MINISFORUM EliteMini UM780 XTX Mini PC Review - Powerful Ryzen Mini PC

VIDEO INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
00:42 - Price
00:56 - CPU, RAM, Storage & Upgradability
01:56 - Oculink Port
02:45 - Rear Ports
03:05 - Ethernet & Wi-Fi Performance
04:24 - Power
04:58 - Front Ports
05:11 - Top Lighting
05:48 - VESA Mount / Desktop Stand
06:05 - USB 4 Performance
07:14 - Internal NVME Speed Test
07:49 - Web Browsing & Youtube
08:35 - Browserbench Speedometer Test
08:44 - Video Editing
09:21 - Gaming: Red Dead Redemption 2, Doom Eternal, No Man's Sky
11:15 - 3DMark TimeSpy Benchmark & Stress Test
12:01 - Fan Noise
12:22 - Linux
12:51 - Conclusion

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[pdrg]

I've been running a minisforum mini pc (i5) for a few years now as my daily driver, still vry happy with it.

[davidprice]

Very helpful review and about the only one I've found that talks about running linux on this machine, thanks.

[asan]

Lon, Thank you for posting, and Merry Christmas.

[garynagle]

Nice compact machine. I suspect ces will have a slew of new versions for us, but for now this looks nice

[toxiccan]

The 8700G is dropping next quarter. It will include the 780M iGPU, and it will blow all other APUs out of the water, especially with good memory.

[vbostrom]

For what it's worth, RAM can be upgraded to 96 GB, not just 64 GB. One of the problems I have noticed in addition to poor wifi performance has exceptionally poor bluetooth range. It can get choppy with low bandwidth devices such as bluetooth headphones even at a range of 50 cm or less. For whatever reason, this is considerably improved if I disable one of the two onboard ethernet ports (GLAN2 in my case) in the BIOS. This might be related to a problem with the multiple PCIe 2.1 devices (the two realtek ethernet devices) talking to the SoCs PCIe 4.0 bus.

[hansme]

Bought my first Minisforum EM680 Mini PC AMD Ryzen 7 6800U last week and wow! It's even much smaller than this one (approx. Raspberry Pi size) with USB4, 32Gb Ram and 1Tb SSD. Very happy. Also the power supply (included) goes through one USB4 port.
I only hope the fan will survive, because I can't see how to replace it if needed. I wouldn't mind Minisforum to put a standard ventilator instead, even if it's a tiny bit larger, so I can always replace it by a Noctua fan.

[dktol]

Maybe the subpar wifi and usb4 performance was a windows driver issue. Did you try the same tests while running Linux (preferably with a recent kernel)?

[whirlian]

It does actually support being powered off the USB4 port! I have mine running off it right now. It seems to be finicky about which adapters it supports, as it only accepted my UGREEN Nexode 300W adapter’s top 140W port, but it also works with an Apple 87W power supply.

[richardremmele]

Just to add my two cents. I am not a gamer so there is that. I actually went through 3 of these minis looking for the right one at the right price. They all did the job at from $200 to $350. That included light video editing and streaming video while recording it using PlayOn plus all the normal stuff.

One thing I found was the new (at the time) Intel 100 and 200 processors are 1 Ghz while the 11 gen Neosway AC8 with a N5105 processor is 2.9 Ghz which at the time was $200. This was the best at the cost and ran at 100% at 2.9 while recording. So it did all my tasks but one at a time. Nomal/business computing multitasking or the Editing or the Recording of a Stream one at a time. That is still impressive for the cost. As I said I tried the Pentium 200 and the 1 ghz held it back.

But I finally went for a $350 11 gen i-7 11390H @3.4 Ghz with 16 GB of Ram (I could have used just 8 but that is what it came with) and 1 Tb SSD (M2 GMKtec) 4 x4 mini. So depending on you actual needs, you don't have to spend a lot to get a good system.

[JasonTaylor-poxc]

I own a couple MinisForum boxes - including the previous gen Venus series. Not the best for DIYers. They ship replacement feet because you will need them. Overall, not a bad little system once you get things setup.

[Urosaurus]

Thanks for this. Does the ram heatsink cover both sticks?

[coondogtheman]

I'm in the market for a new PC. If this is as far as technology has progressed I may take a look at something like this. 32GB of ram is more than enough ram for my needs but I'm glad it's upgradable.

[danielgriffith]

So I just returned this because of hardware issues. Was going to replace it with the same machine, but I think I will wait. That Tiger logo display thing is cool, but I suspect THIS will be the ONLY model that HAS it, since MINISFORUM has announced a newer model that will replace that logo display with a mini touch screen.

[IMDABROWN]

Good point thing only get better from here

[Akakakakak]

What is the um780 xtx's 780m igpu maximum TGP??

[Andykev]

Lon, Excellent review. Comparing your previous review on the Beelink SER7 against this Minisforum...the specs seem very similar. If you were buying either to keep, which would you recomment? Did one have better build quality or other feature to edge out the other? Thanks

[cward]

Lon, the affiliate link in the description does not seem to be working. Maybe it's just not working me but I don't want you to miss out on any referrals. Keep up the great work.

[Copernicus]

What is the idle power usage on Linux?

[GadgetyMV]

Measuring the fan noise would render a sub.