I will never complain about screws, as manufacturers probably think the next best thing would be to glue everything together, like phones, which are a nightmare to repair.
I don't understand the thumbsdown for screws. I prefer secured parts with screws vs. cheap abs plastic clips that break or the whole thing creaks when you bend it. Screws are far superior.
Personally i would have redesigned the Bottom totally, they simply added Filter in their Existing Case. My Redesign: A Filter Flap with ONE (catching) screw. Then comes the normal Buttom which is recessed upwards. So you can unscrew the Filter Flap slide it out, clean it, stick it in an secure it with the Screw. To clean this filter you have to unscrew 4 Screws. When you go fance, putt the Filter behind the Flap screw it out take the Filter out ... but having to remove 6 ! Screws for Filtercleaning is insane. Imagine having a Schoolroom with 30 PC with this Design, as i can as i work in Schools. I have to clean such filters annually. One Screw and removeable Filter perfect, 6 Screws... screw you !
I concur. For longevity, screws are best. Every time I open a plastic-tab/glued laptop bottom, I know that it is just a matter of time before something breaks/disolves that will make future upgrades risky or less secure. Screws all the way.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo And preferably the variant that can't be dropped into the case requiring disassembly in a good case or blowing up the running PSU in a bad case. Screwless case designs are not always good and many are pretty obscure, turn into an IQ test to open without a manual.
These mini PC's the last few years are nuts. I don't think people realize how crazy they are. You're getting the equivalent to a upper-mid to lower high end laptop for 1/2 or 1/3 the price. You can still throw one of these in a small bag or mount on the back of a monitor. If these were available with professional GPU's (for better CAD support), I would be looking at them for work instead of expensive laptops.
I just do not get the complaints about screws in tech products. Have fun with plastic clips that break all the time and hard to repair products, I guess.
Asrock industrial has the BEST support. They've taken the time in the past to make a custom bios for me when I couldn't get my ECC ram to work and the bios they sent me fixed all the issues. They just need to release a better system to be used as a router, so x2 2.5g or x2 10g, or x2 sfp+.
Buy Mikrotik device instead. More stable, tons of options and mostly - stable, cold reboot resistant (no config is lost as it happened to me many times when used NUC for router. BTW, all software from US has three letters agencies plugins inside ;) Also Mikrotik, also GNU software ;)
My comments are for anyone working for companies making mini-PCs (Beelink, Minisforum, etc). I prefer larger chassis versus smaller. More connectivity options for I/O and video. Use case would be two USB 2.0 ports with USB A interface (for external mouse and keyboard); at least two USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 (10Gbps) ports with USB A interface (for USB external SSDs & USB keys); at least one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) port with USB C interface; at least one USB 4 (40Gbps) port with USB C interface; at least one full size DP 2.0 and one full size HDMI 2.1 video ports. An external AD/DC power brick of at least 250W (the Dell Alienware 18 series and Asus G751 series have 300W power bricks so perhaps don't stop at 250W and go all the way to 300W for power to spare). For networking there should be two 10Gbps RJ-45 ports (SFP+ can be on top of the RJ-45 )🙂 and one WiFi-6. That would provide a highly flexible and powerful mini-PC platform that would be better than Intel based mini-PCs that frequently have far more I/O than most AMD based mini-PCs.
@@poorplayer9249 Sadly no .. maybe in my next lifetime 😅 It seems the only products that come close are all using the Intel platform since the effort has been up to now spend money on Intel products and well just give the AMD product teams bare minimum funding to make motherboards and entire computers 😪
@@OS2tuxbird Thanks for replying. Well, you have a comprehensive wish list to refer to and evaluate with. That's something... A mini would be good for me as a small space alternative while I dream of a future SFX machine to add to my laptop.
Thank you for descriminating between what is and is not a NUC. Bigger boxes will always allow better cooling and more performance and potentially a price saving. I use an HP Z620 workstation which is huge by comparison [and old too] but allows so much more of everything. I am open to smaller form factors but the compromise should not be lost.
I went with the mini-pc without the NPU which has a Ryzen 7940HS. I don't really need the NPU and after some research, others claim that the 7940HS performance even beats AMD's newest 8000 series cpus in some benchmarks.
Totally diggin the "better cooling" argument. Being able to stick a standard 120mm or 140mm fan in there would not only improve cooling, but makes it more repairable with greater access to parts, and could also give greater options eg. if consumers have a preferred / existing fan vendors could sell fanless and save on cost / cut price.
I really love your tiny pc content. I was wondering if you could start a tiny server content series, especially for energy efficient and AMD-based DIY systems
@@ServeTheHomeVideo too bad, there is so little video content around it. I would watch it day and night! I really loved the video on liquid server cooling from supermicro
I think the “game changer” with respect to these mini PCs is going to arrive with the upcoming AMD CPUs that include the 890M iGPU. For the first time, an integrated GPU will have as much graphics horsepower as entry-level discrete GPUs.
Just a minor observation on the current AMD Mini PC offerings in general. Has anyone noticed that DisplayPort monitor connections seem to be somewhat second class citizens on many of these machines? Not all certainly, but definitely a pretty noticeable percentage. There just seems to be quite a few of them that force you to USB4 on the fronts of the sytems for DP connections. I know it may sound quite nit-picky, but I really prefer DisplayPort when I can and I do not want my permanently connected monitor cable going into the front of my system when it's as small as a mini PC.
Nice and helpful review. It's amazing to have something so small be a match for most of the full tower desktops I've owned for work PCs, while even being decent for gaming. Like others I wish they'd left out the speakers & mics and offered better cooling instead, and offered 64 GB + 2 TB.
i got the 8845hs gmktec version and first thing i did is add a 4tb 990 and 96 gb of ram. love it so far kina bummed i left it at the office and want it back
Wi-Fi 7 is not yet ratified (should happen this year). Everyone selling Wi-Fi 7 is just relying on Draft 3 being compatible with the final ratified version, a very reasonable guess but still a bit of a white lie if you ask me. Personally I think Wi-Fi 6E is the way to go at the moment for this exact reason.
The beelink you have there and it's level lower brother are what i use for my mobile / backpack stream and film kits :) Can run them off a DC battery pack quite nicely
Beelink has seemed to prefer opting for a single LAN port for several years now, which is a constant bummer considering how many other miniPC vendors have no issue throwing in a pair of them. Even the tiny 87mm x 87mm x 39mm N100 units typically include a pair, as have many other vendors' offerings from at least the AMD 4000 series (4800H, etc)
So interesting to watch this now, post the M4 Mac Mini release. Donning my flameproof suit, I am no Apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that you can get a 16 GB RAM/256 GB SSD M4 Mac Mini for the same price as a bare-bones 8840u SFF PC is staggering. Aside from upgrade capability and possibly utility (in my case, a home server running Proxmox or similar), the Mac Mini absolutely destroys these, and I could probably Frankenstein it to meet my use cases + use it as a desktop! What an odd and interesting time.
Just ordered the Minisforum UM 890 Pro. Basically the same config, beside 2x2.5gbe and buildin Oculink (uses one of the 2 Nvme m.2 slots). Imo its better designed and you can get an Oculink eGPU Dock for 90 bucks for little more serious gamong. Not sure how high the Intel mobile chips go but the 780M and 8945HS runs circles around the i3/i5 and Intel igpus. Have not seen if they have an i7 or whatever redicolous name they Call them now. With 16 threads and 96gb ram thes Ryzen mobile chips with both 2 usb4 and 2x 2.5gbe network is pretty darn good for a Home project server or low to mid lvl gaming. Only reason to go with an M-ITX system is if you need a 10gbe network card or multiple SATA connections for a NAS.
i took my ser 5 out of the case and added a 200mm fan also heat sinks on my ram and ssd if you have a metal case you could add a aio cooler making good contact to the largest metal surface of the mini pc
What nic is used in the beelink one? I like that you mentioned what the ASRock one uses but I miss that information on the Beelink unit. Especially with drivers and reliability issues, it could be a decision for a purchase or not :O
I find it funny how people get usb confused. The usb 2.0 ports are actually run off the usb 3 controller. There is no difference between the usb 3.0 port in 2.0 mode and a usb 2.0 port. They both have the usb 2.0 power and data wires
For a server application, the MS-01 from MinisForum is better unless there is something specific about this form factor or ASRock you prefer. Really hard to go wrong with 2 SFP+ ports plus dual 2.5 NICs. Sorta my ideal Proxmox box at the moment.
I've got a generic mini PC with a Ryzen 8840U and 64 GB of memory, using it to run a Llama 3 70B chatbot :) works great, though getting everything passed through and working in Proxmox was a pain
We have shown these AMD chips recording full resolution AV1 locally while playing esports titled like League of Legends at 4K. Higher end games at high detail are probably not the best on this just given the integrated graphics. If you are just looking to produce streams from cameras instead of games, this is plenty. Likewise, if you want to hook it up to a TV as a streaming endpoint it is more than enough.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Thank you for the quick response! Was referring to using it only to encode to twitch/youtube stream and possibly simultaneously locally record from sources such as cameras and separate gaming pc via usb capture cards.
I am not sure these super-small PCs bring a lot compared to a small but strongly scalable PC. There is a lot of room left near my home cinema and writing desk. But interesting video mainly because of the network speed progress.
90% users commenting here are home users who don't need SFP, bridging ports, separate NIC interfaces, so they use either RPI or NUC. Small requirements, small world.
I am looking to replace my living room PC. My current PC reboots after some time while showing 4K UHD content. I am wondering if its worth buying one of these.
I am now officially bored senseless seeing more mini PCs whose main difference is the multi digit cpu name and port speed. I know the NUC has a size standard but it seems a bit arbitrary. What we do need is a mini PCIe slot standard - like M.2 but more lanes so we can have tiny add in cards.
The ASRock power brick is larger and has less power consumption which equals longer thermal life. All my PCs have oversized PSUs, the last thing you want is failing PSUs.
Not of the fan of the price, either be down near n100's or higher, can get decent pc that can have a real gpu, or a laptop that has more portability. love the n100 tho
another box with frustrating 2.5g networking instead of 10g. - i suppose they at least gave you a second m.2 slot so you could use that for a 10g adapter and mount it to the side panel or something, but COME ON, guys! these little boxes don't have room for lots of storage (and it makes sense to remotely locate the storage with little inexpensive desktops anyway, and 10g to my nas becomes a must.
@@efimovv I’m running 10g over standard cat6e all over my house and it works just fine at max speeds. And the integrated aquantia chipset on my workstation runs pretty cool and the x540-t2 I’ve got in my proxmox cluster and NASes isn’t nearly as hot or power hungry as folks make them out to be. I’ve had nothing but good times with them. The switches run a bit warm and loud but I swapped out my fans for quiet high static pressure versions that work great shrug.
I do wonder if you have some contacts that you can, well contact about 13900 and 14900 (mainly) degradation and failure issue. I'm talking from server side of things. Wendell already did that, but it would be great to have independent review. Especially given how large the issue might be, it might be waaaay too big for 1 person or even couple of RUclips channels. And I do wonder if it has some crossover with initial Sapphire Rapids CPU's having multiple stability issues. And as a fan of Project TMM - it was nice to see those 2 small PC's featured. Personally I still buy new ones (usually HP) that I can get for 20-50$ that use bulldozer architecture. They are decent if you only do stuff like "Office" or something. Better one can handle RUclips, but has issues with 60 FPS videos. And in terms of usage nothing seems to be bottleneck (CPU isn't at 100% - though I suspect it's simply lack of hardware decoders to newer videos).
I saw Wendell the morning he published that video. My sense is just talking to server OEMs is that the issue is more due to the frequency the gaming parts are running at. Gaming CPUs are pushing the silicon harder to hit higher clocks.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo That is a given. However there are (and were already, prior to all the focus) rumors that Raptor Lake had been produced very quickly (11 months from drawing board to the end of validation). And while it is "just" an evolution of Alder Lake, from memory 11 months is super quick, even for "just" a "re-design". And given the pressure, Sapphire Rapids might have also had some (probably not a lot) stuff that was being thought for Raptor Lake. Or even just some ideas were floated at the time or it is completely unrelated. But I do remember that first batches especially felt "unbaked". And obviously they don't seem to have the same or at least most of the issues that Raptor Lake has (likely due to more complex validation for Enterprise). Still again, there were people who "pre-ordered" Sapphire Rapids and then had to cancel or request to send it back, because their equipment wasn't stable (or had power consumption problem). Of course in this case things were solved pretty quickly - not to mention Emerald Rapids is basically flawless. At least compared to SR. Maybe poke and prod a bit and you might be able to find out something. Because to me it looks like getting to the bottom of this will take a lot of collaborative effort from various journalists (whether they think of themselves as journalists or not).
I wish you would have discussed Multi-Stream Transport on that DisplayPort output. If you use daisy-chainable monitors or an MST hub, how many total displays can you hook up to that Beelink unit?
This mini PCs NUCs are awesome and exactly what I need for my living room. I do not need the fastest one, since ie will be just a HTPC and 4k playback is easy enough on pretty much everything nowadays. Thing is, I cannot seem to get one. There are plenty of sellers, yet not one seem to ship to the Netherlands. On Amazon I had placed an order and after three months it was still pending on when they would ship... And other sites/sellers aren't much better either... Any recommendations are highly appreciated as to where to buy one...
You have been able to get NUCs with tool-less lids for some time. TinyMiniMicro nodes have been tool-less for many years as well. It just takes flanges and a locking mechanism
Does Ryzen CPUs also use such aggresive throttling as Intel ? When I try to compile anything heavy, throttlink occurs, temps go up to 95-98C and hear the fan through the wall.
Avoid them. I just bought 9950x only because to get rid of thermal throttling and noise issue. Bulky...but worth the price and money (shorter compilation).
IMBU (in my basic understanding...I just made that up to look like a): -x86 architecture runs hot, therefore needs large form factors with air cooling; -ARM architecture is super efficient, hence the small form factor and lower costs; -RISC-V architecture is FOSS, which seems best when developed for the market. Curious about corporatocracy vs community, proprietary vs FOSS. The private sector supply cannot meet public market demand, so open sourcing seems to be the path of progress, or not? The open source lack of financial incentive though, relies on volunteers developing a usable ISA, which I understand is close to being ready for desktop SBCs with 2 NICs, 3 monitors, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and M.2 NVMe storage? Also, why not just use USB-C now, it's so fast for data and power, unsure if monitors could use it too?
x86 is high performance and runs hotter ARM is high efficiency and runs cooler but performance is low RISC-V ISA (instruction set) is FOSS but the architecture is not. Any vendor making their RISC-V cores can make proprietary or open or whatever design. The main benefit of RISC-V is that there is no duopoly Intel/AMD like with x86 nor a single owner-king of the architecture that must be paid their dues like with ARM. It's not in the architecture itself but in the freedom to develop whatever design with it
Not really. If you look at the Xeon 6 versus something like an Ampere Altra Max, Intel is now far ahead of Arm with its E-cores on efficiency. There are different optimizations that the Arm folks make. If you look at a modern die shot of one of these chips, the cores are a relatively small area. Even if you got 15% better PPA on the cores that is single digit better on the chip.
"ARM architecture is super efficient" - believe me, it is not. Haven't seen any device recently that could handle huge network traffic with hundreds of FW rules and not saturating all CPU power (thus - slowing down).
Amazing what u can do in an industrial (embedded) PC 4x4 brick (NUC) when the APU processor from AMD cost nothing in a full line procurement? I'm pretty sure. mb
RoHS, lead free package guarantee means ur Lixus with this control module, as a break control system, won't accelerate and fly off the road on a lead contaminated package short. mb
ServeTheHome - I am hoping you can do a discussion on power, TDP, cooling, and performance. I do not understand these concepts yet and struggling to even find appropriate sources to learn it. My current understanding is that a chip may be capable of higher performance but will only function that way if there is adequate power and cooling. So it’s entirely possible to have a high functioning performance chip and never get that performance if you don’t meet its power or cooling requirements. I also do not understand if a high performance chip which requires considerable power still requires and wastes that power if left on but not in use. Can these chips use minimal power in standby mode or do they always expend higher power. I welcome anyone to provide info here. Thanks.
im still a little unclear on what applications take advantage of the npu today. and whether that list of applications is different depending on which vendors npu.
A small computer including the power supply would be much better than just pretending it's a small computer while only moving the mess to cable management 🤮
everything about beelink sounds much better , but still he is searching for something to dislike that makes no sense at all, looks like ASROCK paid more
Nope. The Steam Deck APU is pretty weak compared to other AMD processors, mainly to account for battery life, but there are some that are very similar if you filter down AMD's lineup.
The 780M is more powerful than the iGPU in the steam deck. I would like to see AMD put more focus on improving their iGPU rather than cramming more cores in their APUs.
Pretty 'screwed up' system that SER8 is! 😂 Btw, any benchmarking on NPU performance, to aid devs trying to build offline llm based solutions in home lab? Say, quantized llama with ollama?
Not only that. The asrock uses better components. I’ve had a few Beelinks stop working on me. There are videos and Reddit posts on people who’ve had the same thing happen to them.
Why would you change an at least somewhat informative thumbnail/title to almost zero-information clickbait? Does the actual audience of this channel _really_ click on things like that more?
Is there a way to watch these videos at 90% speed? Patrick, you rattle things off too quickly sometimes and you are hard to understand when you do so. Replaying it doesn't help. Slurred speech is slurred speech.
You need to buy one of these 1st !! In all seriousness you need a laptop or desktop type device and go into Settings and choose _Playback Speed_ and then _Custom_ settings and can choose increments of 5% that way. With phone or Smart TV you are stuck with 25% increments Only, which Sucks. Why I am seriously thing of a player just for YT just for this feature so can listen at like 5%, 10% to 15% faster and listen to more things. I really, really wish N305 was more mainstream though. N100 from what I've seen over the last year has had problems with AV1 decoding for YT sometimes. That's what I'll be using it for and N305 would be a perfect fit but for the price might as well get a real i3 or i5 or hell a MinisForum MS-01 i5 on sale and run numerous things on it and YT. Once N305 comes down to N100 prices I think they will sell a lot of them.
![Ice On My Teeth - ATEEZ エイティーズ 에이티즈 [Music Bank] | KBS WORLD TV 241115](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/c-n92OgbbwA/mqdefault.jpg)
I will never complain about screws, as manufacturers probably think the next best thing would be to glue everything together, like phones, which are a nightmare to repair.
Screws into plastic make me want to cry.
I actually thumbs down, came into the comments, saw this, agreed and then left the video. I agree wholeheartedly.
I don't understand the thumbsdown for screws. I prefer secured parts with screws vs. cheap abs plastic clips that break or the whole thing creaks when you bend it. Screws are far superior.
The more you service these, the more you feel how much better one thumbscrew/ screwless designs are.
Personally i would have redesigned the Bottom totally, they simply added Filter in their Existing Case. My Redesign: A Filter Flap with ONE (catching) screw. Then comes the normal Buttom which is recessed upwards. So you can unscrew the Filter Flap slide it out, clean it, stick it in an secure it with the Screw. To clean this filter you have to unscrew 4 Screws. When you go fance, putt the Filter behind the Flap screw it out take the Filter out ... but having to remove 6 ! Screws for Filtercleaning is insane. Imagine having a Schoolroom with 30 PC with this Design, as i can as i work in Schools. I have to clean such filters annually. One Screw and removeable Filter perfect, 6 Screws... screw you !
I concur. For longevity, screws are best. Every time I open a plastic-tab/glued laptop bottom, I know that it is just a matter of time before something breaks/disolves that will make future upgrades risky or less secure. Screws all the way.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo So these computers are for service personnel and not individual users then....
@@ServeTheHomeVideo And preferably the variant that can't be dropped into the case requiring disassembly in a good case or blowing up the running PSU in a bad case.
Screwless case designs are not always good and many are pretty obscure, turn into an IQ test to open without a manual.
These mini PC's the last few years are nuts. I don't think people realize how crazy they are. You're getting the equivalent to a upper-mid to lower high end laptop for 1/2 or 1/3 the price. You can still throw one of these in a small bag or mount on the back of a monitor. If these were available with professional GPU's (for better CAD support), I would be looking at them for work instead of expensive laptops.
I agree, save for the fact that laptops are portable. I fly 150K+ miles a year so being portable is good too.
Modern mini-PCs are the best value on the compute market for those that don't travel for work.
Idk most laptops don't have a dedicated graphics cards anymore, the majority of them that I have seen are apu
True - GPU is their bottleneck. I mean, even with Itel Iris/Xe I my Desktop is also luggish and I feel GPU power is limited. I just feel it.
@@adamwalter2573 Your desktop should NOT be sluggish. You might be facing a driver's issue which doesn't let your system use hardware acceleration
Loved this video. No wasted time seeing examples of video games being played. Please do more AMD comparisons between different manufacturers.
Good feedback. Yea the 780M is so well known at this point it felt duplicative to keep doing something like that.
I just do not get the complaints about screws in tech products. Have fun with plastic clips that break all the time and hard to repair products, I guess.
We have yet to break a clip on these.
I recently swapped out my BeeLink EQ12/N305 for an SER6/6900HX and I adore it. Super good little box.
Often the TV on the 2nd set is powered by the N305 EQ12
I have the Beelink GTR5 5900HX and they're absolutely rock solid!
Beelink is doing a lot (as are many of the other mini PC vendors out there).
Asrock industrial has the BEST support. They've taken the time in the past to make a custom bios for me when I couldn't get my ECC ram to work and the bios they sent me fixed all the issues. They just need to release a better system to be used as a router, so x2 2.5g or x2 10g, or x2 sfp+.
Buy Mikrotik device instead. More stable, tons of options and mostly - stable, cold reboot resistant (no config is lost as it happened to me many times when used NUC for router. BTW, all software from US has three letters agencies plugins inside ;) Also Mikrotik, also GNU software ;)
My comments are for anyone working for companies making mini-PCs (Beelink, Minisforum, etc). I prefer larger chassis versus smaller. More connectivity options for I/O and video. Use case would be two USB 2.0 ports with USB A interface (for external mouse and keyboard); at least two USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 (10Gbps) ports with USB A interface (for USB external SSDs & USB keys); at least one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) port with USB C interface; at least one USB 4 (40Gbps) port with USB C interface; at least one full size DP 2.0 and one full size HDMI 2.1 video ports. An external AD/DC power brick of at least 250W (the Dell Alienware 18 series and Asus G751 series have 300W power bricks so perhaps don't stop at 250W and go all the way to 300W for power to spare). For networking there should be two 10Gbps RJ-45 ports (SFP+ can be on top of the RJ-45 )🙂 and one WiFi-6. That would provide a highly flexible and powerful mini-PC platform that would be better than Intel based mini-PCs that frequently have far more I/O than most AMD based mini-PCs.
Sounds nice, and yes, very flexible. Any thoughts on offerings that come close to your wishlist?
@@poorplayer9249 Sadly no .. maybe in my next lifetime 😅 It seems the only products that come close are all using the Intel platform since the effort has been up to now spend money on Intel products and well just give the AMD product teams bare minimum funding to make motherboards and entire computers 😪
@@OS2tuxbird Thanks for replying. Well, you have a comprehensive wish list to refer to and evaluate with. That's something... A mini would be good for me as a small space alternative while I dream of a future SFX machine to add to my laptop.
Great video!
I LOVE the direct comparison between two similar units and how you laid out the pros and cons of each.
This is awesome!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for descriminating between what is and is not a NUC. Bigger boxes will always allow better cooling and more performance and potentially a price saving. I use an HP Z620 workstation which is huge by comparison [and old too] but allows so much more of everything. I am open to smaller form factors but the compromise should not be lost.
You guys are at the top of the game for small-form factor reviews! 😄
Thanks!
I went with the mini-pc without the NPU which has a Ryzen 7940HS. I don't really need the NPU and after some research, others claim that the 7940HS performance even beats AMD's newest 8000 series cpus in some benchmarks.
Totally diggin the "better cooling" argument. Being able to stick a standard 120mm or 140mm fan in there would not only improve cooling, but makes it more repairable with greater access to parts, and could also give greater options eg. if consumers have a preferred / existing fan vendors could sell fanless and save on cost / cut price.
Try Peltier pad instead. Apart from humidity, this will cool unit drastically, still keeping low fan noise (if used proper size radiator).
I really love your tiny pc content. I was wondering if you could start a tiny server content series, especially for energy efficient and AMD-based DIY systems
We tend to do these more on the main site
@@ServeTheHomeVideo too bad, there is so little video content around it. I would watch it day and night! I really loved the video on liquid server cooling from supermicro
Is there any upcoming TinyMiniMicro reviews? All these mini PCs are great but kinda miss the old TMM form factor.
Good point. Will have the team find a few that we have but have not reviewed yet
Got a hp pro desk mini 400 G9 i5-12500T for £250 last week has vpro and clean.
@@mpstein1976 that’s a tasty price for a 12th gen i5, good find
@@ServeTheHomeVideo new Lenovo m75q gen 5 has dropped (Ryzen 7 8700 GE), would be great if you guys could get one
The minisforum MS-01 would mop the floor with everything else.
I think the “game changer” with respect to these mini PCs is going to arrive with the upcoming AMD CPUs that include the 890M iGPU. For the first time, an integrated GPU will have as much graphics horsepower as entry-level discrete GPUs.
They say that every generation :-) Earlier this week, we covered Strix on the STH main site with Zen 5, RDNA 3.5, and XDNA 2
@@ServeTheHomeVideoTrue, but this time there are some (early) benchmarks which appear to confirm it. That’s never happened before.
yeah...promised 100% performance boost...delivered 5-10% improvement. As always...
You look really rested for a new dad! One of those blessed ones
Ha! Meanwhile I am walking around half asleep.
Why complain so much about screws? Would you rather have no heat sink for SSDs and no dust filter over having to unscrew 4 additional screws?
Just a minor observation on the current AMD Mini PC offerings in general. Has anyone noticed that DisplayPort monitor connections seem to be somewhat second class citizens on many of these machines? Not all certainly, but definitely a pretty noticeable percentage. There just seems to be quite a few of them that force you to USB4 on the fronts of the sytems for DP connections.
I know it may sound quite nit-picky, but I really prefer DisplayPort when I can and I do not want my permanently connected monitor cable going into the front of my system when it's as small as a mini PC.
Good point.
You can get DisplayPort splitters that support 4 monitors on most of these mini pc’s using a single DisplayPort on the pc.
Nice and helpful review. It's amazing to have something so small be a match for most of the full tower desktops I've owned for work PCs, while even being decent for gaming. Like others I wish they'd left out the speakers & mics and offered better cooling instead, and offered 64 GB + 2 TB.
i got the 8845hs gmktec version and first thing i did is add a 4tb 990 and 96 gb of ram. love it so far kina bummed i left it at the office and want it back
Granny Award Audio Professionals require *1/4" audio jacks* on their smart phones and puny PCs.
Wi-Fi 7 is not yet ratified (should happen this year). Everyone selling Wi-Fi 7 is just relying on Draft 3 being compatible with the final ratified version, a very reasonable guess but still a bit of a white lie if you ask me.
Personally I think Wi-Fi 6E is the way to go at the moment for this exact reason.
Fair.
The beelink you have there and it's level lower brother are what i use for my mobile / backpack stream and film kits :) Can run them off a DC battery pack quite nicely
Beelink has seemed to prefer opting for a single LAN port for several years now, which is a constant bummer considering how many other miniPC vendors have no issue throwing in a pair of them.
Even the tiny 87mm x 87mm x 39mm N100 units typically include a pair, as have many other vendors' offerings from at least the AMD 4000 series (4800H, etc)
So interesting to watch this now, post the M4 Mac Mini release. Donning my flameproof suit, I am no Apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that you can get a 16 GB RAM/256 GB SSD M4 Mac Mini for the same price as a bare-bones 8840u SFF PC is staggering. Aside from upgrade capability and possibly utility (in my case, a home server running Proxmox or similar), the Mac Mini absolutely destroys these, and I could probably Frankenstein it to meet my use cases + use it as a desktop! What an odd and interesting time.
Just ordered the Minisforum UM 890 Pro. Basically the same config, beside 2x2.5gbe and buildin Oculink (uses one of the 2 Nvme m.2 slots). Imo its better designed and you can get an Oculink eGPU Dock for 90 bucks for little more serious gamong. Not sure how high the Intel mobile chips go but the 780M and 8945HS runs circles around the i3/i5 and Intel igpus. Have not seen if they have an i7 or whatever redicolous name they Call them now. With 16 threads and 96gb ram thes Ryzen mobile chips with both 2 usb4 and 2x 2.5gbe network is pretty darn good for a Home project server or low to mid lvl gaming. Only reason to go with an M-ITX system is if you need a 10gbe network card or multiple SATA connections for a NAS.
The filming and all reminds me of a movie - that trainspotting interview scene ;)
i took my ser 5 out of the case and added a 200mm fan also heat sinks on my ram and ssd
if you have a metal case you could add a aio cooler making good contact to the largest metal surface of the mini pc
Good point.
Reminds me of an Apple Studio--- minus the performance and price--- but with more interfaces.
Fair
Focusing on screws? I prefer screws.
What would you suggest instead?
Some of the new NUCs have latches so they are tool-less. The TinyMiniMicro 1L PCs often have a maximum of one thumb screw
What nic is used in the beelink one? I like that you mentioned what the ASRock one uses but I miss that information on the Beelink unit. Especially with drivers and reliability issues, it could be a decision for a purchase or not :O
I find it funny how people get usb confused. The usb 2.0 ports are actually run off the usb 3 controller. There is no difference between the usb 3.0 port in 2.0 mode and a usb 2.0 port. They both have the usb 2.0 power and data wires
For a server application, the MS-01 from MinisForum is better unless there is something specific about this form factor or ASRock you prefer. Really hard to go wrong with 2 SFP+ ports plus dual 2.5 NICs. Sorta my ideal Proxmox box at the moment.
Sure but it also uses a lot more power and has mixed cores (for things like VMware you generally want all P-cores not P+E)
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Oh yeah, I forget that VMWare is a thing after they eff'd off the community.
I've got a generic mini PC with a Ryzen 8840U and 64 GB of memory, using it to run a Llama 3 70B chatbot :) works great, though getting everything passed through and working in Proxmox was a pain
Why was it a pain 😊
I wound up picking up a Beelink Mini PC EQ 12 to start. I may pick up a faster model in the future.
Awesome! We reviewed that one too. It is often running the display behind me on our second set
No mention of the Wifi issues the Ser 8 is known for? Internal Wifi antennas inside a metal case are rarely good for performance.
Wi-Fi is important for a plain user. I do not understand why all these producers do not care to put an external antenna port.
do you think either of these are powerful enough to be used as a 2nd (streaming) PC?
We have shown these AMD chips recording full resolution AV1 locally while playing esports titled like League of Legends at 4K. Higher end games at high detail are probably not the best on this just given the integrated graphics. If you are just looking to produce streams from cameras instead of games, this is plenty. Likewise, if you want to hook it up to a TV as a streaming endpoint it is more than enough.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Thank you for the quick response! Was referring to using it only to encode to twitch/youtube stream and possibly simultaneously locally record from sources such as cameras and separate gaming pc via usb capture cards.
I am not sure these super-small PCs bring a lot compared to a small but strongly scalable PC. There is a lot of room left near my home cinema and writing desk. But interesting video mainly because of the network speed progress.
Just to give you an idea, over the past few years I have put well over a half million miles with mini PCs to augment my Macbook Pro on trips.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo
I understand, our use cases are totally different.
90% users commenting here are home users who don't need SFP, bridging ports, separate NIC interfaces, so they use either RPI or NUC. Small requirements, small world.
I am looking to replace my living room PC. My current PC reboots after some time while showing 4K UHD content. I am wondering if its worth buying one of these.
This is probably more than you need for that application.
Would be nice to mention regulatory. No UL listing is a no go for a lot of us due to being used in a commercial setting.
I am now officially bored senseless seeing more mini PCs whose main difference is the multi digit cpu name and port speed. I know the NUC has a size standard but it seems a bit arbitrary. What we do need is a mini PCIe slot standard - like M.2 but more lanes so we can have tiny add in cards.
but if they increase PCIe...then those boxes will be mini-ITX. NUCs are the past currently. Believe me, wait 1-2 yrs to confirm my prognosis.
The ASRock power brick is larger and has less power consumption which equals longer thermal life. All my PCs have oversized PSUs, the last thing you want is failing PSUs.
Do these devices have IPMI functionality? Or should I only consider something like NUCS BOX-155H + Meshcommander?
The minisforum um890 pro has much better port selection. Extra usb 4 faster usb type a ports, oculink, etc...
We did the UM890 Pro a few weeks ago ruclips.net/video/YT15eLCSaVI/видео.html
Price / performance (The Best AMD Ryzen Mini PC) would be : Minisforum UM890 Pro
Not of the fan of the price, either be down near n100's or higher, can get decent pc that can have a real gpu, or a laptop that has more portability. love the n100 tho
None I suppose, both overpriced vs 6600h mkt
another box with frustrating 2.5g networking instead of 10g. - i suppose they at least gave you a second m.2 slot so you could use that for a 10g adapter and mount it to the side panel or something, but COME ON, guys! these little boxes don't have room for lots of storage (and it makes sense to remotely locate the storage with little inexpensive desktops anyway, and 10g to my nas becomes a must.
10G is real pain. 2.5G use almost "standard" cables, but for 10G you have hard wire + overheated NIC or fiber and pre-made patchcords.
@@efimovv I’m running 10g over standard cat6e all over my house and it works just fine at max speeds. And the integrated aquantia chipset on my workstation runs pretty cool and the x540-t2 I’ve got in my proxmox cluster and NASes isn’t nearly as hot or power hungry as folks make them out to be. I’ve had nothing but good times with them. The switches run a bit warm and loud but I swapped out my fans for quiet high static pressure versions that work great shrug.
@sth couldn't you use an inexpensive USBC hub with multiple display outputs with the beelink unit to get 4 outputs total?
I mean, if you want to run good 4K60 that is pretty hard.
Is the asrock unit able to push 4k60 out of all its outputs simultaneously?
Missing the Ryzen™ 9 7945HX, review the AtomMan G7 PT and bump the charts a bit 😎
I do wonder if you have some contacts that you can, well contact about 13900 and 14900 (mainly) degradation and failure issue. I'm talking from server side of things. Wendell already did that, but it would be great to have independent review. Especially given how large the issue might be, it might be waaaay too big for 1 person or even couple of RUclips channels.
And I do wonder if it has some crossover with initial Sapphire Rapids CPU's having multiple stability issues.
And as a fan of Project TMM - it was nice to see those 2 small PC's featured. Personally I still buy new ones (usually HP) that I can get for 20-50$ that use bulldozer architecture. They are decent if you only do stuff like "Office" or something. Better one can handle RUclips, but has issues with 60 FPS videos. And in terms of usage nothing seems to be bottleneck (CPU isn't at 100% - though I suspect it's simply lack of hardware decoders to newer videos).
I saw Wendell the morning he published that video. My sense is just talking to server OEMs is that the issue is more due to the frequency the gaming parts are running at. Gaming CPUs are pushing the silicon harder to hit higher clocks.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo That is a given. However there are (and were already, prior to all the focus) rumors that Raptor Lake had been produced very quickly (11 months from drawing board to the end of validation). And while it is "just" an evolution of Alder Lake, from memory 11 months is super quick, even for "just" a "re-design".
And given the pressure, Sapphire Rapids might have also had some (probably not a lot) stuff that was being thought for Raptor Lake. Or even just some ideas were floated at the time or it is completely unrelated. But I do remember that first batches especially felt "unbaked". And obviously they don't seem to have the same or at least most of the issues that Raptor Lake has (likely due to more complex validation for Enterprise). Still again, there were people who "pre-ordered" Sapphire Rapids and then had to cancel or request to send it back, because their equipment wasn't stable (or had power consumption problem). Of course in this case things were solved pretty quickly - not to mention Emerald Rapids is basically flawless. At least compared to SR.
Maybe poke and prod a bit and you might be able to find out something. Because to me it looks like getting to the bottom of this will take a lot of collaborative effort from various journalists (whether they think of themselves as journalists or not).
You didn't mention if the usb4 supports external GPU. Can you clarify?
Is it good for data science?
Why not use ECC memory? I enjoy your content. thank you
96GB of ECC Unbuffered is harder to come by. These are more of the consumer platforms
ECC would be nice, but for what purpose it would serve in such systems?
They make very nice proxmox nodes for home labs.
waiting for akasa case for that pcs
I wish you would have discussed Multi-Stream Transport on that DisplayPort output. If you use daisy-chainable monitors or an MST hub, how many total displays can you hook up to that Beelink unit?
This mini PCs NUCs are awesome and exactly what I need for my living room. I do not need the fastest one, since ie will be just a HTPC and 4k playback is easy enough on pretty much everything nowadays. Thing is, I cannot seem to get one. There are plenty of sellers, yet not one seem to ship to the Netherlands. On Amazon I had placed an order and after three months it was still pending on when they would ship... And other sites/sellers aren't much better either...
Any recommendations are highly appreciated as to where to buy one...
Filter is because the bottom is the air intake.
u want it duck taped rather than screws or something?
You have been able to get NUCs with tool-less lids for some time. TinyMiniMicro nodes have been tool-less for many years as well. It just takes flanges and a locking mechanism
Can't DisplayPort be daisy chained to multiple monitors, so why are two DP ports better than one?
Does Ryzen CPUs also use such aggresive throttling as Intel ? When I try to compile anything heavy, throttlink occurs, temps go up to 95-98C and hear the fan through the wall.
Avoid them. I just bought 9950x only because to get rid of thermal throttling and noise issue. Bulky...but worth the price and money (shorter compilation).
I would buy a mini pc if it had optical audio output. Unfortunately, they never do.
Yea that is a hard feature to find
I like the two nvme drives. Is theee any mini pc with two nvme (4x gen4) and two Intel Ethernet ports 2.5 Gbps?
Realtek works well nowadays too. Take a look at the Minisforum UM890pro. If you want Intel you gotta pay alot more
Suggestions for a remote PC with Wifi and operate in a high heat environment (150F+)
hey bro nais video saludos desde argentina
IMBU (in my basic understanding...I just made that up to look like a):
-x86 architecture runs hot, therefore needs large form factors with air cooling;
-ARM architecture is super efficient, hence the small form factor and lower costs;
-RISC-V architecture is FOSS, which seems best when developed for the market.
Curious about corporatocracy vs community, proprietary vs FOSS.
The private sector supply cannot meet public market demand, so open sourcing seems to be the path of progress, or not? The open source lack of financial incentive though, relies on volunteers developing a usable ISA, which I understand is close to being ready for desktop SBCs with 2 NICs, 3 monitors, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and M.2 NVMe storage?
Also, why not just use USB-C now, it's so fast for data and power, unsure if monitors could use it too?
x86 is high performance and runs hotter
ARM is high efficiency and runs cooler but performance is low
RISC-V ISA (instruction set) is FOSS but the architecture is not. Any vendor making their RISC-V cores can make proprietary or open or whatever design.
The main benefit of RISC-V is that there is no duopoly Intel/AMD like with x86 nor a single owner-king of the architecture that must be paid their dues like with ARM. It's not in the architecture itself but in the freedom to develop whatever design with it
Not really. If you look at the Xeon 6 versus something like an Ampere Altra Max, Intel is now far ahead of Arm with its E-cores on efficiency. There are different optimizations that the Arm folks make. If you look at a modern die shot of one of these chips, the cores are a relatively small area. Even if you got 15% better PPA on the cores that is single digit better on the chip.
"ARM architecture is super efficient" - believe me, it is not. Haven't seen any device recently that could handle huge network traffic with hundreds of FW rules and not saturating all CPU power (thus - slowing down).
asrock mini pcs wont ship via amazon to the UK - how come?
i think the 104 standard would be ideal
What is the name of the CLI tool used for power measurements?
just make a passive 370 at max TDP when it ships, I beg you guys, you can do it!
Amazing what u can do in an industrial (embedded) PC 4x4 brick (NUC) when the APU processor from AMD cost nothing in a full line procurement? I'm pretty sure. mb
RoHS, lead free package guarantee means ur Lixus with this control module, as a break control system, won't accelerate and fly off the road on a lead contaminated package short. mb
8845HS in gaming PCs, well . . . mb
ServeTheHome - I am hoping you can do a discussion on power, TDP, cooling, and performance. I do not understand these concepts yet and struggling to even find appropriate sources to learn it. My current understanding is that a chip may be capable of higher performance but will only function that way if there is adequate power and cooling. So it’s entirely possible to have a high functioning performance chip and never get that performance if you don’t meet its power or cooling requirements. I also do not understand if a high performance chip which requires considerable power still requires and wastes that power if left on but not in use. Can these chips use minimal power in standby mode or do they always expend higher power. I welcome anyone to provide info here. Thanks.
They are over $600 USA dollars. That almost $1,000 Canadian dollars. I can't afford that.
im still a little unclear on what applications take advantage of the npu today.
and whether that list of applications is different depending on which vendors npu.
short answer: no applications use npu at this point, it's too early. But they need to give hardware for developers to start using it
@@marcogenovesi8570 thx!
I still want a minipc with an actual PCI port for an external card. no ocuink or usb 4 please.
Seems like well within USB C/ Thunderbolt power range; please get rid of the power brick
Sir, u have some mini pc left over for me, so i can start my experience in the word of mini pc ? a man from germany
I'd like to see their bios
A small computer including the power supply would be much better than just pretending it's a small computer while only moving the mess to cable management 🤮
Yes
everything about beelink sounds much better , but still he is searching for something to dislike that makes no sense at all,
looks like ASROCK paid more
is there any mini pc that has the steam deck or rog ally cpu in it?
Nope. The Steam Deck APU is pretty weak compared to other AMD processors, mainly to account for battery life, but there are some that are very similar if you filter down AMD's lineup.
I mean a one with a better gpu than normal amd apu, because they have a good gpu for an apu so it would a nice gaming machine as well.
The 780M is more powerful than the iGPU in the steam deck. I would like to see AMD put more focus on improving their iGPU rather than cramming more cores in their APUs.
Pretty 'screwed up' system that SER8 is! 😂
Btw, any benchmarking on NPU performance, to aid devs trying to build offline llm based solutions in home lab? Say, quantized llama with ollama?
Such savings of $3 on putting the 2nd port as Gbit only...
AsRock only puts USB 2.0 on their AMD nucs...
Intel nucs from AsRock get USB 3.2 in back...
Please don't present being forced to pay Microsoft tax as an advantage.
Took 18 minutes to barely test anything.
Can it play Eve online ….👀
4x4 is outdated, slightly larger and there are huge gains.
Dangit Beelink, spend the extra $1 on S/PDIF audio output. Stop pretending anyone wants your analog section! Stick to the digital!
I don't understand why I always get the feeling you're jumping down my throat.
After watching this review I feel SCREWED
can you give a way it for me!????
No fan to cool the ddr5. NO thanks.
no real vga, everything throttled, fan, noise, overheat, no expansions cards....simply put - no future for NUCs.
Absolute ASRock will much better, why? backdoor
Not only that. The asrock uses better components. I’ve had a few Beelinks stop working on me. There are videos and Reddit posts on people who’ve had the same thing happen to them.
I have 3 fikwots
Why would you change an at least somewhat informative thumbnail/title to almost zero-information clickbait? Does the actual audience of this channel _really_ click on things like that more?
Three thumbnails are in rotation to see which people respond to. You are right we are collecting data.
you talk too fast click!
@1.....$$$$$### vga out.....
Is there a way to watch these videos at 90% speed? Patrick, you rattle things off too quickly sometimes and you are hard to understand when you do so. Replaying it doesn't help. Slurred speech is slurred speech.
yes
You need to buy one of these 1st !! In all seriousness you need a laptop or desktop type device and go into Settings and choose _Playback Speed_ and then _Custom_ settings and can choose increments of 5% that way. With phone or Smart TV you are stuck with 25% increments Only, which Sucks. Why I am seriously thing of a player just for YT just for this feature so can listen at like 5%, 10% to 15% faster and listen to more things.
I really, really wish N305 was more mainstream though. N100 from what I've seen over the last year has had problems with AV1 decoding for YT sometimes. That's what I'll be using it for and N305 would be a perfect fit but for the price might as well get a real i3 or i5 or hell a MinisForum MS-01 i5 on sale and run numerous things on it and YT. Once N305 comes down to N100 prices I think they will sell a lot of them.