cyberpunk 2077 with settings maxed out, without any disturbing fan noise, and a minimalistic setup on a small desk :D
I run a minisforum um-680, must fast that my Acer Predator laptop with I7 7700, 32 g Ram, Nvidia 1060. No comparison - and half the cost at 800 all in.
That is another reason why I don't like you contact creators you allowed these companies to jack up the prices without justification
my office keeps issuing us laptops and docking stations. I'd rather just have one of these little boxes
Beformance ? Is P button broken?
These little machines are really powerful and nice but if someone has 0 interest in mobility and wants something for the office where size doesn't matter you still get way more for your money when building something Desktop sized. I built a friend for about 1200€ a coding machine with:
i9 13900,
2x 16GB of DDR5 5200Mhz
Asus Prime Z690P-WIFI
Some random case with 3 fans installed beforehand and good airflow
Toshiba Premium M.2 PCIe 1TB
Alpenföhn Gletscherwasser 280mm AIO
I think it cost all about 1200€ and hes really fricking happy powering that thing to his 4k 120Hz panel with its iGPU and coding daily on it. Performance is plenty and System is quiet.
How many watts does it pull?
@@THE-X-Force Depends how you configure it.
My only question would be about the USB4 port on the AMD. Afaik it might or might not be possible to connect a Thunderbolt device to a USB4 port. Did anyone try that on this one?
It does work but on some boards you have to enable thunderbolt compatibility (pcie over usb4) in the bios. There maybe a few boards that don't have it but a bios update would fix it when ever the board partner decides to do so.
Have had a Mini Forum for almost 2 years, great little computer! Mounts on the back of the monitor, dead silent, very fast, used for small business and accounting. Not going back to towers, sorry this unit is superior.
These should be made with 13th gen hx processors with desktop gpu slot or support like alienware graphics amplifier. Also with dedicated 770 mobile for av1. Those would sell if priced around 1500$. Display port 2.0
if you want a mini powerhouse, build an ITX system lol
@@12100F but mini pc is more portable
@@And-vx6ry more portable, but if you're willing to cart around a portable monitor than you may as well go for the itx
They will
@@michaelmcconnell7302 13th gen hx processors mini pcs or 13th gen hx processors for desktop motherboards ?
Is the ryzen capable of 4K60hz movie plyback? I would like to also watch movies in 4K.
The Miniforum and Intel Nuc are great mini computers. I recommend them to anyone wanting a home setup.
The Intel Nuc is a little easier to change the RAM & SSD, but the Miniforum has a better performance CPU in the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX.
Where have you been? Many business's have used all-in-one PC's for years to save space.
I don't believe those are going to replace towers in offices even for a second. First off, except for CAD, office computers don't need high-end CPU or graphics performance. Businessmen are more interested in reliability and unit cost. At $800 to $1000 apiece, those units aren't attractive at all for someone outfitting a number of workstations. Also, I may have missed it being talked about, but packing all that CPU power into such a small package has always had cooling issues. I say "always" because tiny form factor computers aren't new. Attempts at them have been around for decades. There's also the fact that they are no better than a standard tower when it comes to needing peripheral devices like monitors and speakers to use. If I were outfitting an office, I wouldn't pay any attention at all to either of the units mentioned. I'd be purchasing all-in-one desktops that cost half as much per unit and don't require me to spend more money because the monitors and speakers are integrated.
Also factor in the home setup market. Many want customized speakers and monitors. QHD display with a high refresh rate (120hz+ refresh rate) for gaming, or a mix of work & movie entertainment on a 27-inch 4k display. The latter with an average refresh rate of 60hz.
Also, it is easier to upgrade the RAM and SSD with the mini PCs.
The problems with an AIO desktop are that they aren't really upgradable or repairable and that you need to replace the monitor with every upgrade cycle. A separate monitor normally lasts for several processor generations.
I worked in a medical centre, the PCs in there were shitty micro PCs the size of an A5 notepad.
They were slow as shit and the only fast PC in that building was a mid-tower system with a Core i5 in it but a girl had already claimed that corner PC as her work area so she didn't have to deal with the crappy PCs.
But what are the noise db levels idle and under load....those cinebench etc test mean very little really...needs real world use tests, give both a 4k video file to render out and compare times, etc, a big excel sheet to recalc etc etc...
Kind of don't get the reason for them unless you have a tiny office/home. Not really portable as no monitor so don't replace a laptop.
This. It's a laptop that isn't portable. If I wanted portability, I would get a laptop. If I wanted power and expandability, I would get a full tower. This doesn't really fit either use case.
Since Sandy Bridge (eg. i5-2520qm) the IGPU is powerpul enough for Office-use even in 1440p / 60 FPS (since ivybridge the graphic is at least capable to run fortnite in low settings) , i assume in next Generation APUs the Graphics will be powerful enough for adequate 1080p gaming.
The time of discrete GPUs (in their current optimization ) is ending (only interesting for a absolute minority), More insane wattage for a few frames more in gaming is dead, only for professional users there is a justification ( AND NO I DON'T MEAN YOUTOUBERS and INFLUENCERS i mean people doing serious work like scientific simulation), the ball is now in the area of the programmers to use the available resources well (take in account the major part of the titles is very poorly using multicore capabilities). For most gamers where next gen APUs is not enough, the way to console or rented GPU ist perhaps the right way, but a Geforce 5090 with 1600W TDP is not the future. if Nvidia manages a 5090 at 150 W TDP with the Performance of a 4090 or +30%, it could be interesting, mostly important is a high efficiency at low and medium load what ist the most probably run state. To be honest the efficiency in that run states is much more important than the efficiency at peak load. Unfortunatelythe influencer do not weigh that enough compared to peak levels.
Yeah, the next generation of AMD APUs (supposedly coming out later this year) is supposed to have RDNA3 graphics onboard which should provide a leap in graphics performance.
I currently have a 5600G APU build with standard desktop parts and the 680M runs circles around its iGPU for gaming. Socketed chips with Vega are already looking very dated.
As laptop without screen/keyboard/UPS these are pricey but the flexibility to use a much bigger screen & better I/O options balance it. However, I can buy a second hand ex corporate Laptop for a fraction of the price & 90% of the performance ... 🤔
I noticed someone else mention AMD is more power efficient (work done per watt hour) if it's cores are always busy. Intel is more power efficient if most of the time it's powered on and idling.
All these mini PCs seem to stutter and pixelate streaming 4k Netflix. I got the SER5 and it still does it
Does those PCs support L1?
This intel cpu also has the h265 10bit decode like the desktop cpu does? Wonder if it is good for 4k video editing.
As office pc needs to be cost effective it must beat the prices of optiplex price to performance
Sadly nucs in the Philippines are way too expensive for what you can get brandnew with a midtower case.
For basic office works you wont need anything powerful and just get a slim optiplex would be more than enough but cost 50% less or even lesser of a nuc. And 50% smaller than a midtower case....
I just can't find any comparable benchmarks on spreadsheet rather than apps that office workers are not even using... Ive seen i3 6th gen laggs even with nvme ssd with 16gb when using a heavy coded spreadsheets... Honestly what is a typical office work where it can be realistically benchmarked that can translate better on how it would perform for office works like clerical, accounting and anything in-between
agreed...
Would you go with this one or the Ryzen 7 3750H Mini PC?
This one!
you can greatly improve performance in a small case thru using alot of copper and water, density is incredibly powerful for cooling
By price probably are in same rate, but I5 vs Ryzen 9? is not really fair comparison.
Depends entirely what you want to do. For gaming or productivity these things aren't even comparable to a 13900K/4090 full tower. Mine is self-built, overclocked and custom loop watercooled. Amazing machine. I do have a Beelink Intel Core I5 based 'MiniPC' in my collection. It's good for email, word processing etc but that's about it. The MiniPC often thermal throttles which, as a hardware and software engineer, worries me. Much better cooling needed!
@Garrus Vakarian Agreed. For 'normal' day to day office use a NUC would be fine. Or thin-client. I think they need a true single-plug docking station to make them preferable to a laptop for business purposes though (same machine at home and office). My machine actually cost over 5K USD plus another 1K for the LG48C1 OLED display 🙂. Worth it though.
@@ColinDyckes What I find insane is you could get 10 Beelinks for the price of that I9/4090. For non-gaming consumers on a budget, they'd be hard-pressed to get better value.
How many points for SPECint2006 and SPECfp2006? Many people know these parameters and nothing else.
I have been using mini pc since J4125 fanless to Nuc i7 gen 11. so surprised than new intel Nuc has no usb-c port.
as soon as they figure out to plop a 4090 in there its game over for gaming desktops as well..
can you review the Asus Mini PC also?
Serious question, do we really need that many efficient cores? Or Intel just use them as a "padding" so the core/thread count is the same as AMD? Last I saw, 13900k have like 16 e cores...
it's really there for multicore performance, they aren't for the same thing as Apple's E-cores, which are for background tasks
Which one provides higher output over the.usb c?
I'm content to use a Chromebook for most of my computer needs.
Which one will support my two 4K 27“ Displays? My NUC8 i7 can’t! Memory Bandwith of shared memory!
I buy old quad core SFF biz PCs for $70 and add a $20 SSD. But I don't do anything intensive.
ik new something was off, when intel unit was an ddr4 based
this is not a fair comparison if you ask me :s
Is it possible to include Apple Mac mini m1/m2 in this comparison?
I like that you can connect an external full size GPU . To many of these mini pcs
Some apps demand or were written for only Intel...
What about a graphics card?