FYI : Minisforum has launched a new version of this machine (U690S) that seems to have fixed the overheating issues with this machine. They essentially replaced the bottom with a thicker part that contains two fans and an open grill and added heat pads to drive and memory, which they should have done in the first place
Can you add a "How well does it Proxmox" section? I think a lot of folks would be interested in how well these would perform for a virtualization host.
Especially since that USB4 port should support host-to-host so Proxmox with DRBD running on two of these with a low power witness would be very interesting
I own one and the Proxmox setup is a tiny painful. You have to implement a workaround. The only supported OS's are Windows 11, 64bit Windows 10 64 bit, RHEL x86 64-bit, Ubuntu x86 64-bit. I use Debian and was getting _sb.pci0.gp17.vga.lcd._bcm.afn7 bios errors with a monitor plugged in. If anyone wants to know something ask away
I run two of these in a Proxmox cluster 8 core / 16 threads per host is incredible for these little things. I have both running 64gb DDR5 and 2 tb nvmes. I noticed the fans were very loud running Harvester (the Suse/Rancher VM OS) -- but with Proxmox it runs much quieter, not entirely sure why. I appreciate the thoroughness of your reviews, your enthusiasm is contageous!
I heard that Proxmox has an extensive hardware support compared with other solutions. I think that if there isn’t a driver for a given temp sensor, the fan for the concerned area runs full speed as if there were no sensor at all.
Same thermal throttling on the "MinisForum UM773 lite". I can play Diablo 4 at 60 FPS for about 2 Minutes, then it drops below 30 FPS due to Ram overheating. And this is only DDR5 at 4800 MHz, it should get much worse at 5600 MHz. Basically you can throw all laptop style DDR5 APU systems in the trashcan.
I compared one of those Minisforum with the Ryzen 7 7735HS with the Beelink SER6 with the 7735HS. The Minisforum cooling seems to be unable to handle the heat and throttles quite quickly. I used y-cruncher test BKT for mostly CPU loading. I will have to check what HWinfo logged as far as memory temperatures. Bottom line: the Beelink can run for 30 minutes at 54W of CPU power without issues.
I have the GTR6, and out of the box they set the CPU’s TDP to 35W in the bios. You can set it to 45W and enjoy the same CPU performance as the Minisforum one.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo agree. The only downside with the GTR6’s internal is the M.2 SATA slot instead of a 2nd NVMe slot, but if it’s to keep the inside cooled then I’m all for it.
Retruned mine this week. It wasn't capable of 4k 60 fps HDR. That is, it dropped a variable but often large number of frames, so many that you could see and hear the stuttering. Minisforum support effectively tried to deny it could be a problem, then they asked me to record a video of the video not working. I sent them a frame grab showing the stats for idiots on a YT video. The reply was that they would have to buck the problem to the scientists and get back to me. Of course they did not. So I took their original suggestion and sent it back--easy Amazon return. Under load the fan was annoying. There was about a 1 degree C cooling advantage to using the stand. It wasn't possible to push the ram, though the bios had some speed options. It did help some to allocate some memory to the GPU 4 or 5 GB seemed about right. The auto setting in the bios ramped up CPU/GPU/board temps, and fan speed but did not improve 4k hdr 60fps video. I did not try any games. It is capable of handling the output of a low framerate >4k camera, processing images on the fly, and later postprocessing images, singly or in batches. In contrast a Ryzen 7 5700G, B550, 33 GB DDR4 ram at 3200, no overclocking, can process 60 fps HDR video easily. There must be more than one bottleneck in these minis. The newest Beelink 7000 series also failed 60fps HDR video, though not quite so badly. I ran hotter, but was quieter.
@qtsssimThe default is 2 Gigs, it never quite used 4 and those peaks were very short. Setting 8 or whatever the max was, didn't change anything in terms of memory used or performance.
The new Beelink SER6 Pro 7735HS, Gen3+ 8 cores / 16 threads and RDNA2 12 core graphics is also worth a look. The Ryzen 7735HS has a default and configurable TDP of 35W to 54W compared with 45W for 6900HX, but its peak clock speed is slightly lower at 4.75GHz Vs 4.9GHz. The SER6 Pro has a metal chassis (size is between UM690 and Intel NUC), same dual fan cooling solution as the GTR6, full function USB4 port which also supports single cable monitor connection with a monitor that can supply power over USB-C to the PC, 2.5Gbit/s ethernet port, a CMOS reset switch like the UM690, space for a 2.5-inch SATA drive on the NVMe SDD / Memory cooling fan assembly (similar to GTR6 including ease of access), 2x HDMI ports (4K 60Hz), 3x USB3 Gen2 (10Gbps) ports, 1x USB2 port (ideal for keyboard mouse wireless dongle), and comes equipped with 32GB DDR5 memory and 500GB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD for $649. Unlike the GTR6, it doesn't have a fingerprint reader, but I suspect that's down to the smaller form factor. I just purchased one to be a Linux gaming pc running Endeavour OS and Steam Client. I am fine with 1080p graphics. UK price was £539, but that's before taxes.
Comparing the Beelink SER6 with the 7735HS and the Minisforum with the 7735HS, I saw that the Minisforum throttles the CPU to keep the CPU tempearture under control. Cooling in the Minisforum seems to be worse.
if anyone expects 60FPS gaming at 4K on a mini PC they need their head read. iGPU's are not capable of anything beyond 1080p, unless you are on the windows desktop playing UA-cam videos. They only time we will ever see 4K gaming on iGPU's is when they add dedicated ram to the board for the iGPU to use (GDDR memory not system memory)
When doing size comparisons to other boxes, the size in liters would be useful. Ignoring rounded corners and feet it is usually pretty easy to measure and compute. Thanks for the review!
Nice to see you cover this as i looked into it like a few days ago as i want something low power and portable that i can use for having a mobile system for various cases.. as one of those is using my drawingtablet(wich also can be used as a display) I dont need something with its own screen but something i can chuck in a backpack together with said display and a 60% keyboard and mouse.. it being able to halfway game helps.. would get the 64 GB ram config though just because if i edit some digital art it can eat alot into memory capacity wise(speed doesnt matter for that really)
Yeah, I'm kinda "meh" on this one. I have one and I'm not returning it but the performance difference over the 5000-series is pretty small sans the graphics. The previous gen could not do much with gaming at all, the 6900 can sorta do low end gaming. I'm wondering if the 7xxx series will be a bigger jump. Anyway, I didn't get it for gaming so it's not a big deal. I completely agree, servicing the unit is a complete mess. I actually got my barebones for $499 - which I think was fair.
I wish there were more 6800U or 6800HS and not necessarily HX parts! Ryzen 9 is just better binned Ryzen 7 so if there was a cheaper Ryzen 7 mini PC I would jump straight for it
I'll be honest... Only 5% of the users might give a hint of a heck about a fingerprint scanner, but good to make the distinctions! Great video as always.
Sorry - less than intelligent question then -- how did you keep the DDR5 SODIMMs cool then given that it was thermal throttling the GPU? Did you add another fan to the bottom of the chassis or did the orientation of the system make a difference in regards to the RAM temperature, and therefore; the GPU/system performance?
Mentioned in the video, we tried both vertical and horizontal orientations. We monitored the memory temps which is how we observed it. We are not going to ask people to take off the bottom to add a fan or to cut the unit to add a fan. Proper cooling should be done at the factory.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Thank you. So, the results that are shown here are all throttled results and for the system, it is what it is? Maybe I misunderstood the video because I thought that it sounded like that you were able to test the system without the thermal throttling on the RAM, which would've suggested that you guys found a solution for that. But yes, I agree that the thermal management solution should be engineered at the OEM level. Thank you.
hello. new to this pc stuff. just bought the um690. what fan upgrade you recommend cuz ive had it for a month and it was able to run at 2k without overheating but now it makes me go black screen randomly for a couple seconds. 😢
interesting video. what would you say in terms of cost vs performance? Seems like you are rich and money is not a problem. Maybe add that in other videos. Thanks though :)
It's a interesting little system. Looked a quite a few little computers for our office something that can do 2x 4k monitors is quite nice to have. Don't need as much 120hz since we want to avoid our staff playing games. :)
I have to say that using 120hz for work is actually SO NICE. I work from home and use my main rig as a productivity machine as well. Both of my monitors are 165 hertz. Honestly, even just web browsing working in Word and Outlook and being in teams and doing video conferences is just so much more pleasing to the eye on the high refresh rate screen. It makes games better and more immersive and makes looking at productivity documents all day significantly less taxing.
I cannot get this thing to boot from USB (UNRAID), I disabled secure boot and reordered the USB to first, but it still loads the win11 install it came with
You're fixated on the HDMI ports and that one USB 4 port as the only way to handle video. USB 3.0 Type A ports can be used with USB 3.0 full HD displays that have stereo sound and multi-touch screen UIs. The faster 10 Gb USB 3.2 ports should easily be able to handle higher video resolutions as video display ports as well.
The cooling is an issue across the minifourm boxes my b550 has the same cooling issues for the 2 nvme slots. They offer nvme cooler connections but don't lett you what the connector is so you end up using the 2.5 connector to power the nvme cooling
I’m coming from mac. I had a 2014 MacBook Pro and it’s not enough to stream on my site anymore. I’m looking at these minis and am so confused.. I will only be using it to live stream (i7 required or better).. can I do that with this?
We have looked at the NUC 13 Pro and will have the Beelink SER6 Pro (and did the GTR6 already). Those are better options than this Minisforum box for you
You should have reviewed this year model with 7735u (same chip basically) it was doing much better in performance and it was capable to overclock memory to 5200mhz to boost gaming performance. It costs $409 or $550 (with16gb/512gb ssd)
I would not be one to overclock memory in these given the overheating at DDR5-4800 we saw. Maybe if they re-designed the chassis for better memory cooling.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Like your review but perhaps the unit you received has overheating issues? Another YT channel did testing and he even used high ram 5400mhz in addition he overclocked same ram to 6000mhz in bios and did extensive testing during gaming and had no issues. Here is link to his YT video ua-cam.com/video/EDsTEGSolRI/v-deo.html Channel is: ETA Prime name of video if you don't trust the link: Most Powerful iGPU Ever! Faster Than A GTX 1050, Say Bye To Your dGPU! Hands-On AAA Test
We have users with these reporting the overheating in the description of this video. We really do not make much on affiliate sales, we purchased this unit (not a review sample), and this is a relatively low dollar item for what we cover. So we trying to show a more balanced view. We used a FLIR as well and there is a big hotspot on the bottom due to poor airflow. For light use, it is not an issue. Pushed on sustained use, and it happens.
@ServeTheHome how does that address my question? You reviewed the 690, that's what the video was about. Yes? I was asking if you knew if the 773 fixed your complaints. I didn't ask about the beelink.
Do you get more performance if you leave the backplate off? What if you add a fan outside the case that blows at the ram? That would validate that the poor gaming performance is duet to poor ram cooling and not something else.
Will the Kingston FURY Beast 32GB 288-Pin DDR5 Ram sticks work on the UM690? I have this PC and am looking to upgrade the Ram but Idk if the Kingston FURY Beast rams are compatible. Pls help. Thanks.
I would probably say to get a Project TinyMiniMicro 1L PC for that with Intel Quick Sync. We will have a newer generation systme review that is a bit less expensive than this hopefully Monday.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks for the reply! i'm not sure about one of those older tiny pcs because of power consumption. something more recent should be better as far as i know. also looking for something for something with 2.5Gbe and at least 2 drives (one for OS and other for data). i'm not sure if should go Intel or AMD because honestly i don't have enough knowledge regarding how well this type of computers can transcode especially considering that i'm planning to run some sort of linux. I want to upgrade my current RP4 setup because i get the eventual "cpu not powerfull enough" error depending on the client
Based on what I saw with the UM690, probably not. The Ryzen 7 7735HS is basically a lower cost and slightly lower clocked version of this one. I do not see chassis changes on the UM773 so I would still be wary of the bottom section overheating.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Fair enough, your rationale makes sense. It's promising to see these mini PC companies get stock of recent chips like the 7735HS without having to wait in line behind laptop manufacturers though.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo But just looking at the "lower cost" on minisforum's website, it's US$100 less ($400 instead of $500) for barebones, that's a pretty huge price difference IF it's nearly the same performance. It's even a more dramatic $150 price difference if you kit them both out from them with 64GB memory. So, at least for me, I'd REALLY like to see the 6900HX and the 7735HS versions benchmarked "head to head".
I ask myself who claimed this is a gaming pc. Please tell what mini pc that is less than 700 DECKED OUT, That doesn't throttle? This sounds the sames as my Asus tough 3070 gaming laptop. aka need to sit in a trifan stand to keep from throttling. Nothing to see her unless you have something that's better? That can basic games 1080p mid-high decent. And no, iris is not good enough
@@neilquinn just calling it RDNA2 is overselling it - it's only 2CU, the sort of integrated graphics you'd expect to just drive a screen or two. Huge step down from anyone used to the APU offerings of the last few years, only really meant to be used alongside a discrete GPU. 7940HS is definitely more exciting in the smallest boxes, decent upgrade from previous APUs. Would be nice to get more CPU cores too, but if I had my way there would be a miniPC built around the AMD Instinct MI300, hehe
@@Birdulon Yes correct. RDNA2 is being generous. Basically the 7945HX is meant to be paired with a discrete gpu for gaming. Otherwise would be a great rendering type machine. The 7940HS is what you'd want for igpu gaming. RDNA4 is when I think we'll see these machines really be able to game on modern stuff.
Gee wally.. are there any fast CPU's in production that do not require a fan and a heat sink.. haha And these are big box ATX form. Not mini or micro. Ya, they ALL need fans. And if they don't have vents on top, the someone needs to teach China/Japan how Heat flows. hint: it goes up. rocket science.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo ok that's 1. The rest have bottlenecking and slow downs from heat probably. You also have to think about longevity. Frequent overheating is bad
I own one and the Proxmox setup is a tiny painful. You have to implement a workaround. The only supported OS's are Windows 11, 64bit Windows 10 64 bit, RHEL x86 64-bit, Ubuntu x86 64-bit. I use Debian and was getting _sb.pci0.gp17.vga.lcd._bcm.afn7 bios errors with a monitor plugged in. If anyone wants to know something ask away
Hi I have seen loads of your videos and you do a brilliant job and I have a question if you can answer it please I'm looking for an old cheap tiny pc to sit under my TV that can run windows 11 it's just for work emails teams and the odd video from like netflix Amazon disney and so on I don't mind a bare bone system as I can add the ram and SSD is there anything you would recommend at all
Thank you Steven, TBH for that type of application, look at a HP Mini or Lenovo Tiny with at least an 8th gen Intel Core CPU (e.g Core i5-8500T or newer.) eBay is great and the Core i5-8500T's can be had for ~200 now with RAM, a SSD, and even a Win 10 Pro license (can upgrade to Win 11.) Core i5-10500T 1L PCs can be had for $275-325 easily. If you want AV1, then you will want a newer system but I just got a Core i7-12500T system for $490 with Windows. Our TinyMiniMicro series plus ebay searches just for "Core i5-8500T, Core i5-10500T, Core i5-12500T" or similar should get you on the right track. For what you are looking for, that plus whatever is the least expensive on eBay is probably the best bet. I think the 8th gen Core CPUs are the oldest that support Win 11.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo from what I'm reading if your willing to clean install you can go as low as 6th gen I'm not in a rush my company uses the Lenovo m720q did think about them as they work well but for me I'm not keen on the WiFi antenna so might look at a hp from the same range
@@ServeTheHomeVideo that was quick I have just ordered a brand new hp pro mini 400 G9 desktop i5 12500T 8gb ram 256gb nvme SSD I will upgrade there ram to 16gb or max it out latter on I just seen it and thought wow that looks stunning anyway thank you for the the info you gave and it cost me £634.80 direct from hp
I know very little about computers but it's obviously clear that with the low ram you have there isn't going to be great performance for gaming. Pump it to to 1 or 2 TB then it must be much better !!! Duh...
Well really, are you buying one of these to game? If you want the performance to be gaming, get a real gaming rig. Its supposed to be a cheap, casual pc, is it not?
@@ServeTheHomeVideo it's a real shame the thermals aren't great because it'd make a good little build server for me. Why would Beelink skip on the USB4 though when it was a defining feature for Ryzen 6000‽
Oops! Several of the shots in the video appear to be of the Beelink GTR, not the Minisforum. You can easily tell because the unit in the bad shots show a rectangular unit, rather than the square Minisforum. 😮
No, but yes. USB4 is TB3-compatible, and TB4 is basically the same as TB3 but requires the max bandwidth TB3 provides, 40GB/s, (but also power delivery to 100w, USB4 compliance, can wake from sleep). Devices like eGPUs have used the max TB3 bandwidth since their inception so the 'upgrade' to TB4 that has higher minimums didn't change anything. With exceptions (like stupid drivers), you should expect many devices with Thunderbolt 3 or 4 to be compatible and 'just work'. Perhaps the Direct Memory Access (DMA) protection is missing from USB4 but unsure.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks for responding maybe you can update you playlist to reflect price range of those devices not trying to an A hole I love your channel
If your going to try and to game with this, why would you not use an egpu. That should take a good thermal load off the unit. It looks to me that the internal gpu is more targeted at video playback and web browsing.
@ServeTheHome obviously it adds costs, but how does plugging in 1 cable add complexity... nothing could be simpler. If you run a desktop with an integrated gpu, it's going to add cost to add a 3080 also. By the same token, if I need to add additional drives, that also will be an additional expense. When you add functionality, it comes with increased cost. If the cost isn't of value to you, you don't do it. How is this a valid response? I don't understand.
if it can't run a game in 4k, why play it in 8k anyway? besides if you want a gaming machine why would you be buying this anyway? buy a higher end mini pc with rtx 3070 and 8 cores like the silver one with the skull on one side and the cheese grater vent on the other side. can't remember the model name. it has core i7 8 cores 16 threads, up to 64 gb ddr 4, rtx 3070.
The Beelink GTR6 with the same CPU was playable while recording using OBS at 4K because it was not overheating. Sometimes these get used as extra TV connected HTPC/ light gaming PCs. If you are thinking about the Dragon Canyon NUC 12 Extreme, that is $1099 on sale without the GPU so it ends up being 2x the cost.
@@Birdulon My mini-PC has an AM4 socket. Easy upgrades. As I said, why mess with a machine you can’t upgrade? On a laptop I understand why. But on a desktop? No bloody way.
I'm starting to wonder about Minisforum and Morefine too..? There's another channel which reviews mini PCs for gaming and it always seems to be positive about these units--many of which are from Minisforum. The guy on the channel has reviewed this UM690 and tends to gloss over the less than ideal aspects eg: placing screw holes below stuck on rubber stands--yeah that's just a piss poor design effort. I'm now looking to Serve The Home and Robtech for a more thorough and dare I say, impartial review of these mini PCs. Have a look at Robtech's on this unit and others including Morefine... When I saw some of the issues with BIOS settings for things that aren't relevant or missing, or things not working right out of the box, whether those with USB 4 really can do everything you think (and the lack of service/support based on viewers comments), it makes me a lot less excited about these, even less so when used for gaming.
FYI : Minisforum has launched a new version of this machine (U690S) that seems to have fixed the overheating issues with this machine. They essentially replaced the bottom with a thicker part that contains two fans and an open grill and added heat pads to drive and memory, which they should have done in the first place
Yes.
Yeah been looking at the UM690 for a while and just spotted the UM690S and the improved cooling so dropped on one - fingers crossed
@@bovineox1111 Have you recieved yours yet?
Given that usb4 has a lot of optional features in the standard it would be nice to know if it's a complete implementation or not.
Thanks for the review. On 10/20/2023 Amazon had a flash sale on this unit with 32g RAM and 1TB M.2 for $369. I don't even need it, but I ordered it.
Oh wow. Cool box at that price!
Can you add a "How well does it Proxmox" section? I think a lot of folks would be interested in how well these would perform for a virtualization host.
Especially since that USB4 port should support host-to-host so Proxmox with DRBD running on two of these with a low power witness would be very interesting
I own one and the Proxmox setup is a tiny painful. You have to implement a workaround. The only supported OS's are Windows 11, 64bit Windows 10 64 bit, RHEL x86 64-bit,
Ubuntu x86 64-bit. I use Debian and was getting _sb.pci0.gp17.vga.lcd._bcm.afn7 bios errors with a monitor plugged in. If anyone wants to know something ask away
Spend another $15 and get a 120mm external server fan with a USB power plug. Just pull the bottom of the mini and set it on top. No more heat issues.
Or just get the Beelink that has it built-in and integrated.
it's so cool that we get AMD-based competition for NUCs too, the last few years they got so much better
I run two of these in a Proxmox cluster 8 core / 16 threads per host is incredible for these little things. I have both running 64gb DDR5 and 2 tb nvmes. I noticed the fans were very loud running Harvester (the Suse/Rancher VM OS) -- but with Proxmox it runs much quieter, not entirely sure why. I appreciate the thoroughness of your reviews, your enthusiasm is contageous!
Thank you Robert
I heard that Proxmox has an extensive hardware support compared with other solutions. I think that if there isn’t a driver for a given temp sensor, the fan for the concerned area runs full speed as if there were no sensor at all.
Same thermal throttling on the "MinisForum UM773 lite". I can play Diablo 4 at 60 FPS for about 2 Minutes, then it drops below 30 FPS due to Ram overheating. And this is only DDR5 at 4800 MHz, it should get much worse at 5600 MHz. Basically you can throw all laptop style DDR5 APU systems in the trashcan.
This is why we have been pushing for better cooling
DDR5 overheating is really bad news. I think you are the only one to mention this.
Great job !
I think that is why Minisforum does not send us units though :-)
I compared one of those Minisforum with the Ryzen 7 7735HS with the Beelink SER6 with the 7735HS. The Minisforum cooling seems to be unable to handle the heat and throttles quite quickly. I used y-cruncher test BKT for mostly CPU loading. I will have to check what HWinfo logged as far as memory temperatures. Bottom line: the Beelink can run for 30 minutes at 54W of CPU power without issues.
I have the GTR6, and out of the box they set the CPU’s TDP to 35W in the bios. You can set it to 45W and enjoy the same CPU performance as the Minisforum one.
Actually, it ends up better with the Beelink cooling.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo agree. The only downside with the GTR6’s internal is the M.2 SATA slot instead of a 2nd NVMe slot, but if it’s to keep the inside cooled then I’m all for it.
@@vusun123 is there any software that can undervolt the cpu a bit? I used to do it with my android phone a long time ago.
@@avalagum7957 no, you can leave the tdp at 35w to keep it running cool at the cost of ~7% performance decrease
a mini pc with the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX and a couple USB4 ports will absolutely be fantastic.
Retruned mine this week. It wasn't capable of 4k 60 fps HDR. That is, it dropped a variable but often large number of frames, so many that you could see and hear the stuttering. Minisforum support effectively tried to deny it could be a problem, then they asked me to record a video of the video not working. I sent them a frame grab showing the stats for idiots on a YT video. The reply was that they would have to buck the problem to the scientists and get back to me. Of course they did not. So I took their original suggestion and sent it back--easy Amazon return.
Under load the fan was annoying. There was about a 1 degree C cooling advantage to using the stand. It wasn't possible to push the ram, though the bios had some speed options.
It did help some to allocate some memory to the GPU 4 or 5 GB seemed about right. The auto setting in the bios ramped up CPU/GPU/board temps, and fan speed but did not improve 4k hdr 60fps video.
I did not try any games. It is capable of handling the output of a low framerate >4k camera, processing images on the fly, and later postprocessing images, singly or in batches.
In contrast a Ryzen 7 5700G, B550, 33 GB DDR4 ram at 3200, no overclocking, can process 60 fps HDR video easily. There must be more than one bottleneck in these minis. The newest Beelink 7000 series also failed 60fps HDR video, though not quite so badly. I ran hotter, but was quieter.
Good feedback
@qtsssimThe default is 2 Gigs, it never quite used 4 and those peaks were very short. Setting 8 or whatever the max was, didn't change anything in terms of memory used or performance.
The new Beelink SER6 Pro 7735HS, Gen3+ 8 cores / 16 threads and RDNA2 12 core graphics is also worth a look. The Ryzen 7735HS has a default and configurable TDP of 35W to 54W compared with 45W for 6900HX, but its peak clock speed is slightly lower at 4.75GHz Vs 4.9GHz. The SER6 Pro has a metal chassis (size is between UM690 and Intel NUC), same dual fan cooling solution as the GTR6, full function USB4 port which also supports single cable monitor connection with a monitor that can supply power over USB-C to the PC, 2.5Gbit/s ethernet port, a CMOS reset switch like the UM690, space for a 2.5-inch SATA drive on the NVMe SDD / Memory cooling fan assembly (similar to GTR6 including ease of access), 2x HDMI ports (4K 60Hz), 3x USB3 Gen2 (10Gbps) ports, 1x USB2 port (ideal for keyboard mouse wireless dongle), and comes equipped with 32GB DDR5 memory and 500GB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD for $649. Unlike the GTR6, it doesn't have a fingerprint reader, but I suspect that's down to the smaller form factor. I just purchased one to be a Linux gaming pc running Endeavour OS and Steam Client. I am fine with 1080p graphics. UK price was £539, but that's before taxes.
We might look at those, but we are starting Project TinyMiniMicro back up and the next mini PC we will have a video on is different, but *way* cooler.
Comparing the Beelink SER6 with the 7735HS and the Minisforum with the 7735HS, I saw that the Minisforum throttles the CPU to keep the CPU tempearture under control. Cooling in the Minisforum seems to be worse.
You should look at the 790 - 2 HDMI 2.1 ports 4k at 144Hz, 2 USB4 ports 8k at 60Hz, 1TB SSD, 64Gb DDR5....
Got you covered ua-cam.com/video/l3Vaz7S3HmQ/v-deo.html
if anyone expects 60FPS gaming at 4K on a mini PC they need their head read. iGPU's are not capable of anything beyond 1080p, unless you are on the windows desktop playing UA-cam videos. They only time we will ever see 4K gaming on iGPU's is when they add dedicated ram to the board for the iGPU to use (GDDR memory not system memory)
Should have tested with bottom pannel off and a fan cooling the ram to see how much was left on the table
If you see the Beelink GTR6 review's LoL test, you can see the impact of having cooling pretty easily.
ETAPrime has some reviews on the MinisForum units and I love the nuanced info teased out in this review. Good stuff!
I think he is getting units from Minisforum for his reviews. I think Minisforum is nervous for us to do these since we are independent.
Great devices for music production 👌
When doing size comparisons to other boxes, the size in liters would be useful. Ignoring rounded corners and feet it is usually pretty easy to measure and compute. Thanks for the review!
Nice to see you cover this as i looked into it like a few days ago as i want something low power and portable that i can use for having a mobile system for various cases.. as one of those is using my drawingtablet(wich also can be used as a display) I dont need something with its own screen but something i can chuck in a backpack together with said display and a 60% keyboard and mouse.. it being able to halfway game helps.. would get the 64 GB ram config though just because if i edit some digital art it can eat alot into memory capacity wise(speed doesnt matter for that really)
Yeah, I'm kinda "meh" on this one. I have one and I'm not returning it but the performance difference over the 5000-series is pretty small sans the graphics. The previous gen could not do much with gaming at all, the 6900 can sorta do low end gaming. I'm wondering if the 7xxx series will be a bigger jump. Anyway, I didn't get it for gaming so it's not a big deal. I completely agree, servicing the unit is a complete mess. I actually got my barebones for $499 - which I think was fair.
I wish there were more 6800U or 6800HS and not necessarily HX parts! Ryzen 9 is just better binned Ryzen 7 so if there was a cheaper Ryzen 7 mini PC I would jump straight for it
amazing review... i generally prefer a bit of a larger case but easier access and airflow.
Patrick as a full grown, 40 year old man and father of 2... I love your whole entire face.
Thank you for the clear, straightforward review.
Glad it was helpful!
I'll be honest... Only 5% of the users might give a hint of a heck about a fingerprint scanner, but good to make the distinctions! Great video as always.
Sorry - less than intelligent question then -- how did you keep the DDR5 SODIMMs cool then given that it was thermal throttling the GPU?
Did you add another fan to the bottom of the chassis or did the orientation of the system make a difference in regards to the RAM temperature, and therefore; the GPU/system performance?
Mentioned in the video, we tried both vertical and horizontal orientations. We monitored the memory temps which is how we observed it. We are not going to ask people to take off the bottom to add a fan or to cut the unit to add a fan. Proper cooling should be done at the factory.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo
Thank you.
So, the results that are shown here are all throttled results and for the system, it is what it is?
Maybe I misunderstood the video because I thought that it sounded like that you were able to test the system without the thermal throttling on the RAM, which would've suggested that you guys found a solution for that.
But yes, I agree that the thermal management solution should be engineered at the OEM level.
Thank you.
Longer runs are where you hit throttling. We showed a GB6 OpenCL with and without throttling just before the 10 min mark.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo
Gotcha.
I've never ran the Geekbench 6 benchmark, so I didn't know how long a single run would take.
Thank you.
I got mine around march, just last night the 2nd HDMI port stopped working, any ideas, on how to fix?
hello. new to this pc stuff. just bought the um690. what fan upgrade you recommend cuz ive had it for a month and it was able to run at 2k without overheating but now it makes me go black screen randomly for a couple seconds. 😢
interesting video. what would you say in terms of cost vs performance? Seems like you are rich and money is not a problem. Maybe add that in other videos. Thanks though :)
It's a interesting little system.
Looked a quite a few little computers for our office something that can do 2x 4k monitors is quite nice to have. Don't need as much 120hz since we want to avoid our staff playing games. :)
I have to say that using 120hz for work is actually SO NICE. I work from home and use my main rig as a productivity machine as well. Both of my monitors are 165 hertz. Honestly, even just web browsing working in Word and Outlook and being in teams and doing video conferences is just so much more pleasing to the eye on the high refresh rate screen. It makes games better and more immersive and makes looking at productivity documents all day significantly less taxing.
I cannot get this thing to boot from USB (UNRAID), I disabled secure boot and reordered the USB to first, but it still loads the win11 install it came with
You're fixated on the HDMI ports and that one USB 4 port as the only way to handle video. USB 3.0 Type A ports can be used with USB 3.0 full HD displays that have stereo sound and multi-touch screen UIs. The faster 10 Gb USB 3.2 ports should easily be able to handle higher video resolutions as video display ports as well.
That Intel NUC in grey looks so great.
When & where can I buy that?
The cooling is an issue across the minifourm boxes my b550 has the same cooling issues for the 2 nvme slots. They offer nvme cooler connections but don't lett you what the connector is so you end up using the 2.5 connector to power the nvme cooling
It is interesting since they advertise cooling with liquid metal and such, but then leave a large hot spot on the other side of the chassis.
I’m coming from mac. I had a 2014 MacBook Pro and it’s not enough to stream on my site anymore. I’m looking at these minis and am so confused.. I will only be using it to live stream (i7 required or better).. can I do that with this?
We have looked at the NUC 13 Pro and will have the Beelink SER6 Pro (and did the GTR6 already). Those are better options than this Minisforum box for you
Regarding the HDMI ports, apparently the latest Adrenalin drivers (and top-end cables) will allow it run 4K/120Hz
Do you have any source please? This is great news!
what does the reset button do? 1 reset system for new memory and ssd card?
You should have reviewed this year model with 7735u (same chip basically) it was doing much better in performance and it was capable to overclock memory to 5200mhz to boost gaming performance. It costs $409 or $550 (with16gb/512gb ssd)
I would not be one to overclock memory in these given the overheating at DDR5-4800 we saw. Maybe if they re-designed the chassis for better memory cooling.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Like your review but perhaps the unit you received has overheating issues? Another YT channel did testing and he even used high ram 5400mhz in addition he overclocked same ram to 6000mhz in bios and did extensive testing during gaming and had no issues. Here is link to his YT video ua-cam.com/video/EDsTEGSolRI/v-deo.html Channel is: ETA Prime name of video if you don't trust the link: Most Powerful iGPU Ever! Faster Than A GTX 1050, Say Bye To Your dGPU! Hands-On AAA Test
We have users with these reporting the overheating in the description of this video. We really do not make much on affiliate sales, we purchased this unit (not a review sample), and this is a relatively low dollar item for what we cover. So we trying to show a more balanced view. We used a FLIR as well and there is a big hotspot on the bottom due to poor airflow. For light use, it is not an issue. Pushed on sustained use, and it happens.
I have this. Pretty happy
Have you tested the um690 to the um773? Does the um773 address any of your complaints/criticism?
We have the Beelink version. Minisforum needs to update its design to cook the SSD and memory area
@ServeTheHome how does that address my question? You reviewed the 690, that's what the video was about. Yes? I was asking if you knew if the 773 fixed your complaints. I didn't ask about the beelink.
What about water cooling the APU.
There are a lot of mini pcs, but what I really want to find is minipc with internal power unit. Can you advice some, except Mac mini?
Yup just got one at 650 1tb and 32 GB
Do you get more performance if you leave the backplate off? What if you add a fan outside the case that blows at the ram? That would validate that the poor gaming performance is duet to poor ram cooling and not something else.
We monitored the temps which is how we found it. The fan outside requires an effort that one should not have to go through buying a system like this.
Thanks for the AMD Check 🤩💪💪
What's the minimum viable config for a dedicated OBS box streaming at 1080P, medium bitrate?
Will the Kingston FURY Beast 32GB 288-Pin DDR5 Ram sticks work on the UM690? I have this PC and am looking to upgrade the Ram but Idk if the Kingston FURY Beast rams are compatible. Pls help. Thanks.
If I want to play diablo 4 at 1080p 60fps will this be fine?
Which mini PC does have a SD card slot?
great video :)
i want to buy something like this for a plex server, using linux and a 2.5" sdd for data. do you think this is a good option for that?
I would probably say to get a Project TinyMiniMicro 1L PC for that with Intel Quick Sync. We will have a newer generation systme review that is a bit less expensive than this hopefully Monday.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks for the reply! i'm not sure about one of those older tiny pcs because of power consumption. something more recent should be better as far as i know.
also looking for something for something with 2.5Gbe and at least 2 drives (one for OS and other for data).
i'm not sure if should go Intel or AMD because honestly i don't have enough knowledge regarding how well this type of computers can transcode especially considering that i'm planning to run some sort of linux.
I want to upgrade my current RP4 setup because i get the eventual "cpu not powerfull enough" error depending on the client
What is your video memory allocation when running the games?
how do i activate the audio outuput?
It should work like a standard Windows audio output so long as the drivers are installed.
You're rather late looking at the UM690, any chance of checking out the UM773 when it releases?
Based on what I saw with the UM690, probably not. The Ryzen 7 7735HS is basically a lower cost and slightly lower clocked version of this one. I do not see chassis changes on the UM773 so I would still be wary of the bottom section overheating.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Fair enough, your rationale makes sense. It's promising to see these mini PC companies get stock of recent chips like the 7735HS without having to wait in line behind laptop manufacturers though.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo But just looking at the "lower cost" on minisforum's website, it's US$100 less ($400 instead of $500) for barebones, that's a pretty huge price difference IF it's nearly the same performance. It's even a more dramatic $150 price difference if you kit them both out from them with 64GB memory.
So, at least for me, I'd REALLY like to see the 6900HX and the 7735HS versions benchmarked "head to head".
I have the previous gen model, the HX90 5900HX.
When gaming @4K, the fan spins up and has turned off a few times.
bottom looks like it has 2x free M.2 2280 slots? Why is this not advertised anywhere?
There is only one. The other M.2 is being occupied by the AMD RZ608 WiFi 6E card but is not a M.2 2280
I ask myself who claimed this is a gaming pc. Please tell what mini pc that is less than 700 DECKED OUT, That doesn't throttle? This sounds the sames as my Asus tough 3070 gaming laptop. aka need to sit in a trifan stand to keep from throttling. Nothing to see her unless you have something that's better? That can basic games 1080p mid-high decent. And no, iris is not good enough
I NEED THE WOW RAID TEST FOR FRPS ON BOTH BEELINK AND THE MINISFORUM PLEASE
A better mini PC AMD CPU is the 16 cores 32 threads 7945hx
Can't wait for it 🥳
Not out yet. Also remember the 7945HX will only have RDNA2, not RDNA3. The 7940HS coming out will be 8/16 but have RDNA3.
@@neilquinn just calling it RDNA2 is overselling it - it's only 2CU, the sort of integrated graphics you'd expect to just drive a screen or two. Huge step down from anyone used to the APU offerings of the last few years, only really meant to be used alongside a discrete GPU.
7940HS is definitely more exciting in the smallest boxes, decent upgrade from previous APUs. Would be nice to get more CPU cores too, but if I had my way there would be a miniPC built around the AMD Instinct MI300, hehe
@@Birdulon Yes correct. RDNA2 is being generous. Basically the 7945HX is meant to be paired with a discrete gpu for gaming. Otherwise would be a great rendering type machine. The 7940HS is what you'd want for igpu gaming. RDNA4 is when I think we'll see these machines really be able to game on modern stuff.
Gee wally.. are there any fast CPU's in production that do not require a fan and a heat sink.. haha And these are big box ATX form. Not mini or micro. Ya, they ALL need fans. And if they don't have vents on top, the someone needs to teach China/Japan how Heat flows. hint: it goes up. rocket science.
We cooled 512 cores of AMD EPYC without a heatsink ua-cam.com/video/x4ta3dcOosA/v-deo.html
@@ServeTheHomeVideo ok that's 1. The rest have bottlenecking and slow downs from heat probably. You also have to think about longevity. Frequent overheating is bad
Ugh why is fan noise so horrible on all of these. Have you found any medium to high performance miniPCs with low fan noise?
The fan noise is only bad on the internal mic. Way better than a NUC 12 Pro. Not silent the bigger issue is that they need cooling in the bottom
Its this UM690 mini PC suitable to use with proxmox as hypervisor?
I own one and the Proxmox setup is a tiny painful. You have to implement a workaround. The only supported OS's are Windows 11, 64bit Windows 10 64 bit, RHEL x86 64-bit,
Ubuntu x86 64-bit. I use Debian and was getting _sb.pci0.gp17.vga.lcd._bcm.afn7 bios errors with a monitor plugged in. If anyone wants to know something ask away
Can have
All 3 has exaust fan ?
do the HDMI ports support HDR?
Hi I have seen loads of your videos and you do a brilliant job and I have a question if you can answer it please I'm looking for an old cheap tiny pc to sit under my TV that can run windows 11 it's just for work emails teams and the odd video from like netflix Amazon disney and so on I don't mind a bare bone system as I can add the ram and SSD is there anything you would recommend at all
Thank you Steven, TBH for that type of application, look at a HP Mini or Lenovo Tiny with at least an 8th gen Intel Core CPU (e.g Core i5-8500T or newer.) eBay is great and the Core i5-8500T's can be had for ~200 now with RAM, a SSD, and even a Win 10 Pro license (can upgrade to Win 11.) Core i5-10500T 1L PCs can be had for $275-325 easily. If you want AV1, then you will want a newer system but I just got a Core i7-12500T system for $490 with Windows. Our TinyMiniMicro series plus ebay searches just for "Core i5-8500T, Core i5-10500T, Core i5-12500T" or similar should get you on the right track. For what you are looking for, that plus whatever is the least expensive on eBay is probably the best bet. I think the 8th gen Core CPUs are the oldest that support Win 11.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo from what I'm reading if your willing to clean install you can go as low as 6th gen I'm not in a rush my company uses the Lenovo m720q did think about them as they work well but for me I'm not keen on the WiFi antenna so might look at a hp from the same range
I am not sure I would do 6th gen at this point. The Core i5-8500T was when Intel had to start responding to AMD so it was a HUGE performance jump.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo that was quick I have just ordered a brand new hp pro mini 400 G9 desktop i5 12500T 8gb ram 256gb nvme SSD I will upgrade there ram to 16gb or max it out latter on I just seen it and thought wow that looks stunning anyway thank you for the the info you gave and it cost me £634.80 direct from hp
4K60 is considered "lower end display setup"? wo the hail?
I know very little about computers but it's obviously clear that with the low ram you have there isn't going to be great performance for gaming. Pump it to to 1 or 2 TB then it must be much better !!! Duh...
Well really, are you buying one of these to game? If you want the performance to be gaming, get a real gaming rig. Its supposed to be a cheap, casual pc, is it not?
I was literally looking at this an hour ago
I think that is a form of ESP :-)
@@ServeTheHomeVideo it's a real shame the thermals aren't great because it'd make a good little build server for me. Why would Beelink skip on the USB4 though when it was a defining feature for Ryzen 6000‽
Oops! Several of the shots in the video appear to be of the Beelink GTR, not the Minisforum. You can easily tell because the unit in the bad shots show a rectangular unit, rather than the square Minisforum. 😮
Its gone up even more. Now its $859. And the GTR is $899
Prices on these change. Give it a few hours. Often there are new coupons.
Is the usb 4 port a thunderbolt 4 port?
No, but yes. USB4 is TB3-compatible, and TB4 is basically the same as TB3 but requires the max bandwidth TB3 provides, 40GB/s, (but also power delivery to 100w, USB4 compliance, can wake from sleep). Devices like eGPUs have used the max TB3 bandwidth since their inception so the 'upgrade' to TB4 that has higher minimums didn't change anything. With exceptions (like stupid drivers), you should expect many devices with Thunderbolt 3 or 4 to be compatible and 'just work'. Perhaps the Direct Memory Access (DMA) protection is missing from USB4 but unsure.
For instance, I'm using a Thunderbolt 4-compatible dock with my Linux AMD laptop over USB4 without problems.
What the hell even is the graph at 9:26?
Probably could be labeled better, but that is a non-throttled and a throttled run due to heat.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks
Why ever time you review a computer it's high as hell can find something that around $400 that still high quality that can emulate PS2 GameCube Wii🤔
I mean, we also do $200K servers so there is a range.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks for responding maybe you can update you playlist to reflect price range of those devices not trying to an A hole I love your channel
most stuff in the micro-nano-pico series can do that
If your going to try and to game with this, why would you not use an egpu. That should take a good thermal load off the unit. It looks to me that the internal gpu is more targeted at video playback and web browsing.
An eGPU adds power consumption, space, and cost. It may be better, but it puts the solution into a different category
@ServeTheHome obviously it adds costs, but how does plugging in 1 cable add complexity... nothing could be simpler.
If you run a desktop with an integrated gpu, it's going to add cost to add a 3080 also. By the same token, if I need to add additional drives, that also will be an additional expense. When you add functionality, it comes with increased cost. If the cost isn't of value to you, you don't do it. How is this a valid response? I don't understand.
can you play call of duty mw2 the new one? on this?
@qtsssim how many fps u getting? any lag or anything? overheat?
if it can't run a game in 4k, why play it in 8k anyway? besides if you want a gaming machine why would you be buying this anyway? buy a higher end mini pc with rtx 3070 and 8 cores like the silver one with the skull on one side and the cheese grater vent on the other side. can't remember the model name. it has core i7 8 cores 16 threads, up to 64 gb ddr 4, rtx 3070.
The Beelink GTR6 with the same CPU was playable while recording using OBS at 4K because it was not overheating. Sometimes these get used as extra TV connected HTPC/ light gaming PCs. If you are thinking about the Dragon Canyon NUC 12 Extreme, that is $1099 on sale without the GPU so it ends up being 2x the cost.
Why would you buy Intel? Upgrades are a nightmare, Intel changes the CPU socket more often than they change their socks.
@@waynesworldofsci-tech This is a video reviewing a mini PC with a soldered CPU
@@Birdulon
My mini-PC has an AM4 socket. Easy upgrades. As I said, why mess with a machine you can’t upgrade?
On a laptop I understand why. But on a desktop? No bloody way.
memory temperatures affecting gaming performance?
You can't be serious....
ME FIRST !!!!
Nice!
What is better for playing world of warcraft the beelink 680 or this one ?
minisforum is a garbage company
I'm starting to wonder about Minisforum and Morefine too..? There's another channel which reviews mini PCs for gaming and it always seems to be positive about these units--many of which are from Minisforum. The guy on the channel has reviewed this UM690 and tends to gloss over the less than ideal aspects eg: placing screw holes below stuck on rubber stands--yeah that's just a piss poor design effort. I'm now looking to Serve The Home and Robtech for a more thorough and dare I say, impartial review of these mini PCs. Have a look at Robtech's on this unit and others including Morefine... When I saw some of the issues with BIOS settings for things that aren't relevant or missing, or things not working right out of the box, whether those with USB 4 really can do everything you think (and the lack of service/support based on viewers comments), it makes me a lot less excited about these, even less so when used for gaming.