Russ, you always have me locked in on a purchase of one of these until the very end. I have a Batocera drive sitting here waiting to be paired up to one of these! Will keep my eye on this one to see if an update allows for it to boot. Aside from that this machine is exactly what I’m looking for.
The Batocera team told me the latest beta release of their upcoming firmware does boot! So it’s really just a matter of time before the stable build gets full support.
Compared to the M2 Mac Mini Pro, it out performs it on the CPU Cinebench R23 multi-cores and has better GPU performance too. CPU multi-core scores: AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS score 16,733 M2 Mac Mini Pro score 14,958 GPU TFLOPS: AMD Radeon 780M score 8.12s M2 Mac Mini Pro (19 cores) score 6.8s
I saw on the Beelink forums that people were having some stability issues with this model, probably because the hardware is still pretty new. (People are also having problems with the Ally, which has similar hardware.) So rather than wait a few more months for all that to get ironed out, I decided to pay a little more and get an HX99G.
That unit is a beast! On discount atm too. I convinced a friend of mine to get the 90 (weaker CPU) and he is blown away. Installed Batocera on a second HD and loaded a bunch of ROMs all the way to PS3 and he hasn't touched anything else for a while. Including his PS5 that now has to compete for TV rights.
So the new MW3 online multiplayer I can expect 1080 p under 60fps? I’m finishing up my cyber Monday purchases, using your affiliate links. I should be spending a good chunk of change, my way of saying thank you. Apart from all the microSD cards and random things in my cart, I specifically need a portable device to play the new call of duty modern warfare game online. I am an old-school gamer, I played the original modern warfare call of duty 4 nonstop.. I’ve only played a few more call of duties after that, and I’m looking to get back into gaming. I travel a lot for work, so I am moving a lot and in hotels, also, I will be in Mexico for a few months. With wifi. Would this be my best option under $1000? I really appreciate everything. What would you recommend?
I ended up buying the GPD win 4 to play this. It’s actually the best call of duty that came out in a very long time. Warzone was complete trash, a bunch of little kids playing Fortnite disguised as call of duty. Truly made me sick watching all these kids become call of duty fanboys, and they’ve never played anything older than Call of Duty black ops 3. I played the original, Call of Duty on PC. Then on the original Xbox call of duty 2. I played call of duty 3 on the Xbox 360, then the BEST Call of duty ever created. Call duty 4, modern warfare. Modern warfare two was pretty good, but couldn’t top it. Then there was black ops, the original one, also on my list for a too call of duty game of all time. The JFK scene was my favorite. Black ops 2 was… meh.. it all went downhill from there. I played call of duty, ghosts, and it wasn’t as terrible as people thought. It felt just like modern warfare 3. Everything besides that like advanced warfare was complete garbage. Cold War, complete garbage. Warzone came out and it was finally one that didn’t look like complete trash. But once I played it and I saw the kind of people that were playing it, I realized what the developers did to make this game popular. Warzone came out and it was finally one that didn’t look like complete trash. But once I played it and I saw The gameplay I was highly disappointed. Fortnite disguised as all of duty. Then they started remaking the original modern warfare’s. Face palm. I didn’t even bother to look at model warfare remake one. Complete strategic move by the franchise to milk it even further with players, who hadn’t played the original. They remade the second modern warfare as well? Right? Didn’t bother. Then I saw that they remade the Modern warfare 3 now. Face palm was my initial reaction again. I actually saw ads for it for a whole week and just totally dismissed them without having any interest in watching the game. Then I talked to a friend that used to play online with me back in the first call of duty days. I did a little bit of research and saw the online gameplay. Finally a Call of Duty game that makes me feel nostalgic. It doesn’t look like garbage like the recent previous call of duty games. It feels like they realized they did all of this wrong, and went back to the roots. I’m not too excited for the campaign, they messed that up completely when they started crossing stories across games. Multiple timelines, and it’s just a complete mess. I wish they wouldn’t have done that because I really like the campaign. But to actually realize what’s going on, you have to play every single call of duty campaign in order. That being said, the multiplayer looks old-school and nostalgic. This is why I’m playing.
@Annoye I’ve heard about the SBMM.. and yeah that was the ONE thing I was regretting. I’ve heard so many bad things about it. And we’ll see what my experience is like once I play it. Remember I’m used to the originals.. the good ones. I would play multiplayer a lot, that’s how I would level up and it was everyone same lobby. So now.. hmm.. we’ll see If I like it. Would there be a chance they update it to take off sbmm?
Hi Russ, as always enjoy your reviews and videos. Little request please - For PS3 testing, test MGS4 (not MGS5) - as this is the game that isn't on any other platforms, and is also notorious to get solid performance from. Cheers mate
does it randomly reboot? ive heard while doing basic usage like browsing websites it will randomly restart. its all over reddit facebook and its official forum.
@@_GarethRossUK It beats in every way accept one, and that is it has more ethernet ports. This 1 has 2 ethernet ports where the MinisForum UM790 Pro has 1, but beats it in every other spec and is the same price.
I'm pleasantly surprised by how capable my GTR7 is, from the GPU standpoint. Illustration: my favourite game of all time is Alien: Isolation, and it runs with all settings maxed-out at 3,440 x 1,440 (1440p + ultrawide) with no perceptible stutter or tearing on a 144Hz display. I was advised when I closed it down that the peak frame-rate had been 196. It's *genuinely* quite good. And I recall someone (Taki, maybe?) saying recently that AMD were soon to release some drivers for the 780M to optimise it a little better...?
It also runs Resident Evil 2 at the same resolution, on medium-high settings without raytracing solidly, if not spectacularly. I'd say it felt circa 35 frames per second...? You can play 'real games' on this thing, quite competently. It's great.
Tech already exist. Xbox Series X is an APU with the power of a 6700XT or 3070. AMD just needs to announce an APU with 20CUs and we have a 1080p machine without RAM bandwidth issues. Because yeah, Series X is not a normal APU, it has a massive bandwidth RAM and a godlike dissipator
The GTR 7 is expensive imho. You have options with the same processor and cheaper or with the 7940HS which overclocks better and can get more power which makes it perform slightly better. The Minis Forum with the 7940 is the same price for similar spec. I would love to see a 6800H and 7840HS comparison both standard as well as overclocked as 6800H systems can be had for less than 350 dollars. Which is very cheap!
I would love to see how this system running SteamOS/ChimeraOS - curious how games would perform as compared to windows. This seems like it could be a perfect little console-style PC to hook up to a TV.
Hey man, so I found your channel the other day and been watching a ton of the reviews. I plan to play 3ds, ps2, and switch the most. What would be the best buy for a mini pc if I just want 1440p? Or anyone else with an idea. I appreciate it! I just don't know if the $700 is justified. I got a beefy custom pc but I want emulators for my room only. Also didn't know if being on a 55in hdr tv 12ft away, if 1080p to 4k would matter. Any help appreciated
@@averageanimefanboy9473 I went with the minisforum um790 pro. It plays everything perfect. Gamecube at 4k. Ps2 is 1440p to 4k dependant on the game. Switch at 1080p. Psp at 4k.it's really nice.
Hey man! This looks pretty cool! (For $800 I would kind of hope so lol.) I've even considered getting one of the usb stick sized mini pc's. Unfortunately, I haven't got one of your videos in my feed for the past few days but it's okay. I'll try to catch up a little bit soon. Do you know if the emudeck version of ES-DE will soon get a switch a/b buttons function built into the menu? Also my bluetooth controllers don't work once it jumps into RA. :/
But can it do virtual pinball well ? Putting these in a virtual cab is something the community is very interested in ( vpx, future pinball , the new pinball fx )
Game one Borderlands 3, game two God of War, game 3 Demon's Souls. I don't have as much time for gaming right now but I know I'd try to find some time with this. Good luck everyone.
The UM690 was a nice, but had serious thermal throttling issues. I don't know why they used an undersized cooling solution and why they put hot element under the board without any airflow at all. RAM, NVMe, WiFi and SS are not cooled at all in that thing...they came up with a new design in their Venus series but....im done. The GTR7 is larger in size and has no space for an SSD which is a shame...but at least the cooling solution seems to fit the latest CPUs and their thermal profile as well as cooling the NVMe drives.
it isn't just positive, its price to performance. not everybody can get top of the line things, he also has a spreadsheet for the other mini pcs and he says what he likes and what he doesn't about the units, and if its bad he also says it isn't recommended and to choose another one. the way i look at these reviews is for a second or third pc that is for the living room, or work space so it doesn't need to be a desktop tower for things you dont need that much power for.
Can I stick that in my Powkiddy A13? Lol after viewing dozens of videos from retrocorps, my final decision was the Powkiddy A13. Running rock solid and double the performance with Batocera. I love this channel, everything retro.
I'm just happy that 2.5in drives are getting phased out in favour of nvme because the latter will be needed as a baseline for PC games to keep parity with current gen consoles.
With regard to your question at the end. I believe that you have already reviewed something that was in the same ballpark price wise and performed WAAY better. The HX90G is definitely the better way to go if you are going to spend this amount of money to begin with. Its only about $100 USD more. The HX90G can actually power through most of the emulation issues that you were having with this game and even get 60fps in those games that you were advising us to lock at 30-40fps here. Another generation or 2 and we might be at the end game of emulation unless ps4 emulation takes a huge step.
The HX90G doesn't appear to be available anymore. You would have to step up to the HX99G. I am actually very curious about the performance of the HX80g which has the Rizen 7 5800H processor but still has the same dedicated graphics as the HX90G and HX99G. I am building a dedicated emulation pedestal and think it might be just the right price to performance ratio for that application. Unfortunately I can't find any reviews for that particular model. Everyone seems to focus on the higher end models in that series.
Russ, mate - did you get the Razer Core X Chroma working? I’ve put an NVidia 3080 Ti into mine, but Windows 11 crashes on me every time every time I try to install the driver. Any thoughts…?
I wish more of these mini PCs had dedicated GPUs but the new iGPUs amd are putting out are close to lower end ones. So $700 for a PC with a Ryzen 7 and 32GB of ram is a good deal if you don't care about upgrading.
Hey question, should we change the uma buffer for allocated ram for the IGPU? I have this gtr7 with 32 gb ram and want the best performance for emulation! It was defaulted to 4
Sorry if I missed this in the review, could you confirm if the USB-C ports (specifically the front one) support DP over USBC or whatever it is that the XREAL type glasses need?
Are the any YT comparing the iGPUs of the 7940HS versus the 5700G? Can't seem to find any. However cpu-monkey suggest the former is 100% faster than the 5700G. Is that right? ATM I'm debating whether to DIY (if I go for APU like 5700G) in a very SFF PC with/out an add-on GPU, eg with a
Hi there i gotna GTR7 and im really like it. But i can not find a good instruction how to set the TDP up to 65W. I try changing the SPL manually to 65 but testing Cinebench still shows max 54W draw. How to change the Power Draw in the BIOS ?
Nobody ever does a complete teardown of these GTRs to show the cpu heatsink and thermal paste etc, why not? All this cooling they show is for the nvme and ram which need way less than the cpu. They do look like efficient rigs tho
Definitely, I mentioned that in the video near the end. The major draw for these mini PCs are the smaller form factor (this could be mounted behind a monitor, for example), and the lower power draw (and subsequent savings on electricity). If you have the space and means to build a full-sized PC, that is definitely the more economical route!
@@RetroGameCorps FOr sure. I do feel like even with the advantages a mini pc gives they are asking too much money for them nowadays. I wish there was more attractive options around the 500 dollar price point. It should be very doable with how good the AMD integrated chips are.
I might be the only person who cares about this, but I've got an eGPU working on one of these... ... my 3080 Ti wouldn't work no matter what I tried, because I couldn't install the Nvidia software without a BSOD and reset. But my AMD card (a Sapphire Nitro+ 5700 XT) lit up immediately when connected via Thunderbolt to a Razer Core X Chroma dock, and when I reinstalled AMD Adrenaline it saw both the 780M *and* the 5700 XT, and it happily installed new drivers for the latter. I had to deactivate the iGPU in the BIOS to make it work properly, because otherwise Windows was running games on both the iGPU *and* the external simultaneously, which was making the external underperform. But once I'd done that, it worked as intended... ... *except* that every now and then the screen goes black for a second or two. Working on how to fix that, now. Any advice would be appreciated.
Make sure you change your monitor to the same resolution that your setting the game to. It plays better and smoother. So do not try running a game at 1024 on 1960 monitor res.
Its almost good. I'll be buying the one they release with 12 cores for a proxmox server build. They have a crap website though. I mean really, please stop locking scrolling.
The fact they haven't been using usb C port for charging ruining the idea of portability. Otherwise this box and your phone/tablet could be all charged by the same chrager.
How does it work for some like like Rpg Maker or Game maker? I've been looking into a small PC I could use for some basic game dev, my laptop has some problems that make it difficult to use so gett ing a small PC with a big hardrive dedicated to that work would be great
For gaming, if space and power draw is a concern, you're better off buying an entry level gaming laptop with a 1650 or 3050 for around the same price, or lower. I see laptops with an i5 or Ryzen 5 and 3050 that go on sale often for $600-$700 dollars. You'll get a much more powerful GPU than the iGPU in this... and it will be portable.
Thats what I always say in these Mini PC videos, I just don't see the point in these mini PCs, 1TB storage is ridiculous and not having a dedicated GPU sucks. If you want to get a beefy Retrobat with 4TB of emulators and games this little box simply doesnt have the storage capacity for it, nor the gpu to play those games... we are still a couple of years away of having decent mini-pcs
Seems like a good mini PC but I have a few thoughts. I wonder how much they could shave off the price if they dropped the proprietary power connecter and fingerprint reader. Both seem unnecessary. The device's performance seems overkill for a casual living room retro emulator console in my opinion. It starts getting into "Why not just build a gaming PC?" territory at that price. I think that $200-$300 range is the sweet spot for some retro gaming in the living room.
Agreed, this is more in line with a "desktop replacement" SKU to me than something to go in the living room. But given that most people are transitioning to 4K TVs nowadays, having the power to upscale some Gen 6 systems to 4K is a nice touch!
@@RetroGameCorps Yeah that's a good point, it would be nice to upscale some older games. Btw I enjoy your channel quite a bit, thanks for all the effort you put in!
"Blocks of Costco Brand Butter" is not a unit of measurement I expected but I'm here for it.
😂😂😂
You must be new to the channel 😂 Welcome!
Wait until he breaks out the kerrygold butter
for me, its when he says "are you sure? yeah man i wanna do it"
@@rogerjones9571Kerrygold is king! 🔥
Thank you for providing honest reviews on these mini PCs. You are my go to for retro handhelds and I'm glad you are coverings mini PCs too.
Russ, you always have me locked in on a purchase of one of these until the very end. I have a Batocera drive sitting here waiting to be paired up to one of these! Will keep my eye on this one to see if an update allows for it to boot. Aside from that this machine is exactly what I’m looking for.
The Batocera team told me the latest beta release of their upcoming firmware does boot! So it’s really just a matter of time before the stable build gets full support.
Always appreciate you including fan noise into these reviews - so many channels just don't.
Compared to the M2 Mac Mini Pro, it out performs it on the CPU Cinebench R23 multi-cores and has better GPU performance too.
CPU multi-core scores:
AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS score 16,733
M2 Mac Mini Pro score 14,958
GPU TFLOPS:
AMD Radeon 780M score 8.12s
M2 Mac Mini Pro (19 cores) score 6.8s
I saw on the Beelink forums that people were having some stability issues with this model, probably because the hardware is still pretty new. (People are also having problems with the Ally, which has similar hardware.) So rather than wait a few more months for all that to get ironed out, I decided to pay a little more and get an HX99G.
That unit is a beast! On discount atm too. I convinced a friend of mine to get the 90 (weaker CPU) and he is blown away. Installed Batocera on a second HD and loaded a bunch of ROMs all the way to PS3 and he hasn't touched anything else for a while. Including his PS5 that now has to compete for TV rights.
Great review and I love your Mini PC Spreadsheet a great reference. Price is a negative for me.
I feel like this is pretty fairly priced for what you’re getting. You are also paying for the small form factor.
So the new MW3 online multiplayer I can expect 1080 p under 60fps? I’m finishing up my cyber Monday purchases, using your affiliate links. I should be spending a good chunk of change, my way of saying thank you. Apart from all the microSD cards and random things in my cart, I specifically need a portable device to play the new call of duty modern warfare game online. I am an old-school gamer, I played the original modern warfare call of duty 4 nonstop.. I’ve only played a few more call of duties after that, and I’m looking to get back into gaming. I travel a lot for work, so I am moving a lot and in hotels, also, I will be in Mexico for a few months. With wifi. Would this be my best option under $1000? I really appreciate everything. What would you recommend?
I ended up buying the GPD win 4 to play this. It’s actually the best call of duty that came out in a very long time. Warzone was complete trash, a bunch of little kids playing Fortnite disguised as call of duty. Truly made me sick watching all these kids become call of duty fanboys, and they’ve never played anything older than Call of Duty black ops 3.
I played the original, Call of Duty on PC. Then on the original Xbox call of duty 2.
I played call of duty 3 on the Xbox 360, then the BEST Call of duty ever created. Call duty 4, modern warfare. Modern warfare two was pretty good, but couldn’t top it. Then there was black ops, the original one, also on my list for a too call of duty game of all time. The JFK scene was my favorite.
Black ops 2 was… meh.. it all went downhill from there. I played call of duty, ghosts, and it wasn’t as terrible as people thought. It felt just like modern warfare 3. Everything besides that like advanced warfare was complete garbage. Cold War, complete garbage.
Warzone came out and it was finally one that didn’t look like complete trash. But once I played it and I saw the kind of people that were playing it, I realized what the developers did to make this game popular. Warzone came out and it was finally one that didn’t look like complete trash. But once I played it and I saw The gameplay I was highly disappointed. Fortnite disguised as all of duty.
Then they started remaking the original modern warfare’s. Face palm.
I didn’t even bother to look at model warfare remake one. Complete strategic move by the franchise to milk it even further with players, who hadn’t played the original.
They remade the second modern warfare as well? Right? Didn’t bother.
Then I saw that they remade the Modern warfare 3 now. Face palm was my initial reaction again. I actually saw ads for it for a whole week and just totally dismissed them without having any interest in watching the game.
Then I talked to a friend that used to play online with me back in the first call of duty days. I did a little bit of research and saw the online gameplay.
Finally a Call of Duty game that makes me feel nostalgic. It doesn’t look like garbage like the recent previous call of duty games.
It feels like they realized they did all of this wrong, and went back to the roots.
I’m not too excited for the campaign, they messed that up completely when they started crossing stories across games. Multiple timelines, and it’s just a complete mess. I wish they wouldn’t have done that because I really like the campaign. But to actually realize what’s going on, you have to play every single call of duty campaign in order.
That being said, the multiplayer looks old-school and nostalgic. This is why I’m playing.
@Annoye I’ve heard about the SBMM.. and yeah that was the ONE thing I was regretting.
I’ve heard so many bad things about it. And we’ll see what my experience is like once I play it. Remember I’m used to the originals.. the good ones. I would play multiplayer a lot, that’s how I would level up and it was everyone same lobby. So now.. hmm.. we’ll see
If I like it. Would there be a chance they update it to take off sbmm?
Hi Russ, as always enjoy your reviews and videos. Little request please - For PS3 testing, test MGS4 (not MGS5) - as this is the game that isn't on any other platforms, and is also notorious to get solid performance from. Cheers mate
Mine will arrive today. It has the 7840HS. The 7940HS version released while mine was in processing. I didn’t see much of a difference in the two.
does it randomly reboot? ive heard while doing basic usage like browsing websites it will randomly restart. its all over reddit facebook and its official forum.
@@_GarethRossUKnever had that problem..I bought this when in released..early buyer
I wished Beelink had add a heatsink for the ddr5 memories cause it reaches almost 100°C. If I'm not wrong the Minisforum did it.
Wondering if you buy the barebones, do they still include a heatsink?
Yea their pcs overheat waaay too much
Minisforum is the NO.1 of the world, temp. of minisforum can reach
hey Russ! great vid, and an awesome looking miniPC! so in your opinion... this one or minisforum UM790 Pro with the same options? (32gb ram, 1tb SSD)
Too Human!!
I loved that game !
I am still waiting for the sequel 🤣
Thanks for the video and especially including Destiny 2 testing, really appreciate it.
Hey Russ love all your videos got the Miyoo Mini + and just ordered a steam deck thanks to you 🙂
LOVE the Mario Kart shirt. Rockin’ the classics.
Nothing beats the Minisforum UM790 Pro currently.
why is that?
@@_GarethRossUK It beats in every way accept one, and that is it has more ethernet ports. This 1 has 2 ethernet ports where the MinisForum UM790 Pro has 1, but beats it in every other spec and is the same price.
@@markdevlin3630plus a better design
Given that everything you don’t like felt nitpicky, that’s quite a strong recommendation. Nice!
I'm pleasantly surprised by how capable my GTR7 is, from the GPU standpoint.
Illustration: my favourite game of all time is Alien: Isolation, and it runs with all settings maxed-out at 3,440 x 1,440 (1440p + ultrawide) with no perceptible stutter or tearing on a 144Hz display. I was advised when I closed it down that the peak frame-rate had been 196.
It's *genuinely* quite good. And I recall someone (Taki, maybe?) saying recently that AMD were soon to release some drivers for the 780M to optimise it a little better...?
Yes, we're still waiting on the official drivers from AMD, I'm hoping we'll see a nice boost at that point. They're currently a month late :D
It also runs Resident Evil 2 at the same resolution, on medium-high settings without raytracing solidly, if not spectacularly. I'd say it felt circa 35 frames per second...?
You can play 'real games' on this thing, quite competently. It's great.
Damn Russ, you stole my Target shirt! That’s okay, I got the GameBoy (since 89) and the Kirby shirt too 😅
Correction: Intel AX200 is a WiFi 6 card, not WiFi 6E
If gaming is all you need it for NUC11 enthusiast with a 2060 has dropped to about the same price with ram and storage.
Which one will be best for editing? This one/UM790 or the Intel NUC rtx 2060?
Damn that Mysterious 2023 Open World game looks gorgeous!
My dream is becoming true, 1080p w medium settings and 60 Fps on a integrated graphic!
We are pretty close 🎉
Tech already exist. Xbox Series X is an APU with the power of a 6700XT or 3070. AMD just needs to announce an APU with 20CUs and we have a 1080p machine without RAM bandwidth issues.
Because yeah, Series X is not a normal APU, it has a massive bandwidth RAM and a godlike dissipator
I still wonder if this performs better than like a 5600G or 5700G? I think that would be very similar?
I think this is much better in terms of igpu power.
What keyboard are you using? I love the colorway. ⌨
The GTR 7 is expensive imho. You have options with the same processor and cheaper or with the 7940HS which overclocks better and can get more power which makes it perform slightly better. The Minis Forum with the 7940 is the same price for similar spec.
I would love to see a 6800H and 7840HS comparison both standard as well as overclocked as 6800H systems can be had for less than 350 dollars. Which is very cheap!
I would love to see how this system running SteamOS/ChimeraOS - curious how games would perform as compared to windows. This seems like it could be a perfect little console-style PC to hook up to a TV.
Hey man, so I found your channel the other day and been watching a ton of the reviews. I plan to play 3ds, ps2, and switch the most. What would be the best buy for a mini pc if I just want 1440p? Or anyone else with an idea. I appreciate it! I just don't know if the $700 is justified. I got a beefy custom pc but I want emulators for my room only. Also didn't know if being on a 55in hdr tv 12ft away, if 1080p to 4k would matter. Any help appreciated
Did you find an answer? I am looking for the exact same thing + GameCube games lol
@@averageanimefanboy9473 I went with the minisforum um790 pro. It plays everything perfect. Gamecube at 4k. Ps2 is 1440p to 4k dependant on the game. Switch at 1080p. Psp at 4k.it's really nice.
How's the cooling system? I live in a very hot area and I want to make sure it won't melt
Hey man! This looks pretty cool! (For $800 I would kind of hope so lol.) I've even considered getting one of the usb stick sized mini pc's. Unfortunately, I haven't got one of your videos in my feed for the past few days but it's okay. I'll try to catch up a little bit soon. Do you know if the emudeck version of ES-DE will soon get a switch a/b buttons function built into the menu? Also my bluetooth controllers don't work once it jumps into RA. :/
But can it do virtual pinball well ? Putting these in a virtual cab is something the community is very interested in ( vpx, future pinball , the new pinball fx )
how much power is needed becuase even low end budget intel graphics will do that.
Don’t you Usually need a dedicated gpu? That what I always heard
Any chance you might show a update to Batocera v37 ?
Great review 👍 Thank you 🙏
My pleasure!
Hey can you make more steam deck vids or a playlist of all of them?
Game one Borderlands 3, game two God of War, game 3 Demon's Souls. I don't have as much time for gaming right now but I know I'd try to find some time with this. Good luck everyone.
My GTR7 (a 7940HS) arrived today. I've learned that there isn't room for SSDs with heatsinks...
The UM690 was a nice, but had serious thermal throttling issues. I don't know why they used an undersized cooling solution and why they put hot element under the board without any airflow at all.
RAM, NVMe, WiFi and SS are not cooled at all in that thing...they came up with a new design in their Venus series but....im done. The GTR7 is larger in size and has no space for an SSD which is a shame...but at least the cooling solution seems to fit the latest CPUs and their thermal profile as well as cooling the NVMe drives.
This channel somehow gives positive reviews to everything to keep the review units coming at great detriment to the people actually buying them.
it isn't just positive, its price to performance. not everybody can get top of the line things, he also has a spreadsheet for the other mini pcs and he says what he likes and what he doesn't about the units, and if its bad he also says it isn't recommended and to choose another one. the way i look at these reviews is for a second or third pc that is for the living room, or work space so it doesn't need to be a desktop tower for things you dont need that much power for.
Look at the CPU and GPU specs. It's better for video editing than the M2 Mac Mini Pro.
Can I stick that in my Powkiddy A13?
Lol after viewing dozens of videos from retrocorps, my final decision was the Powkiddy A13. Running rock solid and double the performance with Batocera. I love this channel, everything retro.
Do you have a video about sharing saves and settings between devices?
has anyone try this one vs the pro one?
Great review
I really dig this! Bummer we can't put an 2.5inch drive into it, given how there's quite a bit of space. Would be great to slap in a 4tb hdd in there.
i think if you have enough money to buy that mini pc, they're assuming you have enough to buy a 4tb SSD.
@@Boogie_the_cat these type of reply are the dumbest ever
@@Boogie_the_cat limit is 2GB per slot.
I'm just happy that 2.5in drives are getting phased out in favour of nvme because the latter will be needed as a baseline for PC games to keep parity with current gen consoles.
12:57 The destiny 2 inclusion is appreciated
There is Ryzen 9 7940 GTR7 now
Hey Russ, how would it handle Star Wars Jedi: Survivor?
With regard to your question at the end. I believe that you have already reviewed something that was in the same ballpark price wise and performed WAAY better. The HX90G is definitely the better way to go if you are going to spend this amount of money to begin with. Its only about $100 USD more.
The HX90G can actually power through most of the emulation issues that you were having with this game and even get 60fps in those games that you were advising us to lock at 30-40fps here. Another generation or 2 and we might be at the end game of emulation unless ps4 emulation takes a huge step.
The HX90G doesn't appear to be available anymore. You would have to step up to the HX99G. I am actually very curious about the performance of the HX80g which has the Rizen 7 5800H processor but still has the same dedicated graphics as the HX90G and HX99G. I am building a dedicated emulation pedestal and think it might be just the right price to performance ratio for that application. Unfortunately I can't find any reviews for that particular model. Everyone seems to focus on the higher end models in that series.
Russ, mate - did you get the Razer Core X Chroma working?
I’ve put an NVidia 3080 Ti into mine, but Windows 11 crashes on me every time every time I try to install the driver. Any thoughts…?
When the unit is pushed, RAM thermals are a little high.
I’d rather have a UM790 pro
The magnetic power connection holds no value to me.
I would say dangerously high rather that just "little" high.
I wish more of these mini PCs had dedicated GPUs but the new iGPUs amd are putting out are close to lower end ones. So $700 for a PC with a Ryzen 7 and 32GB of ram is a good deal if you don't care about upgrading.
except eGPU will allow for upgrading.
A normal GPU would double the size of the things
@@tulliboyWhat only is a problem if you travel around with it
@@Bambeakz or if the mini in mini PC matters to you
@@tulliboy Would still be mini and easy to hide with a gpu
Your video are Soo good! 👌
Given the size I would’ve hoped for 2 2.5” drive slots, not zero…
Hey question, should we change the uma buffer for allocated ram for the IGPU? I have this gtr7 with 32 gb ram and want the best performance for emulation! It was defaulted to 4
What do you do with all computer and gaming system that aren't in use? Do you do give aways?
I run a charity auction for my unused test devices, it's been a while since I posted but I'm slowly getting them ready for another round!
@@RetroGameCorps that’s awesome . For a navy vet you alright
The most important question, everybody would like to have answered is: How loud the fan and how annoying the fan noise might be! Thank you.
Oh my favorite 2023 mysterious open world game, Minecraft!
This Mini PC suppports Steam Games?
Sorry if I missed this in the review, could you confirm if the USB-C ports (specifically the front one) support DP over USBC or whatever it is that the XREAL type glasses need?
They are full 40gbps ports on the back, so yes they support DP. The front one will not, though.
@@RetroGameCorps thanks so much. I’m eagerly awaiting your UM790 review so I can decide which one to pick up.
Infamous for being hard to emulate haha thank you
I wish you'd reached out Russ, v38 beta will work with it...
dman! Fancy running into you out here in the wild.
@@AFFL1CTED1 i am the internet & the internet is me 🙂
Thanks for the info, I'll try that with the next video! Once I saw that the boot logo was coming up I realized it would just be a matter of time :)
s there a good way to connect a few HDD's to be able to use it as a NAS?
hi mate would be possible play Starfield using that device?
Are the any YT comparing the iGPUs of the 7940HS versus the 5700G?
Can't seem to find any.
However cpu-monkey suggest the former is 100% faster than the 5700G.
Is that right?
ATM I'm debating whether to DIY (if I go for APU like 5700G) in a very SFF PC with/out an add-on GPU, eg with a
Hi there i gotna GTR7 and im really like it. But i can not find a good instruction how to set the TDP up to 65W. I try changing the SPL manually to 65 but testing Cinebench still shows max 54W draw. How to change the Power Draw in the BIOS ?
Nobody ever does a complete teardown of these GTRs to show the cpu heatsink and thermal paste etc, why not? All this cooling they show is for the nvme and ram which need way less than the cpu. They do look like efficient rigs tho
What is the best mini PC for gaming?
HDMI version? Test for this, some companies are claiming HDMI 2.1 but the actual version is 2.0.
what is the name of the keyboard u have on desk?
im not paying 800 dollars for a 65 watt mini pc... You could build a proper tower with dedicated graphics card for that price
Definitely, I mentioned that in the video near the end. The major draw for these mini PCs are the smaller form factor (this could be mounted behind a monitor, for example), and the lower power draw (and subsequent savings on electricity). If you have the space and means to build a full-sized PC, that is definitely the more economical route!
@@RetroGameCorps FOr sure. I do feel like even with the advantages a mini pc gives they are asking too much money for them nowadays. I wish there was more attractive options around the 500 dollar price point. It should be very doable with how good the AMD integrated chips are.
Would that mini pc be good for Kodi
I give it less than 2 years before Beelink makes a mini PC that can do 4K 60FPS ultra high settings on God of War Ragnarok
What is the name of the software used to show the framerate and performance info?
Afterburner
Thank You
I might be the only person who cares about this, but I've got an eGPU working on one of these...
... my 3080 Ti wouldn't work no matter what I tried, because I couldn't install the Nvidia software without a BSOD and reset. But my AMD card (a Sapphire Nitro+ 5700 XT) lit up immediately when connected via Thunderbolt to a Razer Core X Chroma dock, and when I reinstalled AMD Adrenaline it saw both the 780M *and* the 5700 XT, and it happily installed new drivers for the latter. I had to deactivate the iGPU in the BIOS to make it work properly, because otherwise Windows was running games on both the iGPU *and* the external simultaneously, which was making the external underperform. But once I'd done that, it worked as intended...
... *except* that every now and then the screen goes black for a second or two. Working on how to fix that, now. Any advice would be appreciated.
Does the bios has issues where it won’t boot automatically from a usb key when using Linux just like minisforum computers ?
No issues with the BIOS, I was booting Batocera from a USB flash drive in my demo. So it will work great in that regard.
Make sure you change your monitor to the same resolution that your setting the game to. It plays better and smoother. So do not try running a game at 1024 on 1960 monitor res.
Would this run mmorpg online games at all 🤔
XEMU and Xenia both have a fair way to go yet before they can be considered ready for 'prime time'.
Agreed, but it's nice to see how much progress they've made (especially Xenia) over the past six months!
@@RetroGameCorps I definitely agree with that! They've made a lot of progress, and I'm glad for it. That scene laid dormant for far too long.
Is there mini pc in this price range that has the ability to connect external GPU?
Anyone else notice how he had to show he owned the switch games being shown?? Smart tactic
Ngl, i got that same shirt at Target lol
its a great little box, but for that price just get a deck and a dock for it and still have like 200-300 euro left..
Does it come with a plug suitable for Antarctica?
It does not, those cheapskates!
Its almost good. I'll be buying the one they release with 12 cores for a proxmox server build.
They have a crap website though. I mean really, please stop locking scrolling.
but can it play battlebit?
can i have a old review mini pc if you dont them anymore?
Could this PC use faster ram?
I’m sad there is no space for 2.5 SSD. Everything else looks good though.
The fact they haven't been using usb C port for charging ruining the idea of portability. Otherwise this box and your phone/tablet could be all charged by the same chrager.
How does it work for some like like Rpg Maker or Game maker? I've been looking into a small PC I could use for some basic game dev, my laptop has some problems that make it difficult to use so gett ing a small PC with a big hardrive dedicated to that work would be great
For $800 I’m into build my own territory.
For gaming, if space and power draw is a concern, you're better off buying an entry level gaming laptop with a 1650 or 3050 for around the same price, or lower. I see laptops with an i5 or Ryzen 5 and 3050 that go on sale often for $600-$700 dollars. You'll get a much more powerful GPU than the iGPU in this... and it will be portable.
Thats what I always say in these Mini PC videos, I just don't see the point in these mini PCs, 1TB storage is ridiculous and not having a dedicated GPU sucks. If you want to get a beefy Retrobat with 4TB of emulators and games this little box simply doesnt have the storage capacity for it, nor the gpu to play those games... we are still a couple of years away of having decent mini-pcs
"Batocera firmware" lol. It's an operating system, Russ. You wouldn't say Windows firmware, would you? Firmware is always low-level.
Its good but a laptop with an RTX 2070 and 4TB of storage is still unbeatable as a Retrobat emulator HUB. And for a much lower price
Seems like a good mini PC but I have a few thoughts. I wonder how much they could shave off the price if they dropped the proprietary power connecter and fingerprint reader. Both seem unnecessary.
The device's performance seems overkill for a casual living room retro emulator console in my opinion. It starts getting into "Why not just build a gaming PC?" territory at that price. I think that $200-$300 range is the sweet spot for some retro gaming in the living room.
Agreed, this is more in line with a "desktop replacement" SKU to me than something to go in the living room. But given that most people are transitioning to 4K TVs nowadays, having the power to upscale some Gen 6 systems to 4K is a nice touch!
@@RetroGameCorps Yeah that's a good point, it would be nice to upscale some older games. Btw I enjoy your channel quite a bit, thanks for all the effort you put in!
Dope content bruh
Yeah but if your paying that much then pay the same amount and get a full pc that performs better
full pc with full size with full energy consumption and without the community sharing the same setup, point proven with steam deck.
@@_GarethRossUK No. you're comparing an apple to an orange here.
Some people want a small machine for HTPC or small spaces, depends on your needs
The mysterious game looks kind hogwarts legacy
It's really cool but... It's also really expensive.