So today I've got my hands on another super powerful Mini PC.
This is the Minisforum UM690 Venus Series
Now priced from only $499 for Bare Bones, which means you can just add your own RAM and storage.
or 649 for the 16GB + 512GB variant, which I have here. Very good specifications as well.
But before all of that, let's first of all check out what you get inside the Box!
In the Box you will find a user manual, we've got some rubber attachments, it looks like it's got a
sticky back so you're getting a SATA adapter. So you can connect your own 2.5" SATA hard drive.
We've got a metal VESSAl mount, with a bunch of
screws so you can hide the Mini PC neatly behind your monitor.
We've got an HDMI cable, we've got a cool looking stand, which is made from metal,
and the inside has this rubber insert, so you don't scratch the actual Mini PC.
and the Mini PC can just stand like so, so using it vertical will save you even more space,
and you also get a power supply. So large laptop style power supply included
and last but certainly not least the Mini PC itself.
So quickly run through the specs, this Mini PC is powered by the AMD
RYZEN 9 6900 HX clocked at 3.3 Ghz and up to 4.9 Ghz turbo.
For graphics we have the AMD Radeon 680M integrated. You've got 16GB of DDR5 RAM,
512GB m.2 SSD drive.
You've got 16GB of DDR RAM, 512GB m.2 SSD drive. You have space to add a 2.5" SATA hard drive.
This features Wi-Fi 6E, you've got a 2.5 gbps LAN. This does support Bluetooth 5.2 with USB4.
This comes with Windows 11 professional pre-installed.
Now this also supports triple display output.
So two HDMI ports capable of outputting to
4K 60 and you have one USB 4 that you can output up to 8K at 60Hz.
You have quite an advanced cooling system as well, consisting of dual heatsinks,
liquid metal instead of thermal paste. You've got a smart cooling fan with 360 air vents.
So there are vents going all the way around, you've got four vents on the case,
two vents taking cool air and then the other two vents blow out the hot air.
So that's supposed to give you really good airflow and I can't
wait to put that into action to see if the system does run cool.
Especially when we test our AAA games a little bit later in the video.
The Mini PC has this very interesting rigid design
and you've got this silver metal piece in the corner, with the minis Forum logo.
Now on the front we have our clear CMOS hole, then you've got a physical power button,
we've got a 3.5mm combo jack, then you've got your USB4 Port,
You've got a USB 3.2 Gen 2 type c port for data only and if we keep going,
nothing on this side and on the back we've got Kensington lock.
At the top power socket we've got a 2.5 gbps LAN and you can see we've got four
USB 3.2 Gen 2 type A ports and then you've got your two 4K HDMI outputs between them.
If we keep going nothing on this side and that brings us back to the
front and here is a quick look at the bottom of the Mini PC.
Okay, so this is where we check out the internals,
if I remove the rubber feet from this side, there is a screw quite deep inside there.
So you've got to remove the larger rubber feet, so 2 large and 2 small. So that explains what
these spares are in the box. So when you remove these off this you lose a bit of stickiness.
You've got some spares, okay so let's get these open so now.
You need a small flat tool where you can get in on the edges
and then it comes off quite easily after that.
So no need to worry about any wires nothing is connected.
So there is space here so you can attach a 2.5" SATA drive.
We had the Sata cable which is here, so this is basically going to connect into here,
that clicked in nicely. That's the SATA cable for the hard drive.
Hook up your hard drive in this section and you screw it on secure
and then you'll be able to connect the hard drive up to the SATA connection.
So we've got Kingston branded dual Channel RAM and the configuration
is 8GB X2 to give us 16GB of RAM and that is dual Channel DDR5 RAM.
So over here you can see your 512GB m.2 SSD drive. It's got some thermal strips
attached to it and you've got this ribbon going all the way around on both sides,
so I'm not about to remove that to see the brand.
But that is basically your easy options to upgrade.
So without any further ado, I'm going to get this all set up we're going to
install a whole bunch of games and apps on this,
and we're going to find out exactly how good this Mini PC performs, I'll be right back.
So first of all we ran a boot up speed test and this Mini
PC took 18 seconds to fully load from a cold start
and this is the full version of Windows 11 professional,
and I am connected to my 1080p capture card, so my desktop resolution is currently set to 1080p
but you can of course hook this up to a 4K or even 8K display.
Now let's have a quick look at system properties,
so as you can see it's Windows 11 professional with the AMD RYZEN 9 6900 HX that's 3.3 Ghz,
16GB RAM, 64-bit OS and it's already activated and ready to use.
System storage info we have 500 GB of internal storage from which 474 GB are usable and I've
already downloaded a lot of games and software so I'm left with 114 GB free
and the second drive you see is my 128 GB flash drive which contains all my 4K samples,
which we are going to test right now.
So let's go ahead and play some 4K video samples from a USB drive and see how this thing performs.
So first video High Bit-rate 4K jellyfish demo,
that's 160mbps and as you can see it's playing fine,
Also I tested out the 180 mbps and that also played fine nice and smooth with no issues.
And the real test 400 mbps, high bitrate jellyfish demo, plays super smooth no issues here.
I also tried playing some 4K 60 with HDR samples which also played back super smooth no issues
and just quickly add HDR content plays fine as long as you connect to a compatible Monitor
and this Mini PC does play a wide range of different 4K file types including HDR formats.
Alright so moving on to some video streaming on YouTube, and yes it
does support 4K 60 HDR and streaming quality and performance is Top Notch
So let's just go ahead and play a bunch of trailers
Let's Go
what about it going on
we haven't seen the world I know you think I'm crazy
[Music] but I feel her
So next up I loaded Netflix from the web browser and I was able to
stream a maximum of 1080p as I am connected to a 1080p capture card
if you connect to a 4K screen you'll be able to stream 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Same with Amazon Prime video full HD streaming
from my capture card and 4K from my TV other streaming services.
Will also support the maximum resolution of your display.
So moving on to some gaming starting off with GTA V and here are the graphic settings
So resolution set to 1080p 60 Hz and Graphics set to normal and as you can see the game plays quite
nicely achieving an average of 82 frames per second with the TDP reaching at around 45 Watts
and just to see what happens I switch the graphics to very high and still
managed to achieve over 60 FPS with the TDP reaching to around 53 Watts
I'm looking through my appointment book and
I don't see your name yeah well I'm more of a walk-in guy you know that
So next up Forza Horizon 5 you can see the graphic settings resolution 1080p,
vsync is off and the graphics are set to High by default
and you can see we're achieving around 57 frames per second,
Peak and around 53 frames per second average
Game looks and plays quite amazing maybe drop the graphics down to
medium and improve that frame rate but as it is that's not bad at all
track this storm so she got elected keep going
The next game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2,
1080p resolution, vsync is off and the graphics set to balanced
and we are achieving an average of around 64 FPS with the TDP
reaching at around 44 Watts and we are playing of course online multiplayer
Modern Warfare 2 looks and plays surprisingly well I'm very happy with the results of this game
So next up we are testing WWE 2K22 and here are the graphic settings so 1080p resolution 60Hz,
texture quality set to standard and everything else is set to medium
and as you can see the game plays very well with a steady 60 FPS.
So all in all this Mini PC handles AAA PC games at
high or medium graphics and gives you an overall great experience.
"Figure just inviting this combat come on into the
Warriors realm where nightmares are the best part of his day"
So that brings us to our benchmarks beginning with
geekbench single core score of 1578 and multi-core score of 9317
and in the Antu benchmark test we achieved a score of 1 million 17 073 and furthermore
here is your CPU Benchmark score by pass Mark so it achieved just over 25 000.
So let's see how that compares with the other mini PCS of this year.
So here is my top performing Mini PC chart for 2022 allowing you to see which
mini PCS perform the best and also lets you compare these specs features and the prices
and these are all ranked by overall Benchmark results. So as you can see the Minisforums UM690
has taken the top position on this chart with its high ANTU and Geekbench, multi-core scores
Making this the new most powerful Mini PC we have tested on this channel so far
So definitely excited to see which new Mini PC will take over that top position
and you can view the full versions of all my
charts online at chigztech.com and read them at your leisure
So there you have it guys that was the Minisforum UM690 Venus Series.
This one surpassed my expectations, not in performance, as I was already
expecting this to be a beast, but the design was quite impressive.
I really like how you can mount this on a vertical stand,
it saves so much space and it looks Ultra Cool on your desk.
The cooling system is absolutely spot on no matter what I did on this Mini PC,
no matter how long I gamed, playing AAA titles.
There was no overheating issues at all,
the four vents around the unit work really well, two inlets and two outlets.
Brilliant idea, I think all mini PCS should adopt this idea.
System remains cool throughout, I actually enjoyed gaming on this.
It achieves a slightly higher TDP than the most recent Beeline GTR
6 going up to around 54 Watts, it might even go a little bit higher
and when I saw this I was a bit worried that it might cause overheating,
but the cooling system handled it really well.
So you're getting ample of connectivity,
triple 4K display output and the option for 8K via the USB4 port.
Really nice to have USB4 and all the extra USB 3 Gen 2 ports are amazing.
Maybe one front USB-A port would have been quite convenient, but I'm not complaining.
There are plenty plenty of ports available on this thing.
This Mini PC will handle anything you throw at it, from General office applications,
web browsing, playing AAA PC games, 4K video editing, desktop publishing and lots more.
Great specifications, great performance, great design and it's upgradable so future proof too.
Now with all that being said, I will leave the links in the description box,
so you guys can check this product out for yourself.
That's all for this video, don't forget to like and sub,
Thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you all in the next one
PEACE!
[Music]