So I bought this mini pc a few months ago now (I bought the ryzen 7 7730U model), and despite some comments here claiming it overheats, I can report that it doesn't! It keeps pretty cool, even when stresstesting it for a prolonged period, it keeps at around 55degC (CPU temp, the housing is probably ~45degC). The only way I can imagine it overheating, is if the TDP values and settings are changed in the bios, but I'd consider that a user issue, not a hardware issue. The way it comes from the aliexpress seller, it's set up properly. Of course raising the TDP in the bios will give you extra performance, but that should only be done if cooling is sufficient. Of course the big advantage here is that this unit is fanless. No noise, and no dust! And because the heatsink is basically a very big block of aluminium, it can dissipate a lot of heat at short bursts. And this is also where it's target is. This PC is very suitable for office use, family use, or, as someone suggested in the comments, use in a dirty surrounding like a machine shop (for this also professional models exist, but, these cost about 4 times as much with the same hardware). This unit is not suitable for high end gaming, or hardcore 24/7 video encoding, using it as a corporate firewall etc. It doesn't have the right CPU or cooling or I/O for that. But I think most people who are into that will realise this. But office apps, browsing, photo editing etc it's very good at it. Also, idle power consumption is very very low. This pc keeps cooler at idle than the mesh router/acces point it sits next too. It hardly gets warm to the touch, so the Ryzen 7 is very energy efficient at idle. On that point it also performs better than my previous fanless pc based upon a I7 8550U (7th/8th gen) from 2019. The only thing I had to adjust is switching off the PCI express Link state power management in the advanced menu of the energy settings in windows. Without that the pc would hang for about 8sec at every mouseclick and program start etc (and it would show 100% SSD activity in the task manager even when nothing is read or written to the SSD). Very annoying and it took me a day to solve that issue. However, changing that setting solved everything. I still don't know if this is a common reoccuring issue, or wheter it's a strange mismatch with my specific nvme SSD. There was no bios setting which caused this that I could find, only the setting in the windows energy management could solve it. The only other thing nitpicking thing might be that bios posting (not booting) is a bit slow. But then again, the way I use this pc, it's always on, it never gets switched off. And the I/O could be better, some USB-C ports on the front for example. But you know that when you're buying it. For the low price it's an excellent unit and as far as fanless models go, there's not a lot to choose, and fanless alternatives (not bought on aliexpress but from a brand) are usually 2-4 times as expensive...(for instance a cirrus7 incus with 5600G (closest to 5800u/7730U) costs €750, so 2,5 times as expensive as this €300 model)
Thanks for reviewing this one. I think these make for fantastic office PC's. I have something similar, from the 8550U i7 era (so about 4 years old) and it has been extremely reliable. It's pretty much never switched off, needs no physical maintenance (no dust!!), very energy efficient (notebook processor) and small, and it was affordable like this one (but even cheaper back then). Obviously this is not a PC suitable as a gaming rig or high performance workstation, but whoever expects that in this package and at this price point should have himself checked out... For this one, the limited and antiquated IO is indeed a downer. My 4 year old model has practically the same IO... Too bad the fanless pc market seems to be really small. There are tons of nucs, minisforums, beelinks and whatnot out there but they all have (crappy) fans in them. This is one of the few fanless mini ones out there suitable for home use (the current intel i7 one that's out there is probably significantly less powerful and more expensive) If the market was bigger we'd see more models and more competition.
I would use this for some of our industrial clients. They have CAD workstation stations in close proximity to the CNC and milling machines. Any PC with a fan dies quick in that environment. This gives them some good CPU/GPU speed, while not requiring active cooling.
Wouldnt recommend it. We've had similar PCs in our industrial environment and the space between the cooling fans on the top tend to get poluted with dust and other crap which then negates the cooling capacity and then leads to thottling.
I just bought one for this exact use case. Hoping we get good results! There's so much dust and moisture in the air near out Titans and CNCs that we've been burning through conventional PCs in our production floor. Obviously moisture is terrible for ALL computers, but the dust and moisture makes an airborne slurry that is death for all fans. This was cheap enough that if it sucks it's not a big deal.
I use this as a mini pc connected to the TV. Its 100% silent and can play most games well. I play overcooked 2 and spiderman on it without any problems Its also easy to connect bluetooth controllers as it has bluetooth built in. Good for: Gamers that does not need the latest games and hate fan noise. So me 😊. For my use case it is a 5 out 5 considering complete silence, gaming performance and price. I also have a home server but I use another mini PC for that, as the mini PC in this video has relatively high power consumption and relatively slow NICs
Silence is gold for audiophiles. Almost a winner, if they only had thunderbolt 4 or 63G OCULINK connection. All geeks want gaming option with external gpu.
These fanless, industrial cases PCs are perfect for, well industrial applications where dust and environmental factors would be devastating for normal computers. For example CnC and wood shops. Had to manage a network where we had a few wood cutting rooms, and the amount of dust the filters for the PC cabinet would catch, was insane.
This pc is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I live in a third world country with EXPENSIVE power and SLOW internet (Germany) so something like this seems like an awesome tiny silent home server. My home network is obly gigabit (for now) and I’m just starting out with Proxmox, this seems like enough compute, ram and storage for the occasional game server and other projects. All silent and low power. That’s amazing!
It would have also been very interesting to know the temperatures of the CPU, SDD etc in the different scenarios: idle, stress... etc. To get an idea of how much its components suffer. But anyway the review is very interesting, as always. Thank you!
Overheats. Good ideea, with a big 'But'. I do not have a that great experience with the Ryzen 7 4700 model (Windows 11). It is totally normal to it to overheat cores to 100 C due to low air convection and small fins for occasional 30-40 W dissipation, and believe me I have modded it with a much larger aluminium block on top of the CPU (up to 70 C with a silent fan). Also I have constant problems with USB 3, occasionally with USB 2, my external SSD goes into 100% disk usage, only removing the SSD stops the error. I have added a 80 mm 12V fan to 5V source to run at around 300 RPM to keep it silent, now cores stay up to 70 C. Also, occasionally I experience small shutters on using the desktop. I added capacitors on power input as those installed are insufficient for power filtering. I would recommend Beelink brand instead due to higher build quality and reliability. I am not that happy with my miniPCs experience in general, some have really annoying and loud fan noise, others overheat or not reliable, require investing time in modding them, better to build a mini ATX version, also low performance due to low TPD can be less of an issue depending on the use case.
A more in-depth analysis of the topic of thermal limits that can be expected, a minimum of quality control of the components, especially those related with power supply, is missing in many reviews on TH-cam in general. Thank you very much for the information.@@gherbent
@@xec467 I have an update on my issue with I/O errors on USB SSD storage disk going into 100% usage, I have solved this issue by setting the SSD policy from fast removal to performance and Windows write caching enabled. No Linux OS has been tested so far.
It would be cool if Patrick could try and add up all the PCIe Lanes with tiny machines like this. I feel like efficient PCIe allotment/utilization lends itself to a superior product experience, and consumers should value an approach that analyzes it. I'm kind of wondering if this unit has lanes just sitting un-used with only dual 1GbE, limited USB, etc!
We used to do that and still do on many of the higher-end motherboards and systems we review. For these, folks found it confusing when we would say something has like 12 lanes but only 8 are used. A bit of feedback from two years ago we took.
@ServeTheHomeVideo That's really interesting. I'm part of the population that would like to know how efficiently the motherboard is used. It's sometimes frustrating to me to hear about how strong a particular cpu is, but not know if it's able to fully be utilized because of PCIe issues. I wish more tech TH-camrs talked about PCIe on devices so that we viewers could learn by osmosis haha. Computers are confusing enough though!
If I recall right, that MT7921 wifi solution allows you to use this device as an Access Point with the right software. Not very common; not the best performer, but...
Yup. And pfSense is working to get WifiBox working and integrated. (Wifibox is a mini linux shim running on bhyve and using PCI-E passthrough for newer Wifi cards so they use linux's drivers and networking stack to offer Wifi 6/6e support on FreeBSD/pfSense). So when that's done this would make a good integrated router. Shame about the lack of 2.5GBe though.
Yes it does, it works as AP under Linux and OpenWrt. It's a single channel card so it's still not the best choice by a long shot, but better than trying to run most Intel cards as AP
Overheats, easily reaches 100 Celsius due to low air convection and small fins. I have added a 80mm fan running at about 300 RPM to solve the problem keeping it silent (keeping cores at 60-70 C), and replaced the thermal aluminium block from the top of the processor to a bigger one, in new models it is probably are made out of copper. The SSD also needs a heatsink. Constant problem with USB 3, occasionally with USB 2.0, goes in 100% disk usage on external SSD, my model Ryzen 7 4700. I would recommend Beelink brand instead - quality build, reliable.
@@Crustenscharbap I haven update on my issue with I/O errors on USB SSD storage disk going into 100% usage, I have solved this issue by setting the SSD policy from fast removal to performance and Windows write caching enabled. The mini Pc can cope with very light tasks without modifications, torrenting or intensive browsing will bring it to high temperatures without some sort of active cooling.
Should be great as a media pc or use as an home server for testing things on, or even a router if you want to build your own and need to have it beside you, passive cooling are great, 1Gbit/s is enough for many in my country at least, most popular internet connection is 250/250Mbit/s
There are some benefits of not having fans, as they all seem to wear out eventually. Agreed there could be better/more USB. This is probably a good system to use as a router, not so much a gaming pc. At least a good chunk of copper that is connected to a hefty external passive heatsink. Could be better, could be worse.
Many of the "let down" parts of this review show the lack of understanding of the target use of the system. It's not a desktop replacement, a gaming computer, a network router, or a server, but it is more for digital signs or industrial controls. You would put this in a place where it needs to be reliable; performance isn't that important, and people aren't touching it often. Think of a sign at the airport that shows what flight is coming in at a gate, it may drive 2 industrial 1080 displays, gets updated once an hour with information, and shows a random ad for a credit card when not showing a flight, that system needs to just sit in a box for 24*365 doing a simple task.
I love my 7840HS PC from AliExpress except it is 1+2.5Gbe. I am talking about the one with big fan/not turbo, and another fan in the memory chamber. Extremely pretty and efficient design with RGB❤
Has there ever been a test with all these aliexpress PC's to check whether the firmware has some privacy invasive issues? Like the Lenovo spy fish thing that happened a while back. These minipcs are so compelling but not sure how to trust they aren't phoning home somehow.
I would even argue the same about PCBs. Whenever a PCB has Bluetooth and WiFi, I give it the suspicious squint. Not saying I won't use them, but it makes me wonder.
You had me until you said 1gb ports...for a fast 1-2 monitor desktop, not bad, but if the ports are geared more towards a network device and networking is only gigabit, no thanks. Thank you for the upload though!
This design looks to be at least 3 or so years old, rather than something newer. I bet if you looked a unit from 2021 this would be comparable. I don't think people switched to putting Intel NICs in these types of boxes en masse until 2022. I don't think you're going to find too many systems that include the misses you list - Type C, more USB ports, Intel NICs and a 3rd display output for that price. This would be a very good home office box, or a basic streaming box for a room without wired ethernet.
Overheats. Good ideea, with a big 'But'. I do not have a that great experience with the Ryzen 7 4700 model (Windows 11). It is totally normal to it to overheat cores to 100 C due to low air convection and small fins for occasional 30-40 W dissipation, and believe me I have modded it with a much larger aluminium block on top of the CPU (up to 70 C with a silent fan). Also I have constant problems with USB 3, occasionally with USB 2, my external SSD goes into 100% disk usage, only removing the SSD stops the error. I have added a 80 mm 12V fan to 5V source to run at around 300 RPM to keep it silent, now cores stay up to 70 C. Also, occasionally I experience small shutters on using the desktop. I added capacitors on power input as those installed are insufficient for power filtering. I would recommend Beelink brand instead due to higher build quality and reliability. I am not that happy with my miniPCs experience in general, some have really annoying and loud fan noise, others overheat or not reliable, require investing time in modding them, better to build a mini ATX version, also low performance due to low TPD can be less of an issue depending on the use case.
I bought an N305 box and created a usb to fan header adapter and sat a 140mm fan on the top of the unit. The temps went down by more than 10 degrees and the fan is not spinning that fast at 5 volts.
Two 1G NICs does give this unit a few more use cases, even if it robs a few from the possibility of 2.5G. I wonder if the two HDMI ports both support HDMI 2.1 features, otherwise a Displayport connector would have been nice.
Right? And also, Proxmox supports link aggregation so you can get somewhat close to 2G I would assume (yet to try this). With only one m.2 slot can you really generate that much traffic in this box? I live in a third world country with EXPENSIVE power and SLOW internet (Germany) so something like this seems like an awesome tiny silent home server.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo core i5-7200u .... it's getting old but still pretty good I guess ... wanting to upgrade is only due to the fact that TVs now adays even my cheapo TCL 55inch is capable of 4k 120hz 🤣 .... whereas my htpc can only do 4k 25p horribly so I keep it at 1080p instead
Fanless is not required. I have the original Topton and another, fanless and they get toasty, I have 6 others, all with fans, and they only make noise for a short time the 2nd Tuesday of each month (patch Tuesday). I wouldn't buy one again without a fan. I have been using 2TB WD Green nvme drive, which seem to run cooler. Love to see a table of power usage for nvmes and some analysis of heat.
Same thing I see from fanless; even running opnsense, fanless tends to run a bit warmer than I would think. it's an N100, & it consumes 12 watts at nearly 0% CPU utilization; heat is heat; fanless would work great in certain environments like in cooler regions. I would bet that in the right orientation, like wall mounted with the fins vertical would be cooler, but it's still dissipating 12 watts. Wattage was taken from a KASA switch.. Next time I rebuild it, it'll be in a fan or water cooled device.
Ik it’s off but the Lenovo Thinkcentre m90q tiny supports a gpu like T1000? The P360 and P3 both have option to buy with a t400 or t1000 but the m90q don’t
Very interesting machine. AMD's previous gen's U series (4700u, 4800u, 5800U and even 5500u) show how obsolete Intel Alder Lake N-series actually are the day they were launched. The N's are only saved by their low price and their totally non-realistic TDP specification. That said cpu technology has advanced too such a level that for most folks that don't number crunch or game the N's are already quick enough. ( To be fair AMD's 6800u isn't that much quicker than an older 4800U either in the CPU department (+/-20% gain), but doubled the iGPU performance )
I'm very tempted by the idea of having a fanless PC, however I've kinda lost faith in the whole fanless design ever since LTT did a video on one where they showed that the overheated VRM's are the source of the thermal throttling and not the CPU itself (NB: the Streamcom PC they reviewed included a 65W CPU which, obviously, generates way more heat than a 15W CPU). This Topton mini PC again only connects the CPU to the case and not the VRM's. Are we sure this design doesn't make the VRM's the thermal bottleneck? If that can be ruled out I'd consider buying one despite of the bad IO. LTT's video for reference: th-cam.com/video/rZ72mj1WgS0/w-d-xo.html
@@ServeTheHomeVideo yes, I'm just saying this is actually able to and supported. It's not an AP-grade card with multiple antennas/channels/whatever and higher transmit power. It's still a client card but it can do AP in a pinch
Thanks for the video. Just a quick question. You always mention the AC adapters on these Chinese units are bad. So, what would you recommend as a replacement and what type of specs?
@@JonathanSwiftUK I hadn't taken the time to look yet but was wondering if the EQ12 came with intel NIC's. Might grab one of those for opnsense myself.
With regards to your failed mini-PC, have a word with Graham from the Adamant IT channel. He might be able to fix it. Given your collection of mini PCs, please test how they fare in gaming at 4k with a RTX 4090 over an Oculink connection.
This would make a compelling mac mini killer (hackintosh) comparing to mac mini m1 or m2. Specially given how cheap is to put 64gb ram and 4tb nvme in this and how expensive those same specs would be for an apple.. Both using MacOS. For a faster solution the i7 1355u variant with external gpu via thunderbolt would be an option. Cheers
Just going from title. Intel equivalent costs 4 times more, and needs liquid nitrogen cooling! Then pulls 6 kilowatts from the wall, with 415 volt industrial power.
This might make a decent audio PC. Not for crazy projects but your average ten to twelve track stuff should be fine. I generally avoid AMD in favor for Intel re: audio and latency and general performance, but the new Ryzen chips are pretty insane. Don't really miss the USB3 and fast ethernet, not strictly for a number cruncher system like this. Still, Win10 > windows11. I just got around to not hating Win10 lol
Took a bet on a newly released 4 port 2.5g n100 box, with USB C, on aliexpress. Was really cheap after discounts, around $110 with no ram and ssd. Was pleasantly surprised that the PSU it came with was UL listed, even though it was an older type V efficiency as opposed to newer type VI. Runs a bit toasty (50c idle) so I might throw a slim 80mm fan in there at some point. I think mine was oem'd by CWWK but buying from aliexpress is definitely a bit of a risk and hit and miss depending from whom and what.
@@indiekiduk Did a bit more digging and it looks like its OEM is Cognex/cnction. There's even a manual on their forum for it but it's locked behind registration. Oh well, at least I have a company to complain to if I ever have to hehe.
I have one, and it makes some noticeable coil whine, specially under load, I was wondering if that unit also has it? (The seller said it is normal, but I had other fanless boxes in the past and none of them produced any noise)
I have on my one, I will try to glue the wire with nail lacquer or thermal silicone, sometimes helps. They get very hot consider not to fully cover them if you try to do the same.
My N100 firwall is heating like crazy. Only Opnsens installed with no extra packages, but it sill goes to around 70 degree celsius. what could be the problem
That goes for pretty much every fanless pc in this class. But there is very little expansion possible in terms of cpu's etc, so the need for updates is also less once the system works. The market for fanless CPU's is just very small it seems.
the mini PCs are very interesting, i wish i had $222 to spend on experimental units but alas I dont have a use case for it yet. The other units seem more well balanced than this one
I wouldn't buy from aliexpress, but as far as the ports, they are perfect for me. Not sure about those lower end apus though, been burned by intel stuff. Looks good for dusty areas. What is the deal with 19 volt input power in these things instead of running from 12 or 24 volt batteries?
The Ryzen APU is significantly more powerful and power efficient than what intel puts in their low end. The 19V power comes from the fact that most of these designs are based around laptop architecture hardware.
I bought this pc and it is conclution. This pc only for word process work. if u do watching youtube over the HD , u can see down computer after 2hours by high temperature.
I'll have to run the calculations to see how it stacks up against some of the lower cost options (but only comes with the Intel Core i3-N305 as the fastest CPU option when you're in the < $300 range. Above that, you can definitely get faster processors with better connectivity options, but when you try to below that, it gets more challenging, and it is even MORE challenging when you go towards the < $200 price point.
since you pointed out that if we join you are using our money to purchase systems for review, what im wondering is how come you dont do give aways?......since you arent really out anything for the price of the machine you are reviewing.......when you start doing some giveaways i will consider joining....:)
yeah Intel have started integrating wifi control components in their laptop SoCs so the wifi "card" is really not a card anymore just doing a part of the job
What is the purpose of USB C? Like I don’t get it. The only thing I have that uses it is my phone. I get there are USB hubs and flash drives but… what else? They don’t seem all that useful tbh
It's used in higher end laptops and tablets as an "expansion port" for a dock as it can carry multiple different things. For the cheaper consumer stuff it's mostly just a replacement for the micro-USB
It's fanless. That makes it very interesting. Small brick like pc's with fans are everywhere. Fanless with a relative fast cpu....not so much. But if you don't see fanless as anything interesting, this is not a product for you. It's only interesting if you're looking for a fanless pc.
So I bought this mini pc a few months ago now (I bought the ryzen 7 7730U model), and despite some comments here claiming it overheats, I can report that it doesn't!
It keeps pretty cool, even when stresstesting it for a prolonged period, it keeps at around 55degC (CPU temp, the housing is probably ~45degC).
The only way I can imagine it overheating, is if the TDP values and settings are changed in the bios, but I'd consider that a user issue, not a hardware issue. The way it comes from the aliexpress seller, it's set up properly. Of course raising the TDP in the bios will give you extra performance, but that should only be done if cooling is sufficient.
Of course the big advantage here is that this unit is fanless. No noise, and no dust!
And because the heatsink is basically a very big block of aluminium, it can dissipate a lot of heat at short bursts. And this is also where it's target is. This PC is very suitable for office use, family use, or, as someone suggested in the comments, use in a dirty surrounding like a machine shop (for this also professional models exist, but, these cost about 4 times as much with the same hardware).
This unit is not suitable for high end gaming, or hardcore 24/7 video encoding, using it as a corporate firewall etc. It doesn't have the right CPU or cooling or I/O for that. But I think most people who are into that will realise this. But office apps, browsing, photo editing etc it's very good at it.
Also, idle power consumption is very very low. This pc keeps cooler at idle than the mesh router/acces point it sits next too. It hardly gets warm to the touch, so the Ryzen 7 is very energy efficient at idle. On that point it also performs better than my previous fanless pc based upon a I7 8550U (7th/8th gen) from 2019.
The only thing I had to adjust is switching off the PCI express Link state power management in the advanced menu of the energy settings in windows. Without that the pc would hang for about 8sec at every mouseclick and program start etc (and it would show 100% SSD activity in the task manager even when nothing is read or written to the SSD). Very annoying and it took me a day to solve that issue. However, changing that setting solved everything. I still don't know if this is a common reoccuring issue, or wheter it's a strange mismatch with my specific nvme SSD. There was no bios setting which caused this that I could find, only the setting in the windows energy management could solve it.
The only other thing nitpicking thing might be that bios posting (not booting) is a bit slow. But then again, the way I use this pc, it's always on, it never gets switched off.
And the I/O could be better, some USB-C ports on the front for example. But you know that when you're buying it.
For the low price it's an excellent unit and as far as fanless models go, there's not a lot to choose, and fanless alternatives (not bought on aliexpress but from a brand) are usually 2-4 times as expensive...(for instance a cirrus7 incus with 5600G (closest to 5800u/7730U) costs €750, so 2,5 times as expensive as this €300 model)
Thanks for reviewing this one.
I think these make for fantastic office PC's.
I have something similar, from the 8550U i7 era (so about 4 years old) and it has been extremely reliable. It's pretty much never switched off, needs no physical maintenance (no dust!!), very energy efficient (notebook processor) and small, and it was affordable like this one (but even cheaper back then).
Obviously this is not a PC suitable as a gaming rig or high performance workstation, but whoever expects that in this package and at this price point should have himself checked out...
For this one, the limited and antiquated IO is indeed a downer. My 4 year old model has practically the same IO...
Too bad the fanless pc market seems to be really small.
There are tons of nucs, minisforums, beelinks and whatnot out there but they all have (crappy) fans in them.
This is one of the few fanless mini ones out there suitable for home use (the current intel i7 one that's out there is probably significantly less powerful and more expensive)
If the market was bigger we'd see more models and more competition.
I would use this for some of our industrial clients. They have CAD workstation stations in close proximity to the CNC and milling machines. Any PC with a fan dies quick in that environment. This gives them some good CPU/GPU speed, while not requiring active cooling.
See my comment on a similar model. Buy and test one first, good ideea but not well realised.
Wouldnt recommend it. We've had similar PCs in our industrial environment and the space between the cooling fans on the top tend to get poluted with dust and other crap which then negates the cooling capacity and then leads to thottling.
@@michelkeus9557 this model is fully passive, there is no fan or vent to get clogged.
I just bought one for this exact use case. Hoping we get good results! There's so much dust and moisture in the air near out Titans and CNCs that we've been burning through conventional PCs in our production floor. Obviously moisture is terrible for ALL computers, but the dust and moisture makes an airborne slurry that is death for all fans. This was cheap enough that if it sucks it's not a big deal.
I use this as a mini pc connected to the TV. Its 100% silent and can play most games well. I play overcooked 2 and spiderman on it without any problems
Its also easy to connect bluetooth controllers as it has bluetooth built in.
Good for: Gamers that does not need the latest games and hate fan noise. So me 😊. For my use case it is a 5 out 5 considering complete silence, gaming performance and price.
I also have a home server but I use another mini PC for that, as the mini PC in this video has relatively high power consumption and relatively slow NICs
Silence is gold for audiophiles. Almost a winner, if they only had thunderbolt 4 or 63G OCULINK connection. All geeks want gaming option with external gpu.
These fanless, industrial cases PCs are perfect for, well industrial applications where dust and environmental factors would be devastating for normal computers. For example CnC and wood shops. Had to manage a network where we had a few wood cutting rooms, and the amount of dust the filters for the PC cabinet would catch, was insane.
I can certainly imagine that being a place with a lot of dust.
This pc is exactly what I’ve been looking for.
I live in a third world country with EXPENSIVE power and SLOW internet (Germany) so something like this seems like an awesome tiny silent home server.
My home network is obly gigabit (for now) and I’m just starting out with Proxmox, this seems like enough compute, ram and storage for the occasional game server and other projects. All silent and low power. That’s amazing!
It would have also been very interesting to know the temperatures of the CPU, SDD etc in the different scenarios: idle, stress... etc. To get an idea of how much its components suffer.
But anyway the review is very interesting, as always. Thank you!
well he put his hand on it for two seconds, scientific enough? :D
Overheats. Good ideea, with a big 'But'.
I do not have a that great experience with the Ryzen 7 4700 model (Windows 11). It is totally normal to it to overheat cores to 100 C due to low air convection and small fins for occasional 30-40 W dissipation, and believe me I have modded it with a much larger aluminium block on top of the CPU (up to 70 C with a silent fan). Also I have constant problems with USB 3, occasionally with USB 2, my external SSD goes into 100% disk usage, only removing the SSD stops the error. I have added a 80 mm 12V fan to 5V source to run at around 300 RPM to keep it silent, now cores stay up to 70 C. Also, occasionally I experience small shutters on using the desktop. I added capacitors on power input as those installed are insufficient for power filtering.
I would recommend Beelink brand instead due to higher build quality and reliability.
I am not that happy with my miniPCs experience in general, some have really annoying and loud fan noise, others overheat or not reliable, require investing time in modding them, better to build a mini ATX version, also low performance due to low TPD can be less of an issue depending on the use case.
A more in-depth analysis of the topic of thermal limits that can be expected, a minimum of quality control of the components, especially those related with power supply, is missing in many reviews on TH-cam in general. Thank you very much for the information.@@gherbent
@@xec467 I have an update on my issue with I/O errors on USB SSD storage disk going into 100% usage, I have solved this issue by setting the SSD policy from fast removal to performance and Windows write caching enabled. No Linux OS has been tested so far.
It would be cool if Patrick could try and add up all the PCIe Lanes with tiny machines like this. I feel like efficient PCIe allotment/utilization lends itself to a superior product experience, and consumers should value an approach that analyzes it. I'm kind of wondering if this unit has lanes just sitting un-used with only dual 1GbE, limited USB, etc!
We used to do that and still do on many of the higher-end motherboards and systems we review. For these, folks found it confusing when we would say something has like 12 lanes but only 8 are used. A bit of feedback from two years ago we took.
@ServeTheHomeVideo That's really interesting. I'm part of the population that would like to know how efficiently the motherboard is used. It's sometimes frustrating to me to hear about how strong a particular cpu is, but not know if it's able to fully be utilized because of PCIe issues.
I wish more tech TH-camrs talked about PCIe on devices so that we viewers could learn by osmosis haha. Computers are confusing enough though!
this sounds like a great office box, solid specs and the bare essentials.
I think that is one of the things it is designed for
If I recall right, that MT7921 wifi solution allows you to use this device as an Access Point with the right software. Not very common; not the best performer, but...
Yup. And pfSense is working to get WifiBox working and integrated. (Wifibox is a mini linux shim running on bhyve and using PCI-E passthrough for newer Wifi cards so they use linux's drivers and networking stack to offer Wifi 6/6e support on FreeBSD/pfSense). So when that's done this would make a good integrated router. Shame about the lack of 2.5GBe though.
Yes it does, it works as AP under Linux and OpenWrt. It's a single channel card so it's still not the best choice by a long shot, but better than trying to run most Intel cards as AP
I've seached sooo long for a test of this PC. Thank you! But I was really interested for the temperatures.
Overheats, easily reaches 100 Celsius due to low air convection and small fins. I have added a 80mm fan running at about 300 RPM to solve the problem keeping it silent (keeping cores at 60-70 C), and replaced the thermal aluminium block from the top of the processor to a bigger one, in new models it is probably are made out of copper. The SSD also needs a heatsink. Constant problem with USB 3, occasionally with USB 2.0, goes in 100% disk usage on external SSD, my model Ryzen 7 4700. I would recommend Beelink brand instead - quality build, reliable.
Thanks you. That helped me a lot. @@gherbent
@@Crustenscharbap I haven update on my issue with I/O errors on USB SSD storage disk going into 100% usage, I have solved this issue by setting the SSD policy from fast removal to performance and Windows write caching enabled. The mini Pc can cope with very light tasks without modifications, torrenting or intensive browsing will bring it to high temperatures without some sort of active cooling.
Should be great as a media pc or use as an home server for testing things on, or even a router if you want to build your own and need to have it beside you, passive cooling are great, 1Gbit/s is enough for many in my country at least, most popular internet connection is 250/250Mbit/s
I have one, for light use is ok, I experience I/O errors on USB 3 as downside 4700 model.
There are some benefits of not having fans, as they all seem to wear out eventually. Agreed there could be better/more USB. This is probably a good system to use as a router, not so much a gaming pc. At least a good chunk of copper that is connected to a hefty external passive heatsink. Could be better, could be worse.
"Don't use a radiator, be the radiator". Cool.
Many of the "let down" parts of this review show the lack of understanding of the target use of the system. It's not a desktop replacement, a gaming computer, a network router, or a server, but it is more for digital signs or industrial controls. You would put this in a place where it needs to be reliable; performance isn't that important, and people aren't touching it often. Think of a sign at the airport that shows what flight is coming in at a gate, it may drive 2 industrial 1080 displays, gets updated once an hour with information, and shows a random ad for a credit card when not showing a flight, that system needs to just sit in a box for 24*365 doing a simple task.
I love my 7840HS PC from AliExpress except it is 1+2.5Gbe. I am talking about the one with big fan/not turbo, and another fan in the memory chamber. Extremely pretty and efficient design with RGB❤
Has there ever been a test with all these aliexpress PC's to check whether the firmware has some privacy invasive issues? Like the Lenovo spy fish thing that happened a while back. These minipcs are so compelling but not sure how to trust they aren't phoning home somehow.
Most Lenovo mini PCs still have features that are almost impossible to uninstall.
I would even argue the same about PCBs. Whenever a PCB has Bluetooth and WiFi, I give it the suspicious squint.
Not saying I won't use them, but it makes me wonder.
how would you even begin to figure out if it is phoning home?!
@@undivided_unifiedwatching network traffic?
@@undivided_unifiedFirewall? It should log all activities...
Like 10 years ago I had a little thinclient like this that I ran ZSNES on and played 2 player tetris with USB SNES controllers with my friends.
You had me until you said 1gb ports...for a fast 1-2 monitor desktop, not bad, but if the ports are geared more towards a network device and networking is only gigabit, no thanks. Thank you for the upload though!
I was thinking the same thing. Very strange indeed.
This design looks to be at least 3 or so years old, rather than something newer. I bet if you looked a unit from 2021 this would be comparable. I don't think people switched to putting Intel NICs in these types of boxes en masse until 2022.
I don't think you're going to find too many systems that include the misses you list - Type C, more USB ports, Intel NICs and a 3rd display output for that price.
This would be a very good home office box, or a basic streaming box for a room without wired ethernet.
Overheats. Good ideea, with a big 'But'.
I do not have a that great experience with the Ryzen 7 4700 model (Windows 11). It is totally normal to it to overheat cores to 100 C due to low air convection and small fins for occasional 30-40 W dissipation, and believe me I have modded it with a much larger aluminium block on top of the CPU (up to 70 C with a silent fan). Also I have constant problems with USB 3, occasionally with USB 2, my external SSD goes into 100% disk usage, only removing the SSD stops the error. I have added a 80 mm 12V fan to 5V source to run at around 300 RPM to keep it silent, now cores stay up to 70 C. Also, occasionally I experience small shutters on using the desktop. I added capacitors on power input as those installed are insufficient for power filtering.
I would recommend Beelink brand instead due to higher build quality and reliability.
I am not that happy with my miniPCs experience in general, some have really annoying and loud fan noise, others overheat or not reliable, require investing time in modding them, better to build a mini ATX version, also low performance due to low TPD can be less of an issue depending on the use case.
as soon as you said no 2.5 i left
Fair
When Patrick tells us to have an awesome day... it always makes me smile haha.
Love STH so much
Thanks! Have a great week.
I bought an N305 box and created a usb to fan header adapter and sat a 140mm fan on the top of the unit. The temps went down by more than 10 degrees and the fan is not spinning that fast at 5 volts.
Two 1G NICs does give this unit a few more use cases, even if it robs a few from the possibility of 2.5G. I wonder if the two HDMI ports both support HDMI 2.1 features, otherwise a Displayport connector would have been nice.
They are usually Realtek, negating any serious networking use.
Right?
And also, Proxmox supports link aggregation so you can get somewhat close to 2G I would assume (yet to try this). With only one m.2 slot can you really generate that much traffic in this box?
I live in a third world country with EXPENSIVE power and SLOW internet (Germany) so something like this seems like an awesome tiny silent home server.
I have an older gen of this .... Intel core i5 ....running 24/7 for yrs now ....as an htpc .
Awesome. Which gen i5?
@@ServeTheHomeVideo core i5-7200u .... it's getting old but still pretty good I guess ... wanting to upgrade is only due to the fact that TVs now adays even my cheapo TCL 55inch is capable of 4k 120hz 🤣 .... whereas my htpc can only do 4k 25p horribly so I keep it at 1080p instead
i would like to get just those motherboards :D
Fanless is not required. I have the original Topton and another, fanless and they get toasty, I have 6 others, all with fans, and they only make noise for a short time the 2nd Tuesday of each month (patch Tuesday). I wouldn't buy one again without a fan. I have been using 2TB WD Green nvme drive, which seem to run cooler. Love to see a table of power usage for nvmes and some analysis of heat.
Same thing I see from fanless; even running opnsense, fanless tends to run a bit warmer than I would think. it's an N100, & it consumes 12 watts at nearly 0% CPU utilization; heat is heat; fanless would work great in certain environments like in cooler regions. I would bet that in the right orientation, like wall mounted with the fins vertical would be cooler, but it's still dissipating 12 watts.
Wattage was taken from a KASA switch.. Next time I rebuild it, it'll be in a fan or water cooled device.
Ik it’s off but the Lenovo Thinkcentre m90q tiny supports a gpu like T1000? The P360 and P3 both have option to buy with a t400 or t1000 but the m90q don’t
Very interesting machine. AMD's previous gen's U series (4700u, 4800u, 5800U and even 5500u) show how obsolete Intel Alder Lake N-series actually are the day they were launched. The N's are only saved by their low price and their totally non-realistic TDP specification. That said cpu technology has advanced too such a level that for most folks that don't number crunch or game the N's are already quick enough.
( To be fair AMD's 6800u isn't that much quicker than an older 4800U either in the CPU department (+/-20% gain), but doubled the iGPU performance )
I'm very tempted by the idea of having a fanless PC, however I've kinda lost faith in the whole fanless design ever since LTT did a video on one where they showed that the overheated VRM's are the source of the thermal throttling and not the CPU itself (NB: the Streamcom PC they reviewed included a 65W CPU which, obviously, generates way more heat than a 15W CPU). This Topton mini PC again only connects the CPU to the case and not the VRM's. Are we sure this design doesn't make the VRM's the thermal bottleneck? If that can be ruled out I'd consider buying one despite of the bad IO.
LTT's video for reference: th-cam.com/video/rZ72mj1WgS0/w-d-xo.html
15w is a lot different on the VRM. Also the bigger CPUs tend to have much more complex VRM setups.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo ah thanks! That's great to hear.
YES that mediatek card is better for wifi access point than the usual Intel cards
Good point, but if you were making an AP out of it, you would likely want to use slightly better NICs
@@ServeTheHomeVideo yes, I'm just saying this is actually able to and supported. It's not an AP-grade card with multiple antennas/channels/whatever and higher transmit power. It's still a client card but it can do AP in a pinch
Thanks for the video.
Just a quick question. You always mention the AC adapters on these Chinese units are bad. So, what would you recommend as a replacement and what type of specs?
Intel 2.5gb NICs and 6850u CPU would be nice...close but no cigar...
I tend to agree with you on that one.
Using Beelink EQ12 with pfsense, it has 2x Intel 225 NICs. Cost me about 200gbp. Dogs things comes to mind.
@@JonathanSwiftUK I hadn't taken the time to look yet but was wondering if the EQ12 came with intel NIC's. Might grab one of those for opnsense myself.
With regards to your failed mini-PC, have a word with Graham from the Adamant IT channel. He might be able to fix it.
Given your collection of mini PCs, please test how they fare in gaming at 4k with a RTX 4090 over an Oculink connection.
This would make a compelling mac mini killer (hackintosh) comparing to mac mini m1 or m2. Specially given how cheap is to put 64gb ram and 4tb nvme in this and how expensive those same specs would be for an apple.. Both using MacOS.
For a faster solution the i7 1355u variant with external gpu via thunderbolt would be an option. Cheers
Just going from title. Intel equivalent costs 4 times more, and needs liquid nitrogen cooling! Then pulls 6 kilowatts from the wall, with 415 volt industrial power.
There are many fanless Intel PCs
This might make a decent audio PC. Not for crazy projects but your average ten to twelve track stuff should be fine. I generally avoid AMD in favor for Intel re: audio and latency and general performance, but the new Ryzen chips are pretty insane. Don't really miss the USB3 and fast ethernet, not strictly for a number cruncher system like this.
Still, Win10 > windows11. I just got around to not hating Win10 lol
I wish I did more with audio PCs :-/
This might be one of the best values for a hackintosh actually . 64gb ram and 2tb or 4tb nvme. Many people even run their DAW offline so...
I'm holding off for now, i want AV1 encode and decode support
The other Mini PCs with fans like the Beelink SER7 we reviewed are probably better options.
Took a bet on a newly released 4 port 2.5g n100 box, with USB C, on aliexpress. Was really cheap after discounts, around $110 with no ram and ssd. Was pleasantly surprised that the PSU it came with was UL listed, even though it was an older type V efficiency as opposed to newer type VI. Runs a bit toasty (50c idle) so I might throw a slim 80mm fan in there at some point. I think mine was oem'd by CWWK but buying from aliexpress is definitely a bit of a risk and hit and miss depending from whom and what.
that one isn't CWWK because it's in an EGLOBAL case. CWWK are a bit more but the bigger ones can take the 4 x NVME adaptor
@@indiekiduk Interesting, is there a forum thread on it perhaps? I didn't find it in EGLOBAL listings either.
@@indiekiduk Did a bit more digging and it looks like its OEM is Cognex/cnction. There's even a manual on their forum for it but it's locked behind registration. Oh well, at least I have a company to complain to if I ever have to hehe.
i have a question for you have you tried to install bazzite or other steam os systems and see who it runs as a DIY console?
Not on these. TBH I would get something with the Radeon 780M or wait for the Radeon 890M graphics instead if I wanted a DIY console.
42W for a fanless system is actually impressive
I have one, and it makes some noticeable coil whine, specially under load, I was wondering if that unit also has it? (The seller said it is normal, but I had other fanless boxes in the past and none of them produced any noise)
We double-checked and could not hear this one
I have on my one, I will try to glue the wire with nail lacquer or thermal silicone, sometimes helps. They get very hot consider not to fully cover them if you try to do the same.
@@gherbent I read about that workaround, but haven't tried. I might give it a try
Is there one that can be used as a 1080p gaming pc? Around 400usd?
Going by the IO and 1GB ethernet, it was most likely not built with the US or European market in mind.
The design choices offer lessor I/O, but was this necessary to reduce power and heat as needed for this fanless system?
Not really on the NICs at least
That's basically just a Batocera box, as if that's a bad thing.
My N100 firwall is heating like crazy. Only Opnsens installed with no extra packages, but it sill goes to around 70 degree celsius. what could be the problem
Check the thermal interface between the CPU and the chassis. Most times this happens the two are not making contact and there is an air gap
How would i get a Bios Update for this PC, i think Topton is only the reseller and not the manufacturer
Exactly! They only sell items without any SW support. If you ask them for BIOS update, they don't provide you.
That goes for pretty much every fanless pc in this class.
But there is very little expansion possible in terms of cpu's etc, so the need for updates is also less once the system works.
The market for fanless CPU's is just very small it seems.
the mini PCs are very interesting, i wish i had $222 to spend on experimental units but alas I dont have a use case for it yet. The other units seem more well balanced than this one
Yea. That is why we buy them to show people what is out there.
I wouldn't buy from aliexpress, but as far as the ports, they are perfect for me.
Not sure about those lower end apus though, been burned by intel stuff.
Looks good for dusty areas.
What is the deal with 19 volt input power in these things instead of running from 12 or 24 volt batteries?
The Ryzen APU is significantly more powerful and power efficient than what intel puts in their low end.
The 19V power comes from the fact that most of these designs are based around laptop architecture hardware.
Convert to 2.5G and add USB4 with PD = profit
Yes
look into the i7 1355u variant it has those I think.
I bought this pc and it is conclution.
This pc only for word process work.
if u do watching youtube over the HD , u can see down computer after 2hours by high temperature.
Sooo, this could be good for running kodi? I'm looking for something to replace my old NUC6CAYB. Does it run linux?
Interesting that the AC adapter has a Dell P/N on it.
I'll have to run the calculations to see how it stacks up against some of the lower cost options (but only comes with the Intel Core i3-N305 as the fastest CPU option when you're in the < $300 range.
Above that, you can definitely get faster processors with better connectivity options, but when you try to below that, it gets more challenging, and it is even MORE challenging when you go towards the < $200 price point.
since you pointed out that if we join you are using our money to purchase systems for review, what im wondering is how come you dont do give aways?......since you arent really out anything for the price of the machine you are reviewing.......when you start doing some giveaways i will consider joining....:)
Will HDD 3.5 work if you connect it?
woah woah woah. settle down. no need to get excited
The MediaTek is what usually comes with AMD laptops (e.g. Thinkpad with AMD APU). The AX210 IIRC requires a 12th+ Gen Intel CPU to work.
yeah Intel have started integrating wifi control components in their laptop SoCs so the wifi "card" is really not a card anymore just doing a part of the job
did you notice that this unit use pirate bios? At least units what I got say "evaluation version" at bootup screen
When patreon?
Heh. We just have TH-cam memberships. I appreciate it though.
"Look how cheap we bought this for! Amazing!" "Look at how this has such low end parts!" I wonder if they're related.
Well, it would be more expensive, wouldn't it?
What is the purpose of USB C? Like I don’t get it. The only thing I have that uses it is my phone. I get there are USB hubs and flash drives but… what else? They don’t seem all that useful tbh
It's used in higher end laptops and tablets as an "expansion port" for a dock as it can carry multiple different things. For the cheaper consumer stuff it's mostly just a replacement for the micro-USB
FANLESS?!
I guess you couldn't fit a 3.5 HDD in there or else he would have said that.
Can you game with it?
very underwhelming device
It is amazing to read the different opinions on this one.
No Thunderbolt :(
Not on something like this
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Not sure why it doesnt , the Miniforum Rryzen's have Thunderbolt....
@@FTLN they also have a fan.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo There is a I7 1355u variant which has thunderbolt
Nice, universal blessing ☄️❤️
I'm searching fora good openwrt system. Too bad it's only 1gbe
Yay
So once again a OEM is adding lame parts to an AMD system.
Not special compared to asus pn53
មានលក់នៅប្រទេសខ្មែរឬនៅសុំទិញមួយ
Test
That thing has nothing interesting, why did it justify a video review?
It's fanless. That makes it very interesting. Small brick like pc's with fans are everywhere. Fanless with a relative fast cpu....not so much.
But if you don't see fanless as anything interesting, this is not a product for you. It's only interesting if you're looking for a fanless pc.
Junk...
Would be nice if theyd stop building these damn things with AMD
what's wrong wit AMD?
@@marcogenovesi8570 everything?
@@phenry5083 so you are the problem?
@@marcogenovesi8570 you really tried there, and still managed to shit the bed. Give that another go.
@@phenry5083 you got something useful to add or your whole thought process is still just "AMD bad"