I have ordered a new MiniPC

[MoreCoffee]

The new one has an AMD processor, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD and a bunch of other stuff.

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Processor AMD Ryzen™ 9 7940HS Processor, 8 Cores/16 Threads
(16M Cache, up to 5.2 GHz)
Graphics AMD Radeon™ 780M (Graphics Frequency 2800MHz)
Memory DDR5 Dual channel (SODIMM Slots×2, Up to 5600MHz, Max 64GB)
Storage M.2 2280 PCIe4.0 SSD ×2
Wireless Connectivity M.2 2230 WIFI Support (Wi-Fi 6E，BlueTooth 5.3)
Video Output HDMI 2.1 (4K@144Hz) ×2
USB4 (8K@60Hz) ×2
Audio Output HDMI 2.1 ×2
Audio Jack ×1
Ports & Buttons RJ45 2.5G Ethernet Port ×1, USB3.2 Gen2 Type-A Port ×4, USB4 Port ×2 (Alt PD), HDMI 2.1 ×2, Audio Jack ×1, DMIC ×1, Clear CMOS ×1
Power DC 19V (adapter included)
System Windows 11 Pro
Dimensions 130mm*126mm*52.3mm (5.12*4.96*2.06 inches)

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[Lamb]

How often do you order computers, btw? I guess I'm a little slow to upgrade what I have LOL

 

[MoreCoffee]

How often do you order computers, btw? I guess I'm a little slow to upgrade what I have LOL

The last time was about a year ago.

 

[Messy]

The last time I had to look into this stuff cause I was gonna buy a new computer was 25 years ago or so. Must have been something like this:

 

[Lamb]

The last time was about a year ago.

Ah, yeah, I thought it wasn't too long ago. What do you do with your old computers?

 

[MoreCoffee]

Ah, yeah, I thought it wasn't too long ago. What do you do with your old computers?

transfer them to other duties; my bible bot maybe. It would profit by running on my current PC - a very fast PC with 32 GB RAM.

This is the current MiniPC

 

[MoreCoffee]

The last time I had to look into this stuff cause I was gonna buy a new computer was 25 years ago or so. Must have been something like this:

I am impressed by its antiquity!

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

The last time I had to look into this stuff cause I was gonna buy a new computer was 25 years ago or so. Must have been something like this:

Your computer is from the '90s?

 

[Messy]

Your computer is from the '90s?

No that's the last time I bought one. I later got an old one from my dad and now I can just use the laptop from my work, but I have no idea how many MB no wait GB it is and all that other stuff.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The new MiniPC arrived on Monday last week.

I installed Windows 11 Pro on it; a reinstall really, to overwrite the Windows 11 Pro that came from the factory. A clean install with only the software I want and the drivers needed for the device is better in my opinion.

Now it has all the important stuff - like email addresses, accounts, passwords and the like from my old MiniPC.

And it runs like the blazes! Fast and furious

But, alas, the internet is still a bottleneck at times with slow servers and inadequate bandwidth from many of them.

Still, the new one is silent, and tiny, and quite lovely .

 

[tango]

I've been contemplating one of those for a while but for now my laptop from around 2011-12 still does what I need it to do, so there's no particular need to update it. When I bought it I used Windows 7, recently upgraded it to Windows 10. Originally it had a 1TB SATA drive in it (the biggest you could get that fit in a laptop at the time) and now it has a 512GB mSATA drive and a 4TB SATA SSD. If it wasn't so old I'd look for a caddy to replace the DVD drive so it could host another SSD. Because it doesn't support UEFI it can't boot from the 4TB drive, and I'd like a fallback option because replacing the mSATA could be tricky if/when it gives up.

If it comes to that I guess I can replace the 4TB drive with another SSD and use the 4TB drive in an external caddy.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I've been contemplating one of those for a while but for now my laptop from around 2011-12 still does what I need it to do, so there's no particular need to update it. When I bought it I used Windows 7, recently upgraded it to Windows 10. Originally it had a 1TB SATA drive in it (the biggest you could get that fit in a laptop at the time) and now it has a 512GB mSATA drive and a 4TB SATA SSD. If it wasn't so old I'd look for a caddy to replace the DVD drive so it could host another SSD. Because it doesn't support UEFI it can't boot from the 4TB drive, and I'd like a fallback option because replacing the mSATA could be tricky if/when it gives up.

If it comes to that I guess I can replace the 4TB drive with another SSD and use the 4TB drive in an external caddy.

External SSDs work quite well. But you will not be able to move to Windows 11 if the laptop doesn't have a UEFI. But you can install Windows 11 by means of a bit of trickery anyway, so maybe it does not matter too much.

 

[tango]

External SSDs work quite well. But you will not be able to move to Windows 11 if the laptop doesn't have a UEFI. But you can install Windows 11 by means of a bit of trickery anyway, so maybe it does not matter too much.

I have an old machine that doesn't quite meet the Win11 requirements but I managed to botch it to make it work. Curiously the instructions for the botch came directly from Microsoft.

I don't know that I'd want my primary machine to be running an operating system that only worked because of trickery, even if supplied by the author of the OS. The last thing I want is to find something automatically updated and broke everything because the update didn't play nicely with the botch.

For now at least Windows 10 does what I need it to do. The only reason I bothered with Windows 10 was because my development platform stopped playing with Windows 7. But every once in a while I look at what else is out there, and so far every time I've decided to just stick with what I have.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I have an old machine that doesn't quite meet the Win11 requirements but I managed to botch it to make it work. Curiously the instructions for the botch came directly from Microsoft.

I don't know that I'd want my primary machine to be running an operating system that only worked because of trickery, even if supplied by the author of the OS. The last thing I want is to find something automatically updated and broke everything because the update didn't play nicely with the botch.

For now at least Windows 10 does what I need it to do. The only reason I bothered with Windows 10 was because my development platform stopped playing with Windows 7. But every once in a while I look at what else is out there, and so far every time I've decided to just stick with what I have.

If USD 700 ish is not too expensive then buy what I bought, it is a pleasure to use.

Venus UM790 Pro

Minisforum UM790 PRO is Powered by AMD Ryzen™ 9 7940HS Processor and AMD Radeon™ 780M. Dual NVMe PCIe4.0 & Dual 40Gbps USB4. Intel® Killer™ AX1675 Wi-Fi 6E Network Card. The UM790 Pro Features An Innovative Cooling System That Actively Cools The Memory and SSD

store.minisforum.com

 

[tango]

Interesting, increasing it to 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD only nudges the price to $789. It's not clear whether it would support an internal SATA drive, which is something that would be a definite plus for me. External drives just take up more space.

I think when my laptop dies I'll probably look to get a cheaper laptop so I can do at least some stuff on the go, and then get something like this to be my main computer at home. I considered using it as a main portable PC, given how cheap an HDMI projector can be, but it would fall flat if I wanted to use it in a cafe or airport or some such.

ETA: To replace my current 12-year-old laptop with something of even broadly comparable specification would cost way more than this doodad. Finding a laptop with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive is tricky unless you want to go for a beast of a machine. It wouldn't be difficult to outclock my elderly i7 processor these days but for my purposes a small hard drive in a non-starter and I don't see much point going for less memory than I currently have.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I

Interesting, increasing it to 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD only nudges the price to $789. It's not clear whether it would support an internal SATA drive, which is something that would be a definite plus for me. External drives just take up more space.

I think when my laptop dies I'll probably look to get a cheaper laptop so I can do at least some stuff on the go, and then get something like this to be my main computer at home. I considered using it as a main portable PC, given how cheap an HDMI projector can be, but it would fall flat if I wanted to use it in a cafe or airport or some such.

ETA: To replace my current 12-year-old laptop with something of even broadly comparable specification would cost way more than this doodad. Finding a laptop with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive is tricky unless you want to go for a beast of a machine. It wouldn't be difficult to outclock my elderly i7 processor these days but for my purposes a small hard drive in a non-starter and I don't see much point going for less memory than I currently have.

I haven't opened up the casing to check, maybe it could, but it has space for additional NVME or m2 SSDs.

 

[tango]

From the specs on the web site it doesn't look like it does - other machines show that they have space for one or two 2.5mm SATA drives and this one doesn't.

They have a few nice looking machines there, although some of them come with strange config options (e.g. the board can take up to 64GB of memory but they don't offer that as an option).

 

[MoreCoffee]

From the specs on the web site it doesn't look like it does - other machines show that they have space for one or two 2.5mm SATA drives and this one doesn't.

They have a few nice looking machines there, although some of them come with strange config options (e.g. the board can take up to 64GB of memory but they don't offer that as an option).

The one I bought has 64 GB RAM.

 

[tango]

The one I bought has 64 GB RAM.

It looks like the one you listed maxes at 64GB and has an option to max it when you buy it. There was another one I saw that maxed at 64GB but the best option the site offered was 32GB. That seems like a bit of a punt - if they put 2x16GB in it then to upgrade you have to dump what you have and buy 2x32GB.

I do kinda like the idea of a tiny PC that takes up virtually no space on the desktop. But then I need to consider new monitors, because my monitor is older than my laptop and doesn't play nicely with Windows 10. Apparently it's too old for Windows 10 to drive it as a secondary monitor over HDMI but over DVI it's just fine.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It looks like the one you listed maxes at 64GB and has an option to max it when you buy it. There was another one I saw that maxed at 64GB but the best option the site offered was 32GB. That seems like a bit of a punt - if they put 2x16GB in it then to upgrade you have to dump what you have and buy 2x32GB.

I do kinda like the idea of a tiny PC that takes up virtually no space on the desktop. But then I need to consider new monitors, because my monitor is older than my laptop and doesn't play nicely with Windows 10. Apparently it's too old for Windows 10 to drive it as a secondary monitor over HDMI but over DVI it's just fine.

You can buy "barebones" and add RAM up to 64GB and storage to whatever it can take. I do not know about your monitor, mine is an AOC 27" from a year or two ago.