Seven Small (But Powerful) Mini-PCs, Reviewed

[Onus]

Although ASRock quality does not always seem consistent, I have had excellent results from them myself, including a very positive experience with getting an out-of-warranty mobo repaired with minimal hassles and expense. HardOCP just did a review of their Fatal1ty Z87 board, and they were impressed, giving it their Gold award: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/01/29/asrock_z87_killer_fatal1ty_motherboard_review/7

 

[Thorfkin]

Seven low power small form factor machines and not one with an AMD APU in it!? I swear this smells like Intel's doing. In small form factor integrated solutions it's the graphics processing power that limit how far you can take your machine not the CPU. AMD has a commanding lead in this area from a technical standpoint and has for the last two generations since their second-gen APU "trinity". Why is it the market's flooded with these Intel based solutions and almost none with some decent AMD APUs?

 

[vertexx]

Seven low power small form factor machines and not one with an AMD APU in it!? I swear this smells like Intel's doing. In small form factor integrated solutions it's the graphics processing power that limit how far you can take your machine not the CPU. AMD has a commanding lead in this area from a technical standpoint and has for the last two generations since their second-gen APU "trinity". Why is it the market's flooded with these Intel based solutions and almost none with some decent AMD APUs?

It's only Intel's doing in that Intel has invested in providing more innovative mini-PC specification (Thin Mini-ITX & NUC) to assist it's partners, while AMD has not. So don't blame Tom's or Intel, blame AMD for not executing on a broader strategy to help the adoption of its APUs.

Just a 5 minute canvas of the mini-PC suppliers reveals why there are no AMD builds in this article. Gigabyte has 2 of 15 mini-PC products based on AMD tech. For ASRock, it's 1 of 5, Acer 0 of 2, and Zotac, the most prolific of mini-PC builders has 6 of 39 models based on AMD. Additionally, by and large, these AMD models are buried in the product stack.

In order to be featured, AMD needs to work better with its partners to bring its product to market.

Also, it may be that AMD doesn't even want to play in this segment. On their website, under "Solutions we Enable", I couldn't even find mention of anything like a mini-PC. So, this may be by choice. It may not be a bad one either, as I think the application for these boxes is pretty limited.

 

[RedJaron]

Why is it the market's flooded with these Intel based solutions and almost none with some decent AMD APUs?

My guess: L3 cache and heat.

Small PCs like these are for business, enterprise, and niche productivity needs. You don't need a strong IGP to run Excel and Outlook. However having the faster and more efficient CPU with L3 cache makes a lot of difference when multitasking. The Intel chips in these boxes are running on a 15W TDP. Closest thing AMD has right now is the A6-5345M at 17W ( maybe with good engineering you could squeeze in the 19W A8-5545M. ) With the A6 you're only getting two threads where each of the Intel models here can handle four ( the A8 can also do four. ) Yes, the A6 and A8 can turbo up where the i3 can't, but their greater heat will also limit how high they can spin up. And they can't spin up enough to beat a turbo'd i5 or i7.

The one exception is the ASRock box that has a 37W laptop CPU paired with a discrete CPU, but this combo would decimate any APU on its own.

AMD would have to severely undercut Intel's prices in this segment to be competitive ( which could be interesting. ) But then I'd love to see how a Bay Trail fares against a mobile A6 as well.

 

[Simon Anderson]

I like the ASRock machine, but would be good if you had different HD options... Thinking an XBMCbuntu box with a 3TB drive would be good. Is that a 3.5" HD in there? Can't quite tell.

 

[Phillip Wager]

i want to get one to strap behind a touchscreen monitor to use as a family computer to use for a calendar, word processing leave it in the kitchen to use for internet video streaming and looking up recipes and stuff in the kitchen. these are great for office computers though especially where space is limited my last job at a customer service desk that was an island in the middle of a store we had 8 computers and even though they were thin desktop form factor they took up a LOT of space. we could have used the extra space for a much needed second printer for sure!

 

[BulkZerker]

Why did people vote down s997863? I'd kill for a mini pc that could actually play NWN 1 and/or the horde of DOS games.

I'm pretty sure any of these will fit the bill for old windows games like NWN 1. DOS based stuff has its own challenges, I don't know enough about dosbox emulators but I suspect these are more than powerful enough.

It's not being powerful enough that's the thing. It's connectivity, and the fact all of these in a "cheapest parts you can get" type setup are still going to set you back north of $400

 

[stevenrix]

I actually own the NUC D54250WYK with 16 gigz of ram and 1 Tb in mSATA. I essentially use it for virtualization projects. I chose this mini ITX format for the portability, it's small, you can bring it in your bag, and it's more comfortable than working from a laptop. The Core I5 Haswell is rather fast and it reminds me the 1st generation of Core I7 on laptops. That is all I needed, Core I3 is not powerful enough for my virtualization projects and the Core I5 makes the operations almost transparent. These tiny strange animals have a different marketing segment: the format for example allow them to put a video/audio system in your car, the footprint make them more discreet with less electricity for more power, I think it's a good way into the direction of the future of computer miniaturization. That said they are rather expensive for a barebone system and mine was bought for around $1200. For this price I could have most likely built my own mini ITX computer without the msata but with a higher footprint.I wish they could put 4 memory slots into these boxes and dual NIC and I would get rid of all my servers. There is also the new SOC NUC available online for around $130 as a barebone system right now, delivered only with 1 stick of memory but a slot to add a 2.5 inch drive which should be enough to surf the web and watch 1080P video. I'm not really with Intel but there is not that much on the market right now, so less competition means higher prices. Probably in a near future we will see more of these machines on the market with more interesting prices.

 

[Bondfc11]

Why no Xi3 entry?

 

[leonsim]

i Think i lost my comment and am too lazy to retype it...Please, it would be good to add in a audible sound review to all these (except the fanless unit), as i am actually planning to buy 1 of these soon, but the fanless model is not available in my area. These units all have only 1 laptop fan and my previous REVO's was very loud when it ramps up the cycle. had to pry open 1 side for more air circulation so that the sound is not that "pitchy"

 

[techguy911]

I don't like any of those in this article i bought a Lenovo Q190 with multimedia remote for same price as cheapest one reviewed.The remote has back light keyboard with optical thumb mouse amazing design can be used with 1 hand.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2-wSl6LR4Mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2DIa69HpVU

 

[techguy911]

Also if your going to buy an HTPC your not going to play BF4 your going to run xbmc and 1080p video so you don't need fast cpu just enough to handle 1080p video and 7.1 surround.Without a good remote they don't make good HTPC's and they must be very quiet most of those reviewed are quite noisy.

 

[kevith]

Good article, very interesting. BUT:Will you PLEASE stop these two super-annoyancies: 1: STOP the index from appearing when hovered over AND 2: PLEASE stop the "What will you read next", so I can read the comments undisturbed! Thanx.

 

[hart832]

I have 5 TVs each with a AMD E-350 mini ITX system that play full HD video & only consume 28w power driven solely by solar & battery. They are all loaded with Win8 & play modern UI games/online games fine. Cost me just USD270/unit with upgraded 120gb ssd. I don't see how these new scaled down NUCs is going to justify the higher price just to play HD video & online games since they all cannot provide high res legacy game play.

 

[Trachu]

helloThere is something wrong with the results of Gigabyte Brix GB-BXi7-4500, considering its procesor it should performa at the front. Especially game benchmarks are very slow, I would guess Dual channel configuration was not working at all... It would explain why GPU was so slow, while in theory it should be at the front.

 

[cobra5000]

Sorry, still too expensive for the performance you receive. If the Asrock cost half of what it does, I could start considering. I know that you are paying for the form factor but its just not worth it, yet.

 

[Trachu]

helloThere is something wrong with the results of Gigabyte Brix GB-BXi7-4500, considering its procesor it should performa at the front. Especially game benchmarks are very slow, I would guess Dual channel configuration was not working at all... It would explain why GPU was so slow, while in theory it should be at the front.

 

[jenniferrhicks]

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[TheinsanegamerN]

you know...correct me if i am wrong, but that graphics card in the asrock is slotted, not soldered. that looks exactly like a MXM slot, which would make that gpu upgradeable....if that is the case, the asrock machine just became way more desirable!

 

[Donald_AV]

Did I miss a requirement? Why no mention of the I3 company?http://www.xi3.com/

 

[RedJaron]

Did I miss a requirement? Why no mention of the I3 company?http://www.xi3.com/

Perhaps they declined to make a submission?

 

[Sonofsnaga]

Could you comment why some other very small factor pc were not included in the review (for example Lenovo ThinkCentre M73 Tiny). I understand the focus on barebones but you made an exception for the Acer system.

 

[Onus]

As RedJaron pointed out, perhaps one was not submitted?

 

[GoremanX]

Fit-PC anyone? Same small size, fanless, better specs, dual channel memory, and miniPCIe slot. Why aren't they ever included in these comparisons? I'd love to see how they perform against these compared products.

 

[justwannasaysomething]

How about the power consumption of the ASRock Vision, when the AMD 8850m gpu is set off? Through AMD Enduro/Catalyst technology it should be possible to make use of the integrated intel graphics only while e.g. doing some office stuff. Thus, power consumption should drop to levels seen among the other machines. A pity that they don't say something about that in the article.