Thanks to everyone for the feedback on PSUs, I was *today* years old when I learned there was something called an SFX PSU. That would definitely have shaved off some bulk!
Thank you for helping me get 351Elec running on my rg351p… I appreciate your content. Thank you the software is much better than stock. And it’s nice to just drag and drop the games I already had onto it. Thank you thank you thank you.
I had to cancel my order for the B550 but if the Steam Deck doesn't come to Japan relatively soon, I am definitely going to look into this again. Great video, as always.
You dodged a bullet there, power supply cables aren’t standardized in any way. Only use the ones that came with or are specifically made for your specific PSU model or you risk frying your computer.
MinisForum 100% should NOT be packaging this with cables for the power supply. That is super dangerous. It should, in fact, have a very bold warning saying to use the cables that came with your power supply.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, it was my first time being presented with cables that didn't come with the PSU, so I'm happy to hear I dodged that bullet by using the stock ones.
@@RetroGameCorps Are you sure they weren't just PSU extension cables, meant to attach to the end of your PSU cable to give a cleaner white look? It seems unlikely that a company like Minisforum could make a mistake like this. Nobody just delivers random PSU cables without a PSU. PSU cables are double sided male ends, one to plug into the PSU, one to plug into the mobo. Extension cables are 1 side female, 1 side male. If they really did deliver random PSU cables, truly an awful, irresponsible move.
Before having seen this thing, I've already made my own external GPU dock. An encased GPU can run many degrees hotter. I saw a reduction of about 30 degrees. I don't mind dust, It's easy to blow off. I can fit any size GPU, looking forward to the RTX4090 in the dock. Their dock bracket limits it to 2 slots and skinny cards. The real gem is the small form factor PC. That said, it's not my ideal specs. I sort of understand why they went with all the low power consumption setup of laptop components, but it's not even laptop thin. What we need are laptops with PCI-E docking. That's also what I don't like about this setup, it has a 3.0 PCI dock. So if anyone knows of any upcoming laptops with PCIE 4x slot, I'll probably jump on that before a mini PC, tbh. Youll then have battery, screen, keyboard in a very thin layout. Otherwise, I think can build a small boxy PC with air tower cpu cooler with discrete graphics, full size RAM sticks that would be better.
you definitely earned a follow brother, you are the first to use sea of thieves as a sort of stress test. everyone always take the character models as a low graphic game and don't count the game but the water is the real test. GG on the test and build.
I honestly kinda of love this mini PC now. I've been research the mini PC market, only prebuilds, and I just can't land on one I want. I saw a video from someone else modeling an MSI mini PC and one coming soon but I just love the Minisforum style. So now I'm torn between b550 and the TH50.
Yo I just researched, when u get a gpu with the b550, it is a lot better, it’s price will be probably close to the TH50 as well, I recommend the rx 6600 gpu, it’s very powerful. So honestly, you should get the b550. When I get it I’m gonna get the barebones, and get my own 16 gigabytes of ram and my own 512 ssd that I had lying around, I think you can probably find a case that it fits in, all you gotta do is route the cables out of the way and straight out of the small case, and you should be good to go! 👍
@@DaffyTheDuck42029 I ended up getting a 3080 12gb for a great price. I'm in the process of building a brand new rig. So going to turn my old PC into an emulation station! It's not form factor but it'll do good for now.
Crap, sorry about that! I often do my final audio edit at night when the room is really hot, so I can't use headphones without overheating. And so sometimes I miss loud sounds like that :(
@@RetroGameCorps Holy bananas, I did not expect to get an answer, ha, no worries! It does sound less intimidating rewatching on my phone, I think it's a combo of my headphones and how spacious they makes it sound, I was paying close attention to what you were saying which sounds front facing and that click came from the back of my head, at first I genuinely thought something behind me clicked, not in the video, if that makes sense :))) Anywho, at the risk of repeating myself, great content, I've been binging the hell out of your videos, thanks to you I pulled the trigger on an RG351P and I am having a ton of fun with it, thank you so very much! ❤️🎮
I was waiting for this look over with thr GPU I actually was intrigued by this little unit, a decently powered mini PC with some nice side grade options to make it a bit more powerful
Great video Russ! I have a couple of dedicated gaming PCs right now but have been looking in to a small form factor build for my living room and thing I may have found it!
The fact that it has full PCI on the side of the mobo that can plug into that dock is so good better than thunderbolt or USB c cause it won't be as fast as a full PCI connection at least the current iterations of those connections.
Thunderbolt and USB4 have a best-case speed of PCIe3 x4, plus some extra latency due to the signal converters. Even the HX90 using the SSD slot at _native_ PCIe3 x4 without translation outperforms the Thunderbolt solutions we have right now. Asus XG Mobile dock is PCIe3 x8 native because it redirects the internal GPU lanes to the proprietary connector. This is PCIe3 x16 native, which is honestly good enough for a desktop 3080 or 3090 for most use cases. The limitation is your CPU, you can install a 5600X on the barebones and get some extra FPS out of your dedicated graphics when gaming. But if you do that, you can't undock the system because there will be no integrated graphics. And then you will have a six core CPU instead of eight cores. Ryzen 7000 series CPUs should solve most of the compromises that were made with this first generation device, so I hope Minisforum will make an updated version in the future!
It would’ve be smart if you added a small factors pc case that it fits snug in, and tried to manage the cables to slip through it and plug it in of course, then it could look really nice 👍 Tbh I might get the barebones of this and do this build
I decided to update my PC to the B550, already got the GPU, power supply and even the monitor, I'm just missing my b550, cant wait to put it all together!
They should've focused on creating the dock for the GPU and power supply and then have a single bespoke cable from the dock to the PC. As it is all of the IO is one side and a load of flying cables are on the other so there's no clean front to it.
thanks for your hard work. I think the ASrock Deskmeet would be a better fit for most people. I like the idea of a GPU bracket, but this implementation is lacking. thanks again.
You definitely want to make sure you use the cables that came with your power supply, GN did a video on exactly why you don't want to use cables from different power supply brands other than extensions.
I think it is a cool concept. Maybe one could bolt down the power supply under the desk and route some custom cable extension in order to hide it. The only problem I see is a lot of the newer graphics cards, like I have a 3080, are super long and having it out in the open, pets or kids can easily spill something or even knock it over.
1st! lol! Haven't done that in a looong while. Hey Russ! I wonder if they label these products the same after motherboards to get the Google searches. B550? The AMD chipset? This is a great combination, I got the 3700x and a RX580 4gb that I picked up for $90cdn back in January 2020. Upgraded from an I7 950 with a GTX 460 so it was a pretty big upgrade lol. 1080p gaming is great with this combo.
Lots of positive comments here so am I missing something because I think it looks awful. It's a cabling mess, takes a huge amount of desk space, the various parts are dangling free, the PSU is ... what's even going on there? You can get an SFF PC with a GPU and an integrated PSU in a proper enclosure under 8L pretty easily. Who is really interested in buying this monstrosity?
looks good, decided to pick one up, interested to see what the psu mounting bracket looks like irl with a psu mounted to it, I think using an SFX powersupply would be better so the overall setup is smaller, thanks for the video!
Seems like way too much money to play FH5 in 1080p. I don't care for the small form factor, but I can see where size could be an issue for some folks. (Overseas, military, traveling gigs, etc)
If you want something small I belive you would be better off just building a mini pc using a case like the Kolink Rocket which is 150 x 270 x 350 (mm) / 13.8L, like I did
I just upgraded my CPU and was thinking about putting the old one in something like this. I was thinking about using an ITX graphics card and a small form factor power supply... Would that make it less cluttered? Or would I be better off just building an ITX machine?
Too messy, ended up with a D30 Pro case ITX with 4070Ti & 13600KF. 10.2 litre case, very very tight fit but all in one box. There is an even smaller case, about 8.6 litre but that will only fit an RTX 3070 and SFX PSU. The D30 Pro from Sumer Cooling will actually fit an ATX PSU too.
Wonder if they have the upgraded CPU option. 5700g is nice but be nice to get a little bit more juice. Installing a high end gpu on the dock will allow you to game at 4k ultra settings for almost all current gen games. Some extreme settings. But it isn't a bad deal considering
A regular B550 motherboard would be able to use a 3700x. I was hoping you'd try to put that 3700x and see if it would work with the minisforum (they only mention 4000/5000 series).
Received mine a couple days ago and tried setting it up today. Apparently the extension bracket is NOT compatible with ATX power supplies. The screw spacing is wrong and the holes for the power cord and power switch are too small. I could have sworn they said this kit was compatible with ATX power supplies. I guess it's only compatible in the loosest sense. It can power it, but you can't mount it.
Nice Video. No fault of yours, but I'm baffled how to get power from my Corsair RM650x to my Geforce RTX 3050. I'm using the one cord for the Minis forum from Dock to Mini550. However, I can't find a cord to go from my power supply to the Geforce card. 4-pn from the PC to the GPU? I guess I'll need to find a cord if that is the way to go. I'm so confused.
4:30 I'm trying to understand what is the purpose of this, but I can't find it. The only compelling reason is to be able to dock/undock it, yet the screws clearly show the intent of docking it once and not taking it apart.
Out of the box this performs quite a bit better than the TH50, but is about $250 more expensive. The TH50 has some excellent performance for the price, and it's still my favorite sub-$500 mini PC. If you want the best performing mini PC today, then the B550 is the way to go.
I really love your channel and the content you put so much love and labour into but I'd wish you'd stop with that Switch emulation stuff. This is not retro at all and goes into that somewhat fishy direction of the whole emulation part (systems and games that are basically new and still on sale).
Hi, I understand where you are coming from, and I appreciate the feedback, but my plan is to continue to show Switch emulation so I can demonstrate performance capability for those who are interested. While I like focusing on retro gaming, I get lots of requests to show off higher-end emulation on the machines that can handle them. I make it a point to showcase dumped copies of games that I own, and yes I realize those optics can be construed the wrong way. I personally only emulate a few Switch games for my own use, usually when they have a hack or fix that I prefer (like removing the blur in Link's Awakening, which makes me a little nauseated in its original form).
@@RetroGameCorps Thanks a lot for your response. I really hope that this won't lead to any issues with Nintendo at some point. On another note, I'd definitely be interested in more Xbox360 emulation, although MS have been focusing on the backwards compatibility, there are still many titles locked on that system and emulation could be a good way to free them.
@@PatrickF31 I’m open to trying X360, I’ve always avoided it since the vast majority of the catalog is available elsewhere (either PC or via backwards compatibility). Do you have some suggested games I could try?
@@RetroGameCorps The Mistwalker RPGs Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, Ninja Blade, Bullet Witch, Red Dead Redemption, Amped 3, Condemned, just to name a few. Unfortunately some of the PC versions (like Ninja Blade for example, are not so easy to come by anymore)
Also Project Gotham Racing 4, Ace Combat 6, Perfect Dark Zero, Ridge Raver 6, Too Human. But I do agree with you, the list of 360 exclusive has gotten a lot shorter over the years.
Well, case + custom motherboard and cooling, but yeah, it's not going to compete with a larger cheap case and standardized motherboard. Shrinking things down always comes with a cost.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback on PSUs, I was *today* years old when I learned there was something called an SFX PSU. That would definitely have shaved off some bulk!
The DIY PC scene is a bottomless rabbit hole. Enjoy the fall.
Do you know that Hdflex made 250w psu that is small and can handle this + 3050 in minimal package ever?
could you hook it up with the intel arc750? would the be a bad idea?
Thank you for helping me get 351Elec running on my rg351p… I appreciate your content. Thank you the software is much better than stock. And it’s nice to just drag and drop the games I already had onto it. Thank you thank you thank you.
I had to cancel my order for the B550 but if the Steam Deck doesn't come to Japan relatively soon, I am definitely going to look into this again. Great video, as always.
You dodged a bullet there, power supply cables aren’t standardized in any way. Only use the ones that came with or are specifically made for your specific PSU model or you risk frying your computer.
Arther is right. Unless you know what you are doing, do not use cables other than the ones given with the PSU.
^^^
MinisForum 100% should NOT be packaging this with cables for the power supply. That is super dangerous. It should, in fact, have a very bold warning saying to use the cables that came with your power supply.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, it was my first time being presented with cables that didn't come with the PSU, so I'm happy to hear I dodged that bullet by using the stock ones.
@@RetroGameCorps Are you sure they weren't just PSU extension cables, meant to attach to the end of your PSU cable to give a cleaner white look?
It seems unlikely that a company like Minisforum could make a mistake like this. Nobody just delivers random PSU cables without a PSU.
PSU cables are double sided male ends, one to plug into the PSU, one to plug into the mobo. Extension cables are 1 side female, 1 side male.
If they really did deliver random PSU cables, truly an awful, irresponsible move.
Before having seen this thing, I've already made my own external GPU dock. An encased GPU can run many degrees hotter. I saw a reduction of about 30 degrees. I don't mind dust, It's easy to blow off. I can fit any size GPU, looking forward to the RTX4090 in the dock. Their dock bracket limits it to 2 slots and skinny cards.
The real gem is the small form factor PC. That said, it's not my ideal specs. I sort of understand why they went with all the low power consumption setup of laptop components, but it's not even laptop thin. What we need are laptops with PCI-E docking. That's also what I don't like about this setup, it has a 3.0 PCI dock.
So if anyone knows of any upcoming laptops with PCIE 4x slot, I'll probably jump on that before a mini PC, tbh. Youll then have battery, screen, keyboard in a very thin layout.
Otherwise, I think can build a small boxy PC with air tower cpu cooler with discrete graphics, full size RAM sticks that would be better.
This!
you definitely earned a follow brother, you are the first to use sea of thieves as a sort of stress test. everyone always take the character models as a low graphic game and don't count the game but the water is the real test. GG on the test and build.
I honestly kinda of love this mini PC now. I've been research the mini PC market, only prebuilds, and I just can't land on one I want. I saw a video from someone else modeling an MSI mini PC and one coming soon but I just love the Minisforum style. So now I'm torn between b550 and the TH50.
Same
Yo I just researched, when u get a gpu with the b550, it is a lot better, it’s price will be probably close to the TH50 as well, I recommend the rx 6600 gpu, it’s very powerful.
So honestly, you should get the b550. When I get it I’m gonna get the barebones, and get my own 16 gigabytes of ram and my own 512 ssd that I had lying around, I think you can probably find a case that it fits in, all you gotta do is route the cables out of the way and straight out of the small case, and you should be good to go! 👍
@@DaffyTheDuck42029 I ended up getting a 3080 12gb for a great price. I'm in the process of building a brand new rig. So going to turn my old PC into an emulation station! It's not form factor but it'll do good for now.
@@misterhatandclogs13 alright, good for you!
Hope it works out!
Great content, as usual! But geez Louise, I'm watching with headphones and the click at 2:37 startled the hell out of me :))))))))
Crap, sorry about that! I often do my final audio edit at night when the room is really hot, so I can't use headphones without overheating. And so sometimes I miss loud sounds like that :(
@@RetroGameCorps Holy bananas, I did not expect to get an answer, ha, no worries! It does sound less intimidating rewatching on my phone, I think it's a combo of my headphones and how spacious they makes it sound, I was paying close attention to what you were saying which sounds front facing and that click came from the back of my head, at first I genuinely thought something behind me clicked, not in the video, if that makes sense :))) Anywho, at the risk of repeating myself, great content, I've been binging the hell out of your videos, thanks to you I pulled the trigger on an RG351P and I am having a ton of fun with it, thank you so very much! ❤️🎮
I am saving up to get this as we speak I just love how ghetto the setup is.
I was waiting for this look over with thr GPU
I actually was intrigued by this little unit, a decently powered mini PC with some nice side grade options to make it a bit more powerful
Great video Russ! I have a couple of dedicated gaming PCs right now but have been looking in to a small form factor build for my living room and thing I may have found it!
The fact that it has full PCI on the side of the mobo that can plug into that dock is so good better than thunderbolt or USB c cause it won't be as fast as a full PCI connection at least the current iterations of those connections.
Thunderbolt and USB4 have a best-case speed of PCIe3 x4, plus some extra latency due to the signal converters. Even the HX90 using the SSD slot at _native_ PCIe3 x4 without translation outperforms the Thunderbolt solutions we have right now. Asus XG Mobile dock is PCIe3 x8 native because it redirects the internal GPU lanes to the proprietary connector. This is PCIe3 x16 native, which is honestly good enough for a desktop 3080 or 3090 for most use cases. The limitation is your CPU, you can install a 5600X on the barebones and get some extra FPS out of your dedicated graphics when gaming. But if you do that, you can't undock the system because there will be no integrated graphics. And then you will have a six core CPU instead of eight cores.
Ryzen 7000 series CPUs should solve most of the compromises that were made with this first generation device, so I hope Minisforum will make an updated version in the future!
It would’ve be smart if you added a small factors pc case that it fits snug in, and tried to manage the cables to slip through it and plug it in of course, then it could look really nice 👍
Tbh I might get the barebones of this and do this build
Or mount the External power supply beneath the Desk and run the cable up into the docking. If cable too short, get some of the extended cable.
I decided to update my PC to the B550, already got the GPU, power supply and even the monitor, I'm just missing my b550, cant wait to put it all together!
They should've focused on creating the dock for the GPU and power supply and then have a single bespoke cable from the dock to the PC. As it is all of the IO is one side and a load of flying cables are on the other so there's no clean front to it.
You should look at building a ITX system, you can get some really small cases now
thanks for your hard work. I think the ASrock Deskmeet would be a better fit for most people. I like the idea of a GPU bracket, but this implementation is lacking. thanks again.
You definitely want to make sure you use the cables that came with your power supply, GN did a video on exactly why you don't want to use cables from different power supply brands other than extensions.
I think it is a cool concept. Maybe one could bolt down the power supply under the desk and route some custom cable extension in order to hide it. The only problem I see is a lot of the newer graphics cards, like I have a 3080, are super long and having it out in the open, pets or kids can easily spill something or even knock it over.
1st! lol! Haven't done that in a looong while. Hey Russ! I wonder if they label these products the same after motherboards to get the Google searches. B550? The AMD chipset?
This is a great combination, I got the 3700x and a RX580 4gb that I picked up for $90cdn back in January 2020. Upgraded from an I7 950 with a GTX 460 so it was a pretty big upgrade lol. 1080p gaming is great with this combo.
nice video, thanks :)
With longer power supply cables you could keep the pc in one place and hide the power supply somewhere else. Like above and below the desk.
Plays amazing
Lots of positive comments here so am I missing something because I think it looks awful. It's a cabling mess, takes a huge amount of desk space, the various parts are dangling free, the PSU is ... what's even going on there? You can get an SFF PC with a GPU and an integrated PSU in a proper enclosure under 8L pretty easily. Who is really interested in buying this monstrosity?
looks good, decided to pick one up, interested to see what the psu mounting bracket looks like irl with a psu mounted to it, I think using an SFX powersupply would be better so the overall setup is smaller, thanks for the video!
Seems like way too much money to play FH5 in 1080p. I don't care for the small form factor, but I can see where size could be an issue for some folks. (Overseas, military, traveling gigs, etc)
If you want something small I belive you would be better off just building a mini pc using a case like the Kolink Rocket which is 150 x 270 x 350 (mm) / 13.8L, like I did
I just upgraded my CPU and was thinking about putting the old one in something like this. I was thinking about using an ITX graphics card and a small form factor power supply... Would that make it less cluttered? Or would I be better off just building an ITX machine?
Depends what you want out of it, what you already have and how much you want and/or are willing to spend.
Interesting piece of hardware 🤔
Too messy, ended up with a D30 Pro case ITX with 4070Ti & 13600KF. 10.2 litre case, very very tight fit but all in one box. There is an even smaller case, about 8.6 litre but that will only fit an RTX 3070 and SFX PSU. The D30 Pro from Sumer Cooling will actually fit an ATX PSU too.
Thanks for the nice video. It shows that a setup like that defeats the purpose of having a mini pic
Wonder if they have the upgraded CPU option. 5700g is nice but be nice to get a little bit more juice. Installing a high end gpu on the dock will allow you to game at 4k ultra settings for almost all current gen games. Some extreme settings. But it isn't a bad deal considering
A SFF PS would work better/ FSR RSR and SAM would make a big dufference plus a Freesync monitor.
Holy crop, that the biggest gpu have the same size with the pc..
Holy Shot
A regular B550 motherboard would be able to use a 3700x. I was hoping you'd try to put that 3700x and see if it would work with the minisforum (they only mention 4000/5000 series).
Very interested in what this looks like with the power supply bracket and short power supply cables
That is so ugly XD. I am curious to see what the HX90G will be like. Are you going to test that one as well? Cheers
Interesting!
Received mine a couple days ago and tried setting it up today. Apparently the extension bracket is NOT compatible with ATX power supplies. The screw spacing is wrong and the holes for the power cord and power switch are too small. I could have sworn they said this kit was compatible with ATX power supplies. I guess it's only compatible in the loosest sense. It can power it, but you can't mount it.
Nice Video. No fault of yours, but I'm baffled how to get power from my Corsair RM650x to my Geforce RTX 3050. I'm using the one cord for the Minis forum from Dock to Mini550. However, I can't find a cord to go from my power supply to the Geforce card. 4-pn from the PC to the GPU? I guess I'll need to find a cord if that is the way to go. I'm so confused.
If I'm gonna go through the hassle of adding so much wouldn't an actual PC be better off?
Especially since you can't even upgrade the b550's CPU.
This is a neat looking little machine. Are AMD-based systems still worse than Intel for emulation or has that evened out?
Great idea, but they try to hide its flaws. I cancelled as soon as found it. I hope they will improve
The minipc looks pretty good but the dock seems really nutty what's the point just use another SFF case
What is the noise level of this thing without the GPU and PSU, just as a barebones unit on 100% load? A key point will be its quietness
4:30 I'm trying to understand what is the purpose of this, but I can't find it. The only compelling reason is to be able to dock/undock it, yet the screws clearly show the intent of docking it once and not taking it apart.
Hello sir, i have a question about anbernic rg351p, can you help me? Thanks
in theory the bracket is pcie riser right? i can mount an audio card on it to build an audio workstation
Red RGB Mode would have doubled the FPS
Nah... just get a mini pc or awasome m-atx build 😁
I really wish they hadnt given up on this.
Question: For someone who just simply want to get to "the point," should I get this over a TH50?
Or, just get the TH50?
Out of the box this performs quite a bit better than the TH50, but is about $250 more expensive. The TH50 has some excellent performance for the price, and it's still my favorite sub-$500 mini PC. If you want the best performing mini PC today, then the B550 is the way to go.
@@RetroGameCorps Thing is I'm not good at building PC's or installing.
Are the defaults better than the TH50?
I really love your channel and the content you put so much love and labour into but I'd wish you'd stop with that Switch emulation stuff. This is not retro at all and goes into that somewhat fishy direction of the whole emulation part (systems and games that are basically new and still on sale).
Hi, I understand where you are coming from, and I appreciate the feedback, but my plan is to continue to show Switch emulation so I can demonstrate performance capability for those who are interested. While I like focusing on retro gaming, I get lots of requests to show off higher-end emulation on the machines that can handle them. I make it a point to showcase dumped copies of games that I own, and yes I realize those optics can be construed the wrong way. I personally only emulate a few Switch games for my own use, usually when they have a hack or fix that I prefer (like removing the blur in Link's Awakening, which makes me a little nauseated in its original form).
@@RetroGameCorps Thanks a lot for your response. I really hope that this won't lead to any issues with Nintendo at some point.
On another note, I'd definitely be interested in more Xbox360 emulation, although MS have been focusing on the backwards compatibility, there are still many titles locked on that system and emulation could be a good way to free them.
@@PatrickF31 I’m open to trying X360, I’ve always avoided it since the vast majority of the catalog is available elsewhere (either PC or via backwards compatibility). Do you have some suggested games I could try?
@@RetroGameCorps The Mistwalker RPGs Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, Ninja Blade, Bullet Witch, Red Dead Redemption, Amped 3, Condemned, just to name a few. Unfortunately some of the PC versions (like Ninja Blade for example, are not so easy to come by anymore)
Also Project Gotham Racing 4, Ace Combat 6, Perfect Dark Zero, Ridge Raver 6, Too Human.
But I do agree with you, the list of 360 exclusive has gotten a lot shorter over the years.
Will an amd radeon rx 6700 xt work with this mini pc, also can anyone recommend a psu for this radeon graphics card?
Bruh, you have ATX powersupply, not a sff, ofc it will look worse.
300+ fps cs.go
I'm interested
Just build a mini itx pc instead of this imo.
319 just for the case ? lord jesus lol.
Well, case + custom motherboard and cooling, but yeah, it's not going to compete with a larger cheap case and standardized motherboard. Shrinking things down always comes with a cost.
2end