Buyer beware, there seems to be a common problem with 5560u where sometimes it will not send a video signal to your monitor, and when it does this the only way to temporarily fix it is to unplug the power brick then plug it back in.
This is the best value mini pc this time around I think. Upgradable memory slots, upgradable nvme slot, plus additional 2.5 inch SATA drive, at this small form factor and such a low price! The performance is very good as well
I'm Brazilian, I watched several reviews of this mini pc here on TH-cam, yours was the clearest, most complete and straight to the point. Congratulations. Tumbs up! 👍
I dare say this is the fastest rig I have ever used. My older(but modern) desktop finally bit the dust after 16 years of upgrades, and whatnot. I am tired of upgrading and doing repairs, so I downgraded(in size only). This thing is tiny, quiet and cool. It's so fast I'm sending this message from tomorrow.
Great video as always. Including the NVME temp is a good idea, sometimes those lil wafers get packed really close to other components! I noticed a big improvement with how you're highlighting your comparisons. Having that grey flash really helps to indicate what units you're specifically talking about. You're constantly improving and this was faultless. The jungle awaits!
Rob, enjoyed the review; it was a great idea to compare to the SEI12. As an owner of this and an SER5 5600H (and a number of NUC 10's and 11's), I have one caution for all of the the minis (SER, SEI, etc) that have the mesh top which acts as the intake for the one fan. (Note I don't see this problem on the NUC's as much as they don't pull from the top, just from the sides, and that forces more air flow within the case.) It's a good design for cooling the CPU as the fan's air path is from the mesh top, straight through the CPU cooling fins and out the back. Because the fan input is from the top mesh, despite the side mesh, the RAM and SSD get no air flow and heat up quite rapidly, as the CPU does, even if the drive isn't doing anything much. (Note that AZW, the maker of these units, recognized this and added a second 40mm fan to cool the lower half of the case, as Rob pointed out in his review of the SEI12.) Using the included Kingston drive it's not too bad but with a faster drive (e.g., Samsung 970 EVO PLUS, which like all Samsung's reports both the memory temp and the controller temp, if you have HWINFO64) it's not workable. What I found (as I'm not using a SATA drive) is that if I remove the bottom and just raise the mini using corner feet about 1/2 inch, convection with the bottom completely open and raised, is enough to probably be safe. Because I stress the systems sometimes I have put one of those 120mm USB-powered fans that are designed to have things like routers sitting on top of them, and with that set to low it's a gentle breeze but it's silent (remember, 5v USB power on low....) and keeps the RAM and SSD at almost the same temps when the system is idling. None of this will matter if longevity is not an issue but I use these to replace NUC5's that have been running non-stop for 7+ years, so that matters to me. One advantage of the plastic 5560U case (vs the 5600H) is that it's easy to bend it a bit to remove the motherboard, whereas the all-metal case of the 5600H does NOT flex at all, which will make getting the motherboard (should you have to replace thermal paste, the fan, or the coin cell) tedious. I thought the all-metal 5600H case would seem nicer, and it does, so long as you don't need to flex the sides to get the motherboard out!
Considering the 35w thermal limit on 5600h unit, should I get 5560u unit instead performance wise? My daily task would be coding with docker and some switch emulation
@@crushfire2004 Hello. First, while the 5600H is slightly more powerful than the 5560U, the issue is that, in my opinion, this case doesn't cool well enough for the 5600H. The CPU cooling can be handled by going into the BIOS and changing the fan speeds based on the temp. (Beelink sets the fan speeds too low so there are no 'fan whine' complaints, I suspect, but I didn't find either unit to have a noisy fan.) However, one issue both these and many mini-pc's have is that they cool the CPU pretty well, and do nothing to cool the RAM and NVME drive. I resorted to removing the bottom cover, and elevating it at the corners so at least there was an obvious place for air to rise from and that helps. The challenge is that very few tools show the heat of the RAM and the controller on the NVME drive (Samsung is about the only maker that has sensors on both), so it appears as though all is well, even though RAM and NVME drives aren't meant to operate as hot as CPU's are. When all is said and done, the SER5 with the 5560U is usually much cheaper than with the 5600H and I think were I to do it all over again I'd have kept the 5560U and not gotten the 5600H as it's not worth the price difference. Hope this helps.
@@dave_r This 5600H has been throttled down 35w, the 5600H is 45w originally. It's a laptop cpu so it should run cooler in a box than a slim laptop. The 5600U is 15w but it has the same 4.2 GHz turbo boost as the 5600H. In PassMark benchmark the U scores 15,000 points and the H in 17000. Not a big difference , you can up the voltage of the 5600U in the Bios if you want. I like that both have the built in Radeon Vega-7 integrated graphics. The best you can get without a separate graphics card. They sell for $330 US on amazon now.
So nice to watch a review that gets to the point, doesn't use a fake commercial corny voice, and doesn't blabber on until I don't remember what they're talking about! Thank you. I still cant decide!
Really enjoyed and found your review vs SEi12 i5-1235U super useful. I decided to go for the SEi12 eventually since the price for both were about the same. The fact that the SEi12 could use a faster Gen 4 SSD was what did it for me since I have a spare SN850 1TB lying around.
Hi Rob, the SER 5 with 5560u is difficult to find now. It was replaced by 5500u. Do you think we can expect the same results ? I am concerned about heat and noise. Thanks a lot
Does this PC support Freesync? I really like mini PCs with lower power chips at about 25W like this. These are still quiet. Faster Mini PCs with Ryzen 7 7840HS for example can be loud.
If your monitor has speakers, make sure the HDMI output is selected using the sound icon in the bottom right of the Windows task bar. If your monitor doesn't have speakers, you'll need to plug in headphones or speakers to the 3.5mm audio jack and also select it as the output.
i paid £270 uk for it in an amazon deal. delivered today works well can i ask would i be able to run steam alright? ive had x box cloud gaming running on it so far nothing installed.
Beelink has the most dreadful so called tech support team. If you have a post purchase trouble - like first the fan goes 79dB then rattles and eventually dies... - you are by yourself. The tech support team is evading, avoiding, promising but does absolutely jacksh.t! Less than a month old Ser5 Ryzen 7 machine is a doorstop...
I have The SER5 5500u. It's great for office work, streaming and light gaming. I hear a "woosh" when upon first boot. Otherwise the SER5 is silent. I checked HWiNFO and the fans are spinning at 1400-ish RPM. Great mid-range mini-pc.
I would not call a Ryzen 5 with zen3 Vega7 with 6 core 12 thread a budget CPU ether. They even use brand name "Crucial " ram and "Kingston" SSD. As of today Dec 12th 2022 it dropped to $330 on amazon.
@@Robtech Seen so many people complaint about it does not support it. seems like the 5560u model is not meant to use the usb-c port as DP. the 5560H 5570u 5800H seems to support video through the usb c port. Did you test it?
Oh okay. I didn't have a USB-C monitor at the time. I test all minis with it now. But I did not test back then. Just going by the specs I assumed it works fine. Unfortunately don't have the mini anymore.
@@Robtech I am just curious because no channel in YT showing how to run Windows 10 to this PC so I asked this question because honestly I don't like Windows 11 by the way I already subscribed to your YT channel and hopefully in the future you can show to your YT channel how run this PC in Windows 10 it is very helpful and informative to me and to others to see and with that I appreciated that you answer my question very well Thank you and more power to your YT channel
Thanks for the review. I bought one for Black Friday. Should I change any of the default BIOS settings? By the way, my unit came with a 512 GB Intel 670p SSD. Is that better than the Kingston one?
No, you're good to go out of the box. It's a good substitute, but I haven't used it before. You can compare your score against mine with CrystalDiskBenchmark.
Buyer beware, there seems to be a common problem with 5560u where sometimes it will not send a video signal to your monitor, and when it does this the only way to temporarily fix it is to unplug the power brick then plug it back in.
I think this model has been silently replaced with a pro model with DP and tpm 2.0 module.
How's it working? Also in the in this video I didn't see a fan, is there a fan inside? Thanks my friend. 👍🏻
This is the best value mini pc this time around I think. Upgradable memory slots, upgradable nvme slot, plus additional 2.5 inch SATA drive, at this small form factor and such a low price! The performance is very good as well
I'm Brazilian, I watched several reviews of this mini pc here on TH-cam, yours was the clearest, most complete and straight to the point. Congratulations. Tumbs up! 👍
If only I wasn't being crushed by inflation or id have one by now
6 months ago it cost $450, now they are $330 on Amazon.
@@Crashed131963I know this is over a year old but they are $230 right now on Amazon for Prime Day
I dare say this is the fastest rig I have ever used. My older(but modern) desktop finally bit the dust after 16 years of upgrades, and whatnot. I am tired of upgrading and doing repairs, so I downgraded(in size only). This thing is tiny, quiet and cool. It's so fast I'm sending this message from tomorrow.
Great video as always. Including the NVME temp is a good idea, sometimes those lil wafers get packed really close to other components! I noticed a big improvement with how you're highlighting your comparisons. Having that grey flash really helps to indicate what units you're specifically talking about. You're constantly improving and this was faultless. The jungle awaits!
Thanks. Any future suggestions, let me know 👍
Rob, enjoyed the review; it was a great idea to compare to the SEI12. As an owner of this and an SER5 5600H (and a number of NUC 10's and 11's), I have one caution for all of the the minis (SER, SEI, etc) that have the mesh top which acts as the intake for the one fan. (Note I don't see this problem on the NUC's as much as they don't pull from the top, just from the sides, and that forces more air flow within the case.) It's a good design for cooling the CPU as the fan's air path is from the mesh top, straight through the CPU cooling fins and out the back. Because the fan input is from the top mesh, despite the side mesh, the RAM and SSD get no air flow and heat up quite rapidly, as the CPU does, even if the drive isn't doing anything much. (Note that AZW, the maker of these units, recognized this and added a second 40mm fan to cool the lower half of the case, as Rob pointed out in his review of the SEI12.) Using the included Kingston drive it's not too bad but with a faster drive (e.g., Samsung 970 EVO PLUS, which like all Samsung's reports both the memory temp and the controller temp, if you have HWINFO64) it's not workable.
What I found (as I'm not using a SATA drive) is that if I remove the bottom and just raise the mini using corner feet about 1/2 inch, convection with the bottom completely open and raised, is enough to probably be safe. Because I stress the systems sometimes I have put one of those 120mm USB-powered fans that are designed to have things like routers sitting on top of them, and with that set to low it's a gentle breeze but it's silent (remember, 5v USB power on low....) and keeps the RAM and SSD at almost the same temps when the system is idling. None of this will matter if longevity is not an issue but I use these to replace NUC5's that have been running non-stop for 7+ years, so that matters to me.
One advantage of the plastic 5560U case (vs the 5600H) is that it's easy to bend it a bit to remove the motherboard, whereas the all-metal case of the 5600H does NOT flex at all, which will make getting the motherboard (should you have to replace thermal paste, the fan, or the coin cell) tedious. I thought the all-metal 5600H case would seem nicer, and it does, so long as you don't need to flex the sides to get the motherboard out!
Considering the 35w thermal limit on 5600h unit, should I get 5560u unit instead performance wise? My daily task would be coding with docker and some switch emulation
@@crushfire2004 Hello. First, while the 5600H is slightly more powerful than the 5560U, the issue is that, in my opinion, this case doesn't cool well enough for the 5600H. The CPU cooling can be handled by going into the BIOS and changing the fan speeds based on the temp. (Beelink sets the fan speeds too low so there are no 'fan whine' complaints, I suspect, but I didn't find either unit to have a noisy fan.) However, one issue both these and many mini-pc's have is that they cool the CPU pretty well, and do nothing to cool the RAM and NVME drive. I resorted to removing the bottom cover, and elevating it at the corners so at least there was an obvious place for air to rise from and that helps. The challenge is that very few tools show the heat of the RAM and the controller on the NVME drive (Samsung is about the only maker that has sensors on both), so it appears as though all is well, even though RAM and NVME drives aren't meant to operate as hot as CPU's are.
When all is said and done, the SER5 with the 5560U is usually much cheaper than with the 5600H and I think were I to do it all over again I'd have kept the 5560U and not gotten the 5600H as it's not worth the price difference. Hope this helps.
@@dave_r Thanks, for your suggestions, after watching several video I convinced to buy 5560u unit instead (and also price difference)
@@dave_r This 5600H has been throttled down 35w, the 5600H is 45w originally.
It's a laptop cpu so it should run cooler in a box than a slim laptop.
The 5600U is 15w but it has the same 4.2 GHz turbo boost as the 5600H.
In PassMark benchmark the U scores 15,000 points and the H in 17000.
Not a big difference ,
you can up the voltage of the 5600U in the Bios if you want.
I like that both have the built in Radeon Vega-7 integrated graphics.
The best you can get without a separate graphics card.
They sell for $330 US on amazon now.
I feel like a pussy not wanting to build my own mini PC but no one's beating this value
How does this handle PS2/GameCube emulation? Can it run a the intensive games at 1080p 60fps?
Can you play fortnite on it
Would this be ok to stream my Xbox on obs
So nice to watch a review that gets to the point, doesn't use a fake commercial corny voice, and doesn't blabber on until I don't remember what they're talking about! Thank you. I still cant decide!
Would this run 3d design and rendering software smoothly?
Really enjoyed and found your review vs SEi12 i5-1235U super useful. I decided to go for the SEi12 eventually since the price for both were about the same. The fact that the SEi12 could use a faster Gen 4 SSD was what did it for me since I have a spare SN850 1TB lying around.
Does the BIOS give the option to create RAID1?
Can you play rocket league with this?
Hi Rob, the SER 5 with 5560u is difficult to find now. It was replaced by 5500u. Do you think we can expect the same results ? I am concerned about heat and noise. Thanks a lot
The 5500U has better graphics performance and the 5560U has better CPU performance. Should be very similar noise and heat.
i bought this off amazon but it didnt have two hdmi ports at the back it had a single hdmi and a dp slot at the back, in short im a little pissed.
Seems to have changed since the review. You can buy a Displayport to HDMI cable to get a second display with HDMI.
hi the cheaper one in amazon ksa indicates operating system is UBUNTU or Linux does this mean i cant use windows as OS for this?
I love this video so much but I have one question, can it run Fortnite?
th-cam.com/video/gFRDUuzhO4U/w-d-xo.html
@@Robtech thanks!!
Does this PC support Freesync?
I really like mini PCs with lower power chips at about 25W like this. These are still quiet. Faster Mini PCs with Ryzen 7 7840HS for example can be loud.
It does yes.
sir how to make the built in speaker make sound, mine doest work, when i play youtube,no snund appears?how to make it sound,?thwm
If your monitor has speakers, make sure the HDMI output is selected using the sound icon in the bottom right of the Windows task bar. If your monitor doesn't have speakers, you'll need to plug in headphones or speakers to the 3.5mm audio jack and also select it as the output.
i paid £270 uk for it in an amazon deal. delivered today works well can i ask would i be able to run steam alright? ive had x box cloud gaming running on it so far nothing installed.
Steam is fine. Performance will be based on the game requirements
Thanks, Robtech, for your nice BeeLink SER5 review. It really seems that this mini pc is one of the best.
Beelink has the most dreadful so called tech support team. If you have a post purchase trouble - like first the fan goes 79dB then rattles and eventually dies... - you are by yourself. The tech support team is evading, avoiding, promising but does absolutely jacksh.t! Less than a month old Ser5 Ryzen 7 machine is a doorstop...
If you bought it on Amazon, contact Amazon support and mention it is still within the warranty period. They should be able to help get the RMA going.
Thanx a lot! Did that.
so chrome doesn’t work for this?
I assume the 5560u is the same as 5500u? Someone recommended me the latter but there are like two reviews of it from the same person
5500U has better integrated graphics. 5560U has better CPU performance.
usb sound hear?
Hey Rob, is this mini PC more or less the exact same and the TRIGKEY S5 5560U? Any thoughts on which is better
Looks to be the same unit minus the mesh on the top. Both companies use the same manufacturer.
Ty getting this one
manage to view the video first! what a pleasant surprise
I hope there's a barebones option for $299
i would also buy that, already have ram and nvme myself.
What model would be the next upgrade? I am looking for 32 ram flexible ports and quiet is a must.
SER 6 is the latest.
@Robtech which of the beelinks is the quietest?
Can you install a secondary sata ssd ?
Yeah, supports a 2.5" SATA drive.
I have The SER5 5500u. It's great for office work, streaming and light gaming. I hear a "woosh" when upon first boot. Otherwise the SER5 is silent. I checked HWiNFO and the fans are spinning at 1400-ish RPM.
Great mid-range mini-pc.
400.00 seems a bit high to be called budget I think.
Yep, that's why the word 'budget' isn't used once in this review.
@@Robtech My mistake. I must have seen it somewhere else.
I just bought this for $429 CAD ($320 USD)
@@James-il3tq Let us know if it can game a little.
I would not call a Ryzen 5 with zen3 Vega7 with 6 core 12 thread a budget CPU ether.
They even use brand name "Crucial " ram and "Kingston" SSD.
As of today Dec 12th 2022 it dropped to $330 on amazon.
your coupon code isnt working.
Only 30 were available at the price. Must be expired. Thanks for letting me know. I've updated the link.
is this a good buy for video editing?
You're better off with an Intel mini for video editing. Something like an i5-12450H mini
@@Robtech Can it run minecraft java mods like pixelmon, bedwars ,etc,
Picked one up for 270 yesterday! Can't wait to try it.
Bargain!
How is it?
Hi. Does the usb-c support video?
It does, yes.
@@Robtech Seen so many people complaint about it does not support it. seems like the 5560u model is not meant to use the usb-c port as DP. the 5560H 5570u 5800H seems to support video through the usb c port. Did you test it?
Oh okay. I didn't have a USB-C monitor at the time. I test all minis with it now. But I did not test back then. Just going by the specs I assumed it works fine. Unfortunately don't have the mini anymore.
Can you run Windows 10 to this PC?
Should be fine. You'd need to install it yourself. Not sure if the Win 11 key transfers to Win 10 as I haven't tried going that way.
@@Robtech I am just curious because no channel in YT showing how to run Windows 10 to this PC so I asked this question because honestly I don't like Windows 11 by the way I already subscribed to your YT channel and hopefully in the future you can show to your YT channel how run this PC in Windows 10 it is very helpful and informative to me and to others to see and with that I appreciated that you answer my question very well Thank you and more power to your YT channel
The drivers will definitely be compatible.
Thanks for the review. I bought one for Black Friday. Should I change any of the default BIOS settings?
By the way, my unit came with a 512 GB Intel 670p SSD. Is that better than the Kingston one?
No, you're good to go out of the box. It's a good substitute, but I haven't used it before. You can compare your score against mine with CrystalDiskBenchmark.
hi how is it now? is there any issue on the video?