Mini PCs 2023 - any good?

[TanKianW]

Ryzen 7 7840HS
Intel i9-13900HK

Same price, buy which one? ​

Anything 13th/14th gen Intel I will skip. Will just get 7840HS.

Personally I gotten 3x of these (either the 16 core variant or similar), one for running some testlab stuff on a hypervisor like Proxmox, one for running Ceph storage with multiple SSDs for a hyper-converged test setup, one as a living room "steam machine" running emulations and my steam library on Bazzite (Fedora Silver Blue).

If you intend to self configure with lots memory, suggest you do that quick. Memory prices are rising fast.​

 

[windwaver]

Anything 13th/14th gen Intel I will skip. Will just get 7840HS.

Personally I gotten 3x of these (either the 16 core variant or similar), one for running some testlab stuff on a hypervisor like Proxmox, one for running Ceph storage with multiple SSDs for a hyper-converged test setup, one as a living room "steam machine" running emulations and my steam library on Bazzite (Fedora Silver Blue).

If you intend to self configure with lots memory, suggest you do that quick. Memory prices are rising fast.​

How about Ryzen 7 8745HS?

 

[iceblendedchoc]

How about Ryzen 7 8745HS?

just slightly faster in multi core but slightly slower in single core but if the price is the same then take this instead. but if the cost is $100 more , not worth it

 

[windwaver]

Bought the Ryzen 7 7840HS 32GB 1TB for S$553.65.

Finally can replace my 10 year old laptop

 

[windwaver]

just slightly faster in multi core but slightly slower in single core but if the price is the same then take this instead. but if the cost is $100 more , not worth it

$40.35 difference

Bought the 7840HS partly because of OCuLink, the 8745HS comes with 24GB RAM instead of 32GB.

 

[normality78]

$40.35 difference

Bought the 7840HS partly because of OCuLink, the 8745HS comes with 24GB RAM instead of 32GB.

Beelink?

 

[iceblendedchoc]

$40.35 difference

Bought the 7840HS partly because of OCuLink, the 8745HS comes with 24GB RAM instead of 32GB.

Oculink will be useful when you decide to squeeze more life out of it with a gpu

 

[NightRaven49]

How about Ryzen 7 8745HS?

$40.35 difference

Bought the 7840HS partly because of OCuLink, the 8745HS comes with 24GB RAM instead of 32GB.

heng u never top up for the 8745hs, literally just a rebranded 7840hs it is actually worse with a lower boost clock for both cpu (4.9ghz vs 5.1ghz) and gpu (2.6ghz vs 2.7ghz). it has to be cheaper to be worth considering. 8845hs at least got npu, but still hard to say if worth any top up.

 

[windwaver]

heng u never top up for the 8745hs, literally just a rebranded 7840hs. it has to be cheaper to be worth considering. 8845hs at least got npu, but still hard to say if worth any top up.

Wow, heng ah .

Is there an easy way to transfer all my browser, app settings, android drivers, phone drivers, etc from my 10 year old laptop to the new mini pc?

 

[windwaver]

Seems like more worth buying 2TB drives compared to 1TB.

 

[xiaofan]

Seems like more worth buying 2TB drives compared to 1TB.

Looks like your budget very flexible.

 

[xiaofan]

For higher budget, I will actually look at Mac Mini M4 myself, base model 16GB/256 GB at S$849.

Now I am using Mac Mini M1 (base model 8GB/256GB) and it is still working very well. Previously I used Mac Mini 2011 from 2011 to 2018 (base model 2GB RAM and 500GB Mechanical HDD, with RAM DIY upgrade to 8GB).

 

[windwaver]

Oh Mac Mini, I didn't check it out.

BTW, any 2TB 2280 drives to recommend? Mini pc came with 1TB.

 

[windwaver]

Looks like your budget very flexible.

10 years never upgrade laptop but wife say cannot anyhow spend.

 

[t258jgn]

Using Minisforum MS-01 + MS-A2.
Just bought MS-02 Ultra

Lazy to build PC
selling my unfinished PC project
MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE + 9900X + Gskill 96GB

 

[windwaver]

Oh Mac Mini, I didn't check it out.

BTW, any 2TB 2280 drives to recommend? Mini pc came with 1TB.

Is it better for me to run an OS on a 500GB drive and run the rest on the 1TB drive or just partition the 1TB into 2 equal halves?

 

[windwaver]

Forgot to add.

Is it good to replace the OS drive with a 500gb TLC ssd and use the default 1tb as storage?

Any good TLC ssd to recommend?

@xiaofan @NightRaven49 @iceblendedchoc

 

[xiaofan]

Forgot to add.

Is it good to replace the OS drive with a 500gb TLC ssd and use the default 1tb as storage?

Any good TLC ssd to recommend?

@xiaofan

Not an expert here about the SSD to recommend. Hopefully others can help you better.

It is not a bad idea to separate OS drive and data drive though, even though I don't do that myself. Important thing is to back up your important files regularly, using either Cloud or local storage (USB HDD or NAS). SSD may not be a good option for long term storage.

 

[iceblendedchoc]

Is it better for me to run an OS on a 500GB drive and run the rest on the 1TB drive or just partition the 1TB into 2 equal halves?

you could but you may run the risk of running out of space if you install other programs by C: default.

It doesn't matter actually nowadays to partition part of the drive for OS. If it fails , the entire drive fails.

 

[iceblendedchoc]

Forgot to add.

Is it good to replace the OS drive with a 500gb TLC ssd and use the default 1tb as storage?

Any good TLC ssd to recommend?

@xiaofan @NightRaven49 @iceblendedchoc

it is fine unless you do a lot of writing on it. TLC is always better (if the price is right) , ssd with dram is always better for OS system drive (again if the price is right).

You dun want something that will be hot to run so anything with a pci 4 gen should do. Maybe the lexar NM790