The Performance and Gaming Potential of the Mini PC

I've been testing this mini PC and I have to say that it's not feeling great. The latency is quite high and I wouldn't want to play games on it, even with the Fidelity FX settings enabled. However, when it comes to performance, things improve significantly. We can see that the game is now playable at 1080p low settings, with a stable 60 frames per second. While this isn't as good as native 1080p, it's still a super playable result.

I was able to render a game at 1080p in real-time, and I have to say that the performance is surprisingly good. This little system is perfectly usable for 1080p esports gaming. The CPU also performs well, with a lot of power in a very small package. However, aside from the gaming performance, the CPU may not be as powerful as expected.

I think we should tear down the system to see how upgradable it is. Upon closer inspection, I found that there are only four screws holding everything together. This makes it relatively easy to take apart and upgrade individual components later on. The interior of the Mini PC looks remarkably like an Apple device, with a mostly plastic covering and easily accessible fan. There's also a solid bit of power delivery showing, which is reassuring.

As I pulled out more components, I found another M.2 slot with a ribbon cable attached to it. This looked suspiciously like a part from an Apple device, which was confirmed by further inspection. Both RAM slots are currently occupied, but replacement can still happen. The system also has a non-soldered down battery, and the heat sink is made of copper, despite not being the most impressive design.

Despite its beauty, the Mini PC's design comes at a cost. I paid around $800 Canadian for it, which is a lot for a Mini PC. It seems that this little system is probably better suited as a powerful console emulator than a general-purpose computer. However, opinions on whether it's worth the money are welcome in the comment section below.

Performance and Fidelity FX Settings

When I said that performance was the first point where things improved, I meant that the game became playable at 1080p low settings. This is not ideal, as the game doesn't look its best even with these settings enabled. The botcheeks are still noticeable, but it's starting to look a little better.

I'm glad that we can now see how well the Mini PC performs under different conditions. By using Fidelity FX, we're able to get a stable 60 frames per second in the game. However, this isn't as good as native 1080p performance, which would be ideal for gaming.

The result is still quite impressive, especially considering the low-end hardware. It's clear that the Mini PC has some strong points when it comes to performance and graphics fidelity.

Upgradability and Maintenance

One of the most interesting features of this Mini PC is its ease of upgradability. With only four screws holding everything together, it's relatively easy to take apart and upgrade individual components later on. I was able to remove a few more screws to see what was inside, which revealed a neat little interior with easily accessible components.

The seos battery is stuck down under the motherboard, but it's still accessible for replacement. The heat sink isn't the most impressive design, but it's all copper and performs well according to the temperature tests.

Overall, I'm impressed by how easy it was to access the internal components of this Mini PC. This makes it a great option for those who want to upgrade or customize their hardware without too much hassle.

Interior and Design

As I took apart the Mini PC, I was struck by its neat and tidy interior. The design is remarkably similar to an Apple device, with a mostly plastic covering and easily accessible fan. There's also a solid bit of power delivery showing, which is reassuring.

The system has a number of interesting features, including two M.2 slots and a non-soldered down battery. While the RAM slots are currently occupied, replacement can still happen. The heat sink isn't the most impressive design, but it's made of copper and performs well according to the temperature tests.

Overall, I'm impressed by how well-designed the interior of this Mini PC is. It's a great option for those who want a compact and portable system without sacrificing too much performance.

Conclusion

The Mini PC is a powerful little system that can perform well for gaming and other tasks. However, it also comes at a cost - $800 Canadian is a lot for a device like this. I think its main use case would be as a powerful console emulator, but even then it may not be worth the money.

That being said, opinions on whether the Mini PC is worth the price are welcome in the comment section below. If you're considering purchasing one of these devices, I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for how they can be used or improved.

Overall, the Mini PC is a great option for those who want a compact and powerful system without sacrificing too much performance. With its ease of upgradability and good design, it's definitely worth considering if you're in the market for a new device.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's been a while since I've had a look at Mini PCs on the channel  but this one seems wildly powerful for its form factor in a way that  potentially isn't stupid but you never know of this stuff so let's have alook ooh that is a smaller box than I was expecting considering the specs of the little  system we have here now judging by the Box the system is called the Phoenix 7 key I guess which I  bought off Amazon because it's got some wild specs in it which it brags about on the back of the box  it's got a ryzen 7 7840 HS in it a laptop Apu with a theak igpu in it one of the main reasons  I bought the system actually it also has 32 gigs of ram in it implying it's in a configuration  that means means we won't have to ritualistically flail this system and hopefully it's upgradeable  but we'll find that out soon enough and finally it's also got a terabyte of storage asstandard hello ooh it's Hefty but cute accessory wise it comes with an app looking power brick  that's almost the same size as the Mini PC and it's got a magnetic looking connector that should  just snap into B on the little PC that looks interesting 5.26 ABS that's not insignificant  this is a little Vasa mount adapter so you can mount it behind a monitor I like that it also  comes with the shortest HDMI cable I've ever seen I guess that's for the back monitor mounting and  finally it also comes with a longer HDMI cable you're really spoiled for Choice ooh that feels  like dangling on the edge with this little PC not only do you get quite a powerful system you also  get an adrenaline rush with it oh but it's not one pull to open that's a bit of a let down I  guess it it kind of baits you in with this smell because from a distance it smells like you might  get that neutral clean Apple smell but the moment you get it up to your face it's a strong bleach  smell smell aside build quality is great and I like the way it looks it's this Aqua Marini  brushed metal with ventilation all over the place hinting at its power the rear iio is pretty good  I like the inclusion of dual USB C Port so you can dongle the crap out of this thing and the ethernet  is 2.5 gbit fancy oh that's interesting so that magnetic connector slots into the base of the  device so it's flush with the bottom that's pretty cool and finally on the front we've got a clear  camos Pokey in little hole it's nice that you can do that physically on the device aside from  that some more ports and a power button little bit of a lame power button so with that very  brief First Look let's hook up the little system and see what it's made of before we open it up  and poke around its guts a little bit it doesn't fits super well but it does clip in verysatisfyingly and after our quick internetless Windows setup I was surprised at what I found  wo that is an unspoiled Windows install if I've ever seen one look at that there's like nothing  on it w so we've got an 8 core 16 thread CPU with quite a high base speed apparently it boosts up to  5 GHz but we'll see what happens in gameplay test that is the same igpu that's in the new  8700g which is I guess basically just the desktop variant of this chip dual Channel very good I'm  curious to see if that's upgradeable we'll open it up later in the video and check all of that  stuff with that I installed some fresh drivers for the igpu and was ready to do some gaming now  with a system like this of course we have to start with GTA 5 and this time I don't think  it's that brave starting at 1080p considering that we've got some rdna 3 action in here wa  over a 100 frames per second at 1080p with our little igb it is at low settings but still that  normally crushes the igpus I look at on this channel and you know how you can tell that this  isn't a seller on the CPU isn't also at 100% oh damn yeah this is a lot of frame rate happening  for a PC the size of a thumbnail I then turned the settings up to something a little less PS3 oh damn  we didn't even lose that much frame rate we're hovering between 80 and 90 frames per second with  everything on high which I guess on GTA 5 counts as medium either way the game looks pretty good  it is quite an old game game though so let's try something a little newer and see how it fares withthat next is csgo 2 which is quite a bit less forgiving of loser potato systems than its  predecessor so I'm curious to see how the Mini PC handles it at Native 1080p low oh damn this is  running like it's life's in danger I genuinely wasn't expecting this frame rate from it you  could easily play online using this and it it it won't hold you back too much if you have a  500 HZ monitor this isn't going to do it for you but you're not going to be playing CS go  2 on a 500 HZ monitor with this although maybe we do have the option for that let us do some  Fidelity effects I'm going to go straight down to Quality now considering how much CPU Headroom  we have that did not make as big a difference as I was expecting it did do a bit I mean we gained  about 20 frames per second but considering all the extra fuzziness we got that's definitely not worth  it what happens when we try performance okay we are now Dangerously close to Vaseline in the eyes  but it's worth it considering the zero frame rate Improvement in performance my final experiment was  setting the game at 1440p but with quality FSR wow that looks a lot better because we're technically  running at the native resolution of the display I guess depending on what your outlook on life is uh  the the visuals are a lot better and the frame rate is a bit lower but it doesn't feels super  different and now that it's been running for a while The Thermals are pretty good the igpu is  at a decent temperature I didn't have an option for a CPU temperature monitor but they're the same  thing so I'm guessing it's relatively similar and noise wise it's fine it's audible but notobnoxious now Doom Eternal does not feel very happy at 1080p low settings we're  getting a decent frame rate but it feels kind of sickly and it's weird because the  frame time graph doesn't give us any indication of the problem either but  it's quite a stuttery looking image and it feels input laggy this is not a great gamingexperience this is Battlefield 5 at 1080p low and it's over 100 frames per second  which is kind of wild for the kind of PC that this is it doesn't look amazing but  we're not running at our native resolution so if this was a 1080p monitor it would look  way better than it does now and yeah this is easily playable Battlefield 5 that's prettycool now it's cyberp Punk at 1080p low settings this is where we're starting to run out of  juice a little bit with the Mini PC 40 frames per second isn't that bad on paper but this  there's quite a bit of latency it's not it's not feeling great I wouldn't want to to play  a game like the in this state I think we're going to have to do performance Fidelity FX  here okay with performance is the first point where I'd say that the game is now playable  you know it doesn't it doesn't feel complete bot cheeks but it is starting to look a little botcheeks whoa okay The Last of Us at 1080p low settings granted this is the low preset but  we're getting a stable 60 frames per second that looks looks um kind of fuzzy wait wait a minute  are we are we rendering a native resolution here oh okay that that explains it that really does  back at Native 1080p yeah no that's not nearly as good it's running way worse but it doesn't  look like that feeling you get after you haven't brushed your teeth in a while so you know there'sthat generally fortnite's feeling really good this is a super playable result and this is  at Native 1080p in fact this little system is perfectly usable for 1080p Esports gaming DOA  also runs not spectacularly but very usably and aside from the gaming performance the CPU  is surprisingly powerful it benchmarks real well a lot of power in a very small system  which now I think we should tear down to see how upgradable it is I can only see four screws and  then hopefully we can get its booty off oh that's what that's for I thought this little tab  was for like a seos battery or something but it's to lift the bottom off that's a really cool touch  that again looks remarkably like the interior of an Apple device we've got the black mostly  plastic covering there's the the fan over here which is easily accessible and we also have an  m.2 slot here that we can use to upgrade it a bit later uh but it does seem like we can still take  it apart further to so that kind of covers the little PCB UND do some more screws and see how  this goes it took about five extra screws to get another step deeper into the Mini PC okay that  cover just kind of Pops off there's a little cable that attaches like the fan and stuff in here hey  there we go and then here is the second m.2 slot we mentioned earlier uh which has a ribbon cable  going underneath that that looks suspiciously like it's from an Apple device next to that lives the  nons solder down Ram both slots are occupied but still replacement can happen there's also a solid  bit of power delivery showing there this is quite a neat little interior which I think we can quite  easily access deeper down we may just have to pull this up unfortunately pulling up wasn't as easy  as anticipated shimmying out a tightly fitting little motherboard is always quite nerve-wracking  but eventually it popped free oh there we go and then on this side there's not a whole lot for us  to interact with but it's always cool to have a look the seos battery is kind of stuck down  under here and then finally the heat sink isn't herculan by any stretch but it's all copper and as  we saw from the the temperature tests it performs pretty well all in all it's a beautifully packaged  little system the interior is very nice however that beauty does come at a cost I paid about $800  Canadian for it which is a lot for a Mini PC I think its main use case is probably like a  powerful console emulator but for that I think it's still too expensive so let me know in the  comment section down below what you think the main use case would be for this and if you think  it's worth the money and yeah until the next video thank you very much for watching bye-bye