This Credit Card-Sized PC Runs Steam Deck OS! Super Tiny Ryzen X86 SBC

The Chimera OS: A Single Board Computer Review

As we can see from the specifications, this Ryzen Embedded R2514 board is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 4000 series processor, which boasts four cores and eight threads, clocked at a base speed of 2.1 GHz. The board also features 2 gigs of dedicated VRAM, although it's worth noting that this RAM will be allocated dynamically depending on the system's needs.

One of the notable features of this board is its Integrated Graphics Unit (IGPU), which is based on the Vega 8 GPU. While we can't expect to see top-tier gaming performance from this board, given its limited RAM and IGP capabilities, it's still a fun experiment to try and push its limits. The Performance Overlay feature allows for some degree of control over system settings, including frame rate capping, anti-aliasing, and more.

However, one notable bug that affects the Performance Overlay is that it will often shut off mid-game, requiring manual intervention to re-enable it. This is a frustrating issue, but fortunately, disabling and re-enabling the overlay resolves the problem.

In terms of performance, we can expect the Chimera OS to handle lighter games like Cuphead with ease, running at full speed even at higher resolutions. The 1080p setting in Cuphead was chosen as a test case, and it's clear that this board is capable of handling more demanding titles without issue.

Moving on to more modern games like Left 4 Dead 2, we see similar results. Running the game at medium settings and 60 FPS, the Chimera OS handles the game with ease, albeit with some minor stuttering in certain areas. Dirt 3, another classic title, also runs smoothly at medium settings and a sweet spot resolution of 900p.

Unfortunately, when it comes to newer AAA titles like Street Fighter 6 or Horizon Zero Dawn, we're limited by the board's 8GB of RAM. The game will simply not start due to insufficient VRAM, with some games even crashing upon initial launch. While this is a significant limitation, it's worth noting that adding more RAM to this board is currently non-user upgradeable.

Despite these limitations, overall, we're impressed by the Chimera OS's performance capabilities, particularly at higher TDP settings. However, for gaming enthusiasts who require top-tier performance, there are simply too many limitations imposed by the board's hardware constraints.

If you're interested in checking out the Chimera OS in action with Windows 11 installed, I've included a link to the full review video below. For any additional questions or requests, feel free to leave them in the comments section. That concludes our review of this single board computer.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be checking out some Linux gaming on the smallest ryzen powerered SBC that we've ever been able to get our hands on over here on the channel this is the PC sf51 by a company known as DFI it's powered by an AMD ryzen embedded r2000 CPU rather Apu four cores eight threads up to 3.7 GHz and we've got an 8cu ipu built in here with this Apu and as you can see I mean this thing is absolutely tiny recently I made a video with this little board showing off the windows performance and overall it's not bad especially for emulation if you're interested in checking that video out I'll leave a link in the description along with the r2000 Apu we've also got 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of emmc storage now we can always add USB storage and that's when I'm going to be running my operating system from because you know these games can definitely get pretty large but the way it sits right now we're definitely going to need to cool this Apu down this does come with a nice little cooler built-in fan we can control all of this from the BIOS aluminum fins we've got a copper plate here and it fits right on the board definitely keeps it nice and chilly and out of the box this runs at around up to 15 watts but from the BIOS we can take this on up I've actually gone up to 45 Watts with it and real quick here's a rundown on the specs so for that Apu we've got the ryzen embed R 2514 it's based on Zen plus four course eight threads got a base clock of 2.1 but all course can boost up to 3.7 especially at this higher wattage 8 GB of onboard LP ddr4 Ram Radeon igpu with 8 cus based on Vega and it does go up to 1200 MHz and in this video we're not going to be running Windows we're going to be running a Linux drro and I would have loved to install just kind of a stock Ste OS 3 on this from valve but unfortunately they haven't released any other image except for the steam deck and there are developers out there who have taken the steam deck image and kind of reworked it so it would work on other systems like Hollow ISO but for this I actually decided to use Chimera OS I've done several videos on this and it's got everything that I want in a Linux gaming drro it's got the same steam deck UI performance overlay we've got access to systemwide FSR but we have a lot more builds in like a TDP control there's also a desktop interface that we can access and it's being updated all the time what I found so far is yeah this is actually my go-to Linux gaming Dro if I'm looking for that you know steam deck UI on basically any x86 PC or handheld if you're interested in learning a little more about Chima OS I will leave some links in the description you can download it directly from the website they've got a GitHub all the information you need to know is over there but with all that out of the way let's go ahead and jump into it and test out this little board all right so here we are up and running and everything's actually really smooth uh with the latest version of chimera OS we do have access to the simple ryzen TDP controller and from here we can actually adjust the TDP but uh from the BIOS we're able to do that on this little board I did notice a couple little weird things here and there my GPU clock is not showing correctly I've tested one game so far and uh that GPU does show it goes up to 1700 MHz but this is not at 1700 MHz this only goes up to 1200 MHz so keep that in mind uh we may get some weird readings on the clocks but I'd say the CPU frequencies are definitely correct here we can go up to 3.7 GHz and uh real quick let me show you this chimira OS as you can see we've got that ryzen embedded R 2514 four course eight threads up to 3.7 it's got that base of 2.1 and out of the box this little board was set up with 2 gigs dedicated vram but this is going to allocate more for if we need it but yeah even the uh igpu here is working it's Vega 8 so I'm not sure what kind of performance we're going to see out of it but it's still pretty fun to try and see what will happen with this little board now I don't think we're going to have a great time with uh games like cyber Punk or even Horizon zero Dawn due to the fact that we've only got 8 gigs of RAM some of this stuff just won't start up because you know we just don't have enough RAM but there are games here that we can actually run at full speed with this we also have access to the performance overlay we can set up a frame rate limit uh systemwide FSR half rate shading basically everything that works with the steam deck will work here except for the manual GPU clock control and TDP control from the performance overlay that's because it's tailored towards the steam deck and it'll only go up to 15 watts and in order to get really good performance out of this board I did need to take it up to 45 Watts from the BIOS and the cooler we strapped on this does keep it nice and chilly but that fan is always on but now I think it's time to get into some gaming here we're going to start out light with cuphead and it looks like my performance overlay just shut off this is a bug that I've been running into with this little board every once in a while it'll turn off and I got to disable it then reenable it let's get into some gameplay first so obviously cuphead isn't a super hard game to run and I expected we'd get really good performance out of this uh the resolution is set to 1080 right now but I don't think we have uh resolution control from the game itself just a nice little indie game and yeah a lot of that stuff is going to run at full speed on this no problem at all so I think we should take it up to a 3D game now uh again this is going to be an easier one to run and we'll move our way up here's Left 4 Dead 2 1080p medium settings running at a constant 60 and I could have unlocked the frame rate but I do notice a little more stuttering when it's trying to go over kind of overrunning itself there with that igpu so locking them down at 60 if the games will run there is the way I like to run them on this little board so the way it looks right now you know these older games are going to be be able to run at full speed here's uh Dirt 3 another one of my favorite older games medium settings 900p it looks like 900p is going to be kind of a sweet spot here and of course there's a lot of newer AAA games that I'd like to test on this but unfortunately we're kind of limited by the ram this is nonuser upgradeable and we've only got 8 gigs I've run into an issue with let's say Street Fighter 6 where it just won't start off it'll go black screen get a major warning before I start up Horizon zero Dawn stating that we just don't have enough vram to run this and as soon as I start it I can get to the main menu but then it kind of crashes on me goes right back to the uh steam deck UI really nothing I can do here because I can't add more RAM to this board but I do have a few more games that I wanted to test hold overall I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance that this little board can put out especially at those higher tdps but we are a bit limited when it comes to gaming given that we've only got 8 gigs of RAM here and a lot of that onboard Ram is going to be used as vram so we're very limited here it would be nice if they made a board like this with 16 gigs of RAM but you know the way it sits given its form factor and everything like that I do think it's a really great performing single board computer if you're interested in checking out what this thing can do with Windows 11 installed I'll leave a link to that video down below but if there's anything else you want to see running on this ryzen powered single board computer let me know in the comments but that's going to wrap it up for this one like always thanks for watchinghey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be checking out some Linux gaming on the smallest ryzen powerered SBC that we've ever been able to get our hands on over here on the channel this is the PC sf51 by a company known as DFI it's powered by an AMD ryzen embedded r2000 CPU rather Apu four cores eight threads up to 3.7 GHz and we've got an 8cu ipu built in here with this Apu and as you can see I mean this thing is absolutely tiny recently I made a video with this little board showing off the windows performance and overall it's not bad especially for emulation if you're interested in checking that video out I'll leave a link in the description along with the r2000 Apu we've also got 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of emmc storage now we can always add USB storage and that's when I'm going to be running my operating system from because you know these games can definitely get pretty large but the way it sits right now we're definitely going to need to cool this Apu down this does come with a nice little cooler built-in fan we can control all of this from the BIOS aluminum fins we've got a copper plate here and it fits right on the board definitely keeps it nice and chilly and out of the box this runs at around up to 15 watts but from the BIOS we can take this on up I've actually gone up to 45 Watts with it and real quick here's a rundown on the specs so for that Apu we've got the ryzen embed R 2514 it's based on Zen plus four course eight threads got a base clock of 2.1 but all course can boost up to 3.7 especially at this higher wattage 8 GB of onboard LP ddr4 Ram Radeon igpu with 8 cus based on Vega and it does go up to 1200 MHz and in this video we're not going to be running Windows we're going to be running a Linux drro and I would have loved to install just kind of a stock Ste OS 3 on this from valve but unfortunately they haven't released any other image except for the steam deck and there are developers out there who have taken the steam deck image and kind of reworked it so it would work on other systems like Hollow ISO but for this I actually decided to use Chimera OS I've done several videos on this and it's got everything that I want in a Linux gaming drro it's got the same steam deck UI performance overlay we've got access to systemwide FSR but we have a lot more builds in like a TDP control there's also a desktop interface that we can access and it's being updated all the time what I found so far is yeah this is actually my go-to Linux gaming Dro if I'm looking for that you know steam deck UI on basically any x86 PC or handheld if you're interested in learning a little more about Chima OS I will leave some links in the description you can download it directly from the website they've got a GitHub all the information you need to know is over there but with all that out of the way let's go ahead and jump into it and test out this little board all right so here we are up and running and everything's actually really smooth uh with the latest version of chimera OS we do have access to the simple ryzen TDP controller and from here we can actually adjust the TDP but uh from the BIOS we're able to do that on this little board I did notice a couple little weird things here and there my GPU clock is not showing correctly I've tested one game so far and uh that GPU does show it goes up to 1700 MHz but this is not at 1700 MHz this only goes up to 1200 MHz so keep that in mind uh we may get some weird readings on the clocks but I'd say the CPU frequencies are definitely correct here we can go up to 3.7 GHz and uh real quick let me show you this chimira OS as you can see we've got that ryzen embedded R 2514 four course eight threads up to 3.7 it's got that base of 2.1 and out of the box this little board was set up with 2 gigs dedicated vram but this is going to allocate more for if we need it but yeah even the uh igpu here is working it's Vega 8 so I'm not sure what kind of performance we're going to see out of it but it's still pretty fun to try and see what will happen with this little board now I don't think we're going to have a great time with uh games like cyber Punk or even Horizon zero Dawn due to the fact that we've only got 8 gigs of RAM some of this stuff just won't start up because you know we just don't have enough RAM but there are games here that we can actually run at full speed with this we also have access to the performance overlay we can set up a frame rate limit uh systemwide FSR half rate shading basically everything that works with the steam deck will work here except for the manual GPU clock control and TDP control from the performance overlay that's because it's tailored towards the steam deck and it'll only go up to 15 watts and in order to get really good performance out of this board I did need to take it up to 45 Watts from the BIOS and the cooler we strapped on this does keep it nice and chilly but that fan is always on but now I think it's time to get into some gaming here we're going to start out light with cuphead and it looks like my performance overlay just shut off this is a bug that I've been running into with this little board every once in a while it'll turn off and I got to disable it then reenable it let's get into some gameplay first so obviously cuphead isn't a super hard game to run and I expected we'd get really good performance out of this uh the resolution is set to 1080 right now but I don't think we have uh resolution control from the game itself just a nice little indie game and yeah a lot of that stuff is going to run at full speed on this no problem at all so I think we should take it up to a 3D game now uh again this is going to be an easier one to run and we'll move our way up here's Left 4 Dead 2 1080p medium settings running at a constant 60 and I could have unlocked the frame rate but I do notice a little more stuttering when it's trying to go over kind of overrunning itself there with that igpu so locking them down at 60 if the games will run there is the way I like to run them on this little board so the way it looks right now you know these older games are going to be be able to run at full speed here's uh Dirt 3 another one of my favorite older games medium settings 900p it looks like 900p is going to be kind of a sweet spot here and of course there's a lot of newer AAA games that I'd like to test on this but unfortunately we're kind of limited by the ram this is nonuser upgradeable and we've only got 8 gigs I've run into an issue with let's say Street Fighter 6 where it just won't start off it'll go black screen get a major warning before I start up Horizon zero Dawn stating that we just don't have enough vram to run this and as soon as I start it I can get to the main menu but then it kind of crashes on me goes right back to the uh steam deck UI really nothing I can do here because I can't add more RAM to this board but I do have a few more games that I wanted to test hold overall I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance that this little board can put out especially at those higher tdps but we are a bit limited when it comes to gaming given that we've only got 8 gigs of RAM here and a lot of that onboard Ram is going to be used as vram so we're very limited here it would be nice if they made a board like this with 16 gigs of RAM but you know the way it sits given its form factor and everything like that I do think it's a really great performing single board computer if you're interested in checking out what this thing can do with Windows 11 installed I'll leave a link to that video down below but if there's anything else you want to see running on this ryzen powered single board computer let me know in the comments but that's going to wrap it up for this one like always thanks for watching\n"