You can get a M2 Mini for $499 on sale. It's superior to this in just about every way. Even if you upgrade the RAM for $200, it's still better than this. Faster CPU, faster GPU, has AI inference, faster RAM, significantly lower power requirements.
Well, yeah, obviously the $499 M2 mini is cheaper. It's a weaker PC than this, in every single metric. It only has 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, both of which cannot be upgraded later on. It's CPU and GPU are weaker than a 7840HS. To top it off M2 runs less efficiently and hotter.
Which is exactly why no one is buying it, and Apple had to halt M2 production.
The mac mini has a 256GB SSD. Probably doesn't really need the ram upgrade. But...upgrading the SSD to 1 TB is $400. And not sure what you are saying about the M2 running less efficiently. Mac Mini is a fine option imo. But I would much rather have the GTR7 for a lot of reasons. Would be great for a streaming PC and console replacement for older games.
* 8TB SSD for 320 Euro now. Or 2 * NVME for 320. Apple asks for 256GB "upgrade": 230 Euro * 8GB DDR5 5600 Memory costs for 25 Euro. Apple asks for 8GB "upgrade: 230 Euro.
Insane ...that memory that Apple uses is just standard DDR5 memory, nothing special about it beyond being placed in quad channel configuration.
Why would anyone want to use iOS. My last company did and compared to Windows it is trash. Never thought I would say that. Some much of the functionality requires store bought add ones.
Games, productivity or anything else the VAST majority of the world does when they don't have to run on a proprietary, non-upgradable glorified mobile phone. This Miniforum is superior in EVERY metric mate, so take your fan boy rubbish elsewhere.
"Glorified mobile phone" despite this not being in a phone, and the reason the AMD chip isn't is because its literally incapable of being put in such a form factor due to the power and thermal limits still exceeding what a phone could deal with. And the M2 chip is still competitive enough that its not ridiculous to compare them.
There's definitely flaws (and plenty of legitimate criticisms of Apple/Apple product), but anyone acting like there aren't flaws with the PC side is just delusional. Acting like you can't do anything more than run a few proprietary apps on Apple stuff is so ridiculously nonsensical at this point that you really need to look in the mirror. Yes, lemurbutton is ridiculously nonsensical, but going the total opposite direction is just as pointless and biased.
Heck, is no one going to call out the proprietary power connector on this? That alone stopped me from considering this over its competition, and is just absurd in this market space.
Further, Apple could make the Mini even smaller (there is a YouTube where someone does exactly that, I think it ended up roughly 3/5 the size, maybe even smaller) with no real performance loss. That'd put it roughly 1/4 the size of this box. Try putting Phoenix in such and the M2 would probably outperform it.
Roflol, so ARM architecture isn't synonymous with mobile technologies? Literally accounts for over 95% of ARM sales, so my statement about it being a glorified mobile phone isn't far off. The M2 Chip is not even close to be competitive, with cpu performance difference from Tomshardware - "The Ryzen 7 7840U was anywhere from 15-71% faster than the M2" and The Ryzen 7 7840U was anywhere from 35 - 180% faster than the M2" in graphics testing. So again, if it wasn't for the stupid propietry OS optimised for the iPhone reject chip, it wouldnt even be a comparison.
As for size, again your lying about a mac mini being 1/4 the size. M2 Mini - 197mm x 197mm x 36mm, this GTR7 box is 168mmx120mmx49mm, so cut the crap there. This thing is roughly the same size as the Mac Mini. You complain about design choices, well you literally have hundreds of designs for tens of companies to choose from, each with different hardware (like use a DIN plug is a big deal, but fanboyz have to clutch at straws), all of which can be upgraded and user repaired. Want more RAM or storage on a M2, go buy a new PC.
Want freedom of choice to run any application and game, go windows. If you go apple, pray it works if its not on the very specific optimised for MacOS list, and good thing most games don't run in it becuase the god awful IGPU of the M2 won't be able to produce much more then a slide show, unless I look to double or quadruple the price and look at M2 Pro or ultra equiped M2 machine, which will be roughly 5-10 x the price is this machine...
So again, calling you and your "facts" as fanboyism not grrounded in any reality. Especially stuoid when you comment on a single PC manafacturer design choices knowing full well that PC allows choice across multiple manafacturers while Apple if wholly proprietary. Stupid argument across the board.
The M2 has 4x P-cores and 4x E-cores. Is that really faster than 8x dual-threaded Zen 4 cores?
> has AI inference
Phoenix features AMD's new "Ryzen AI" accelerator. I don't know how they compare, but if you're running Windows or Linux, you'll probably find AMD's solution better supported than Apple's.
I think that's the key. If you *want* to run MacOS, then you'll do better with the M2 mini. If you'd rather run Linux or Windows, then it's really no contest. Recent benchmarks of the M2 running Linux have shown that its Linux support has a long ways to go, before it's remotely competitive.
keep in mind lemurbutton is paid by apple to post how great their products are, while posting no proof or anything. you wouldnt want him to get punished by his apple overlords, would you???
Not a paid shill, I would think, but someone just having fun with the bags of hammers that read Anandtech that fall for trolling every. single. time.
Wouldn't you keep that up if you didn't need to change tactics and could "outsmart" your audience while gaining imaginary internet attention to feel good about yourself?
Apple doesn't need to pay anyone, nor would they have someone posting in such a manner even if they did, let alone on a niche PC tech website that's long past its glory days.
The 7840hs seems to be - on par for single-core work - 1.5 to 2x faster for multi-core - 1.5x faster for graphics - also it takes more and/or upgradeable RAM, storage, I/O, OSes...
Are youj high, where in the world is a M2 faster then this 😂😂😂😂. All the benchmarks show this destroying M2 in every way, it can be upgraded, repaired and run windows. Another apple fanboy 😂😂😂
That 499 price is true for the basic model no one in their right mind wants, but the discount drops once you try to add on the other wants. The 16gb model is discounted 50, but that still makes it a $250 upgrade. If you want more disk, you're back to the 599 msrp plus the Apple charge. If you want 10gb over the weak 1gb, you're definitely paying msrp.
The 5800u is a not quite at the 7840, but $350 for it with 32gb, 2x2.5gb and 500gb (replaceable) ssd is a much better docker box than the apple could ever hope to be.
Would be nice to see a build quality review and comparison between this and the SimplyNUC (Moonstone), Morefine (M600), and MinisForum (UM790 Pro) NUC's.
Yes! Also, I really want these guys to release them barebones, so I can put in my own RAM/SSD (without wasting money on the included ones). I got in touch with Morefine, and they told me they are no longer releasing the M600 barebones and only as a full kit now (if you check their website, you see this is true).
"One of the interesting aspects of the I/O ports is the presence of an audio jack in both front and rear panels. Beelink has designed this in such a way that the connection of a headset of speakers to the rear jack automatically disables the front one."
Does that mean you cant output different audio streams to both, for example game audio through the speakers in the back and chat audio through headphones on the front. Most MB allow this.
Disabling the front jack seems really odd. I would have a pair of speakers connected to the rear jack as the default audio. When I occasionally plug in a headset to the front, I want to use that. I would hope that you could still choose which to use without unplugging anything in case I don't like their default behavior.
Yeah I think it'd be preferable for the inverse (i.e. mute the rear when the front is detected), or for it to be able to be configured so it could do mic input from one with audio output from the other. Its probably easier for them to do this though. But then there's options if you use an external audio via USB (or probably Bluetooth as well).
PC motherboards use separate audio chips for front and rear ports generally, and thus its easy for Windows/games to then be configured to output different for each one. I think there might be some external gaming audio boxes that could allow this as well (headset plugged in managing just chat whilst outputting game audio to speakers), so it could come down to drivers (or maybe it auto-configures).
The Crucial isn't a bad SSD if your needs align with it's capabilities. One place it completely falls down is large writes: I copied a ~60GB game to a Beelink SEI12 from a USB-C connected SSD, rather than let it be downloaded, and the pSLC cache was exhausted pretty quickly. At that point the performance tanked to somewhere around 40MBps, down about 90% from peak speed of about 500MBps.
For normal day-to-day usage, you probably won't see much of a speed penalty, though.
@AnandTech: Were the 3DMark Port Royal benchmarks rerun on all of the older systems? Because the DeskMeet B660 system seems way off. The Radeon RX 6400 and Radeon 680M iGPU are actually the same in specs: RDNA-2, 12 Ray Accelerators, 32 ROPs, 48 TMUs, 768 Shading Units. It should, in theory, be RX 6400 just ahead of Ryzen 9 6900HX which in turn should be just ahead of Ryzen 7 7735U. And then the latest Ryzen 7 7840HUS, with its newer and higher-clocked RDNA-3 Radeon 780M iGPU, should be on top of the charts still.
Unlike CPU or GPU reviews, for mini-PCs, we do not update the results in every review because most of the mini-PCs are loaner samples and go back to the manufacturer.
The numbers presented in the graph for the Deskmeet B660 are from January 2023, using Adrenalin GPU drivers that were the latest in December 2022. FWIW, 3DMark also has online score submissions from different users searchable at www.3dmark.com/search
For RX 6400, Port Royal overall scores range from 126 to 558 (seems to depend on the CPU also), with an average of 252
For 680M, they range from 1081 to 1415 with an average of 1026.
In the above context, the scores we have graphed (427 and 1212) are entirely plausible.
It is also possible that recent driver releases might have improved scores, but our policy for mini-PC reviews is that we carry forward the scores from the time of the original review. Every few years, we purge the database and move to the latest versions of the benchmarks and also update the OS to the latest stable (for example, we are currently using Win 11 21H2 with the latest updates, but not 22H2). At that time, we choose a set of PCs that we still have in hand, re-bench them and use the newly obtained scores with the new benchmark version / OS for comparisons starting from that point onwards.
What do you mean? "Windows is unable to present a 4K UI as a result, and the desktop resolution remains fixed at 1080p." Does that mean my PC monitor cannot be full 4K resolution? That's nuts!
Please re-read the context of that statement - it is when UMA Buffer Size is set to 'Auto'. By default, it is set to 4G by Beelink. In that setting, there is no trouble outputting 4K to the monitor.
The statement was made as a feedback for Beelink to ensure that BIOS parameters are labeled in a logical and user-friendly manner.
That puny fan looks like an AliExpress keychain replica of what you really wanted to order..... To be honest they should give you this if you pick 35W TDP and 65W should have raiser and good Noctua slim 120mm fan underneath. I might seriously consider this, but that fan is seriously under powered for what they put in this box.
The fan might be underpowered, but the real issue is the SSD heatsink. It doesn't cover the entire length, and the pads don't make good contact with the controller. I don't think a 120mm would fit. 92mm slim maybe?
I think something like an Airjet cooler would do wonders in here. Particularly with the RAM.
The lower SODIMM stick definitely needs airflow, as seen in the 10C temperature difference in our stress test.
As for the SSD, I don't think it is much of a concern because the segment not covered by the heatsink is directly under the system fan - so it gets plenty of airflow.
Could the thermals be better? Absolutely. But, would I trade the fan for an extended SSD heatsink? Probably not, because that would mean sacrificing airflow for the RAM (there is not much place in the internal shroud to place the fan otherwise, without affecting airflow to either the RAM or the SSD).
The fan shown in the photo is for the RAM and the SSD (please take a look at the picture in the thermal characteristics section for more context on where that fan goes in the overall system).
The fan behind the heat spreaders connected to the vapor chamber is not pictured in the article, but available in the cross-sectional view on Beelink's product page:
"pro" vs. "non-pro" in APU or Ryzen G parlance used to indicate support for ECC RAM, which for some reason was *not* included for the APUs vs the "normal" Ryzens.
So my question here is: does the Pro variant (with a Ryzen 7 7845) support ECC RAM?
Because that's pretty much the only remaining item on my wish lilst for this class of machine (well, I'd rather have them as Mini-ITX, but that doesn't seem to happen).
Just in case somebody else wonders: Pro vs. non-Pro evidently is no longer a differentitator for ECC support on the Phoenix series APUs. It's all in the "socket" or rather package; FP7 and FP8 do not support ECC while FP7r2 *can*, if the platform does, independent of the particular chips (Ryzen 3 vs 9) or the "Pro": each chip is available in each "socket" or form factor...
And to muddy the waters even further, you can't tell the "socket" from the branding/model, I supposed there is a part number that will tell you but for a device like this, you'd mostly have to hope that the vendor will tell you.... fat chance, I'd say from past experience.
And looking at the *5 parts, I noticed that for Phoenix this is used to indicated the desktop die derived high-TDP mobile parts using the FL1 "socket": while the desktop chips generally support ECC, these mobile workstation parts absolutely do not, most likely because the FL1 "socket" otherwise would have required a couple of extra traces...
Sometimes I'd like to have a word with AMD's cost cutters, beause they keep cutting into vital flesh and kill entire market niches with their excess.
Digging further (sorry), the availability of DDR5 sockets seems to indicate FP7r2: FP7 and FP8 seem to be exclusively (soldered) LPDDR5.
There are SO-DIMM 32GB, DDR5-4800, CL40-39-39, ECC, on-die ECC modules available from Kingston which are listed as dual-rank x8, while AMD lists "4x2R" support...
Ganesh if you happen to have some ECC DDR5 SO-DIMMs available I'd be really thankful for a test!
And the Dragon Range (desktop derived) FL1 "socket" parts definitely do not support LPDDR5,only (SO-)DIMMs but still no ECC....
I bought one of these with the 7940HS via Aliexpress (679 gbp) in July after the review in ServeTheHome. It arrived in 2 weeks, same spec as this review except the 7940HS and mine is grey. I added an extra 2Tb Samsung 990 Pro SSD. To my surprise on first boot it has Windows 11 Pro installed. I gave it a CPU bound process to do that I expected to take 2 weeks given that is how long it would take on my 4 year old 3900X 12 core desktop. It completed in 10 days. During that time it was 100% CPU all cores. Yes the fan is quite noisy, but there was no throttling. In my opinion it's a great little box, and I've changed to use this as my main dev machne.
I am consider something small and powerful for gen 7 game emulation. can this beelink handle the gen7 stuff? Also i would really like to install steamOS via holoiso. Does anyone know if this GPU plays nice with holo? thanks
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lemurbutton - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
You can get a M2 Mini for $499 on sale. It's superior to this in just about every way. Even if you upgrade the RAM for $200, it's still better than this. Faster CPU, faster GPU, has AI inference, faster RAM, significantly lower power requirements.meacupla - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Well, yeah, obviously the $499 M2 mini is cheaper.It's a weaker PC than this, in every single metric.
It only has 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, both of which cannot be upgraded later on.
It's CPU and GPU are weaker than a 7840HS. To top it off M2 runs less efficiently and hotter.
Which is exactly why no one is buying it, and Apple had to halt M2 production.
ingwe - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
The mac mini has a 256GB SSD. Probably doesn't really need the ram upgrade. But...upgrading the SSD to 1 TB is $400. And not sure what you are saying about the M2 running less efficiently. Mac Mini is a fine option imo. But I would much rather have the GTR7 for a lot of reasons. Would be great for a streaming PC and console replacement for older games.PixyMisa - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
You can buy two 4TB SSDs for $400.Benjiro29 - Monday, November 6, 2023 - link
Hell, you can buy:* 8TB SSD for 320 Euro now. Or 2 * NVME for 320. Apple asks for 256GB "upgrade": 230 Euro
* 8GB DDR5 5600 Memory costs for 25 Euro. Apple asks for 8GB "upgrade: 230 Euro.
Insane ...that memory that Apple uses is just standard DDR5 memory, nothing special about it beyond being placed in quad channel configuration.
qwertymac93 - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Does it run Windows 11 pro?bji - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Why in the world would anyone *want to* though?TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Point taken, but so long as apple keeps doing its walled garden BS people will continue to rely on other OSes.ActionJ26 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Why would anyone want to use iOS. My last company did and compared to Windows it is trash. Never thought I would say that. Some much of the functionality requires store bought add ones.darkswordsman17 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Er, Mac Mini runs MacOS, not iOS.Gm2502 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Games, productivity or anything else the VAST majority of the world does when they don't have to run on a proprietary, non-upgradable glorified mobile phone. This Miniforum is superior in EVERY metric mate, so take your fan boy rubbish elsewhere.darkswordsman17 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
"Glorified mobile phone" despite this not being in a phone, and the reason the AMD chip isn't is because its literally incapable of being put in such a form factor due to the power and thermal limits still exceeding what a phone could deal with. And the M2 chip is still competitive enough that its not ridiculous to compare them.There's definitely flaws (and plenty of legitimate criticisms of Apple/Apple product), but anyone acting like there aren't flaws with the PC side is just delusional. Acting like you can't do anything more than run a few proprietary apps on Apple stuff is so ridiculously nonsensical at this point that you really need to look in the mirror. Yes, lemurbutton is ridiculously nonsensical, but going the total opposite direction is just as pointless and biased.
Heck, is no one going to call out the proprietary power connector on this? That alone stopped me from considering this over its competition, and is just absurd in this market space.
Further, Apple could make the Mini even smaller (there is a YouTube where someone does exactly that, I think it ended up roughly 3/5 the size, maybe even smaller) with no real performance loss. That'd put it roughly 1/4 the size of this box. Try putting Phoenix in such and the M2 would probably outperform it.
Gm2502 - Saturday, August 26, 2023 - link
Roflol, so ARM architecture isn't synonymous with mobile technologies? Literally accounts for over 95% of ARM sales, so my statement about it being a glorified mobile phone isn't far off. The M2 Chip is not even close to be competitive, with cpu performance difference from Tomshardware - "The Ryzen 7 7840U was anywhere from 15-71% faster than the M2" and The Ryzen 7 7840U was anywhere from 35 - 180% faster than the M2" in graphics testing. So again, if it wasn't for the stupid propietry OS optimised for the iPhone reject chip, it wouldnt even be a comparison.As for size, again your lying about a mac mini being 1/4 the size. M2 Mini - 197mm x 197mm x 36mm, this GTR7 box is 168mmx120mmx49mm, so cut the crap there. This thing is roughly the same size as the Mac Mini. You complain about design choices, well you literally have hundreds of designs for tens of companies to choose from, each with different hardware (like use a DIN plug is a big deal, but fanboyz have to clutch at straws), all of which can be upgraded and user repaired. Want more RAM or storage on a M2, go buy a new PC.
Want freedom of choice to run any application and game, go windows. If you go apple, pray it works if its not on the very specific optimised for MacOS list, and good thing most games don't run in it becuase the god awful IGPU of the M2 won't be able to produce much more then a slide show, unless I look to double or quadruple the price and look at M2 Pro or ultra equiped M2 machine, which will be roughly 5-10 x the price is this machine...
So again, calling you and your "facts" as fanboyism not grrounded in any reality. Especially stuoid when you comment on a single PC manafacturer design choices knowing full well that PC allows choice across multiple manafacturers while Apple if wholly proprietary. Stupid argument across the board.
Samus - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
You can upgrade it to Windows 10 and it'll be solid.mode_13h - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
The M2 has 4x P-cores and 4x E-cores. Is that really faster than 8x dual-threaded Zen 4 cores?> has AI inference
Phoenix features AMD's new "Ryzen AI" accelerator. I don't know how they compare, but if you're running Windows or Linux, you'll probably find AMD's solution better supported than Apple's.
I think that's the key. If you *want* to run MacOS, then you'll do better with the M2 mini. If you'd rather run Linux or Windows, then it's really no contest. Recent benchmarks of the M2 running Linux have shown that its Linux support has a long ways to go, before it's remotely competitive.
https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-zen4-mobi...
dontlistentome - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Have you any concept of how bored we are of these comments about Macs?Qasar - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
keep in mind lemurbutton is paid by apple to post how great their products are, while posting no proof or anything.you wouldnt want him to get punished by his apple overlords, would you???
bji - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Do you have proof of that or are you just talking out of your ass?Qasar - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
have you seen his other posts ? nothing but pro apple, amd and intel suck and cant compete with m1/m2/m3/ etc on any levelhe mostly talks out of his ass when it comes to apple
PeachNCream - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Not a paid shill, I would think, but someone just having fun with the bags of hammers that read Anandtech that fall for trolling every. single. time.Wouldn't you keep that up if you didn't need to change tactics and could "outsmart" your audience while gaining imaginary internet attention to feel good about yourself?
darkswordsman17 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Apple doesn't need to pay anyone, nor would they have someone posting in such a manner even if they did, let alone on a niche PC tech website that's long past its glory days.1_rick - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
"It's superior to this in just about every way."Not if I don't want to run MacOS.
StormyParis - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
The 7840hs seems to be- on par for single-core work
- 1.5 to 2x faster for multi-core
- 1.5x faster for graphics
- also it takes more and/or upgradeable RAM, storage, I/O, OSes...
https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m2-vs-...
Gm2502 - Sunday, August 27, 2023 - link
Are youj high, where in the world is a M2 faster then this 😂😂😂😂. All the benchmarks show this destroying M2 in every way, it can be upgraded, repaired and run windows. Another apple fanboy 😂😂😂bsd228 - Monday, August 28, 2023 - link
That 499 price is true for the basic model no one in their right mind wants, but the discount drops once you try to add on the other wants. The 16gb model is discounted 50, but that still makes it a $250 upgrade. If you want more disk, you're back to the 599 msrp plus the Apple charge. If you want 10gb over the weak 1gb, you're definitely paying msrp.The 5800u is a not quite at the 7840, but $350 for it with 32gb, 2x2.5gb and 500gb (replaceable) ssd is a much better docker box than the apple could ever hope to be.
BangkokTom - Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - link
...takes M2 mini apart, oh purposely bricked (this is a joke with Crapple's fix it yourself policy by the way)[email protected] - Friday, September 1, 2023 - link
Ignore this person. Just a shil for the Apple monopoly.Threska - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Kind of funny in a way. We've gone from obsessing with big computers to seeing how much computing we can squeeze into as small a space as possible.5080 - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Would be nice to see a build quality review and comparison between this and the SimplyNUC (Moonstone), Morefine (M600), and MinisForum (UM790 Pro) NUC's.NextGen_Gamer - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Yes! Also, I really want these guys to release them barebones, so I can put in my own RAM/SSD (without wasting money on the included ones). I got in touch with Morefine, and they told me they are no longer releasing the M600 barebones and only as a full kit now (if you check their website, you see this is true).ActionJ26 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Go with Minisforum um790 it is $519 barebonedhaplo602 - Monday, August 28, 2023 - link
that and tested as a SteamOS platform as well ...29a - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
"One of the interesting aspects of the I/O ports is the presence of an audio jack in both front and rear panels. Beelink has designed this in such a way that the connection of a headset of speakers to the rear jack automatically disables the front one."Does that mean you cant output different audio streams to both, for example game audio through the speakers in the back and chat audio through headphones on the front. Most MB allow this.
ganeshts - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Can you give me some MB examples that allow this? I want to check their hardware audio path.As per Beelink's user manual, the disabling of the front jack is the expected behavior when the rear jack has a connected sink.
UserZ - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Disabling the front jack seems really odd. I would have a pair of speakers connected to the rear jack as the default audio. When I occasionally plug in a headset to the front, I want to use that. I would hope that you could still choose which to use without unplugging anything in case I don't like their default behavior.darkswordsman17 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Yeah I think it'd be preferable for the inverse (i.e. mute the rear when the front is detected), or for it to be able to be configured so it could do mic input from one with audio output from the other. Its probably easier for them to do this though. But then there's options if you use an external audio via USB (or probably Bluetooth as well).darkswordsman17 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
PC motherboards use separate audio chips for front and rear ports generally, and thus its easy for Windows/games to then be configured to output different for each one. I think there might be some external gaming audio boxes that could allow this as well (headset plugged in managing just chat whilst outputting game audio to speakers), so it could come down to drivers (or maybe it auto-configures).1_rick - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
The Crucial isn't a bad SSD if your needs align with it's capabilities. One place it completely falls down is large writes: I copied a ~60GB game to a Beelink SEI12 from a USB-C connected SSD, rather than let it be downloaded, and the pSLC cache was exhausted pretty quickly. At that point the performance tanked to somewhere around 40MBps, down about 90% from peak speed of about 500MBps.For normal day-to-day usage, you probably won't see much of a speed penalty, though.
NextGen_Gamer - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
@AnandTech: Were the 3DMark Port Royal benchmarks rerun on all of the older systems? Because the DeskMeet B660 system seems way off. The Radeon RX 6400 and Radeon 680M iGPU are actually the same in specs: RDNA-2, 12 Ray Accelerators, 32 ROPs, 48 TMUs, 768 Shading Units. It should, in theory, be RX 6400 just ahead of Ryzen 9 6900HX which in turn should be just ahead of Ryzen 7 7735U. And then the latest Ryzen 7 7840HUS, with its newer and higher-clocked RDNA-3 Radeon 780M iGPU, should be on top of the charts still.ganeshts - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Unlike CPU or GPU reviews, for mini-PCs, we do not update the results in every review because most of the mini-PCs are loaner samples and go back to the manufacturer.The numbers presented in the graph for the Deskmeet B660 are from January 2023, using Adrenalin GPU drivers that were the latest in December 2022. FWIW, 3DMark also has online score submissions from different users searchable at www.3dmark.com/search
For RX 6400, Port Royal overall scores range from 126 to 558 (seems to depend on the CPU also), with an average of 252
For 680M, they range from 1081 to 1415 with an average of 1026.
In the above context, the scores we have graphed (427 and 1212) are entirely plausible.
It is also possible that recent driver releases might have improved scores, but our policy for mini-PC reviews is that we carry forward the scores from the time of the original review. Every few years, we purge the database and move to the latest versions of the benchmarks and also update the OS to the latest stable (for example, we are currently using Win 11 21H2 with the latest updates, but not 22H2). At that time, we choose a set of PCs that we still have in hand, re-bench them and use the newly obtained scores with the new benchmark version / OS for comparisons starting from that point onwards.
holymaniac1 - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
What do you mean? "Windows is unable to present a 4K UI as a result, and the desktop resolution remains fixed at 1080p."Does that mean my PC monitor cannot be full 4K resolution? That's nuts!
ganeshts - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Please re-read the context of that statement - it is when UMA Buffer Size is set to 'Auto'. By default, it is set to 4G by Beelink. In that setting, there is no trouble outputting 4K to the monitor.The statement was made as a feedback for Beelink to ensure that BIOS parameters are labeled in a logical and user-friendly manner.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
I hope the Bee in the name isn't about the noise from the fan in this thing. I didn't see any mention of that but perhaps I missed it.mode_13h - Saturday, August 26, 2023 - link
Good question. STH reviewed the same unit and had fairly positive things to say about its noise profile and levels:https://www.servethehome.com/beelink-gtr7-changes-...
Sne4ky - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Does anyone have info if it’s support external gpu?And is this desktop or mobile cpu? So later on the cpu can be swapped for another?
meacupla - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
It can do external GPU over USB4 or NVMe to occulink/PCIe adapterIt's a laptop CPU, and it's not user replaceable.
deil - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
That puny fan looks like an AliExpress keychain replica of what you really wanted to order.....To be honest they should give you this if you pick 35W TDP and 65W should have raiser and good Noctua slim 120mm fan underneath.
I might seriously consider this, but that fan is seriously under powered for what they put in this box.
meacupla - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
The fan might be underpowered, but the real issue is the SSD heatsink. It doesn't cover the entire length, and the pads don't make good contact with the controller.I don't think a 120mm would fit. 92mm slim maybe?
I think something like an Airjet cooler would do wonders in here. Particularly with the RAM.
ganeshts - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
The lower SODIMM stick definitely needs airflow, as seen in the 10C temperature difference in our stress test.As for the SSD, I don't think it is much of a concern because the segment not covered by the heatsink is directly under the system fan - so it gets plenty of airflow.
Could the thermals be better? Absolutely. But, would I trade the fan for an extended SSD heatsink? Probably not, because that would mean sacrificing airflow for the RAM (there is not much place in the internal shroud to place the fan otherwise, without affecting airflow to either the RAM or the SSD).
meacupla - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Honestly, I think they should switch over to CAMM. Lower Z height, and don't have to worry about blocked airflow.ganeshts - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
The fan shown in the photo is for the RAM and the SSD (please take a look at the picture in the thermal characteristics section for more context on where that fan goes in the overall system).The fan behind the heat spreaders connected to the vapor chamber is not pictured in the article, but available in the cross-sectional view on Beelink's product page:
https://img.bee-link.com/media/upload/5/o2/5o29ppo...
It is a typical notebook fan, and combined with the vapor chamber, it is effective enough to handle the 65W cTDP setting.
abufrejoval - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
"pro" vs. "non-pro" in APU or Ryzen G parlance used to indicate support for ECC RAM, which for some reason was *not* included for the APUs vs the "normal" Ryzens.So my question here is: does the Pro variant (with a Ryzen 7 7845) support ECC RAM?
Because that's pretty much the only remaining item on my wish lilst for this class of machine (well, I'd rather have them as Mini-ITX, but that doesn't seem to happen).
abufrejoval - Monday, August 28, 2023 - link
Just in case somebody else wonders: Pro vs. non-Pro evidently is no longer a differentitator for ECC support on the Phoenix series APUs. It's all in the "socket" or rather package; FP7 and FP8 do not support ECC while FP7r2 *can*, if the platform does, independent of the particular chips (Ryzen 3 vs 9) or the "Pro": each chip is available in each "socket" or form factor...And to muddy the waters even further, you can't tell the "socket" from the branding/model, I supposed there is a part number that will tell you but for a device like this, you'd mostly have to hope that the vendor will tell you.... fat chance, I'd say from past experience.
And looking at the *5 parts, I noticed that for Phoenix this is used to indicated the desktop die derived high-TDP mobile parts using the FL1 "socket": while the desktop chips generally support ECC, these mobile workstation parts absolutely do not, most likely because the FL1 "socket" otherwise would have required a couple of extra traces...
Sometimes I'd like to have a word with AMD's cost cutters, beause they keep cutting into vital flesh and kill entire market niches with their excess.
abufrejoval - Monday, August 28, 2023 - link
Digging further (sorry), the availability of DDR5 sockets seems to indicate FP7r2: FP7 and FP8 seem to be exclusively (soldered) LPDDR5.There are SO-DIMM 32GB, DDR5-4800, CL40-39-39, ECC, on-die ECC modules available from Kingston which are listed as dual-rank x8, while AMD lists "4x2R" support...
Ganesh if you happen to have some ECC DDR5 SO-DIMMs available I'd be really thankful for a test!
And the Dragon Range (desktop derived) FL1 "socket" parts definitely do not support LPDDR5,only (SO-)DIMMs but still no ECC....
jepo - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
I bought one of these with the 7940HS via Aliexpress (679 gbp) in July after the review in ServeTheHome. It arrived in 2 weeks, same spec as this review except the 7940HS and mine is grey. I added an extra 2Tb Samsung 990 Pro SSD. To my surprise on first boot it has Windows 11 Pro installed. I gave it a CPU bound process to do that I expected to take 2 weeks given that is how long it would take on my 4 year old 3900X 12 core desktop. It completed in 10 days. During that time it was 100% CPU all cores. Yes the fan is quite noisy, but there was no throttling. In my opinion it's a great little box, and I've changed to use this as my main dev machne.shiromar - Monday, August 28, 2023 - link
I am consider something small and powerful for gen 7 game emulation. can this beelink handle the gen7 stuff?Also i would really like to install steamOS via holoiso. Does anyone know if this GPU plays nice with holo?
thanks