The "Mac Mini Killer"....aka Minisforum UM790 Pro

Price is keen against a mini. Performance should be alright too.

Bare bones £499 or £769 for 64GB RAM + 1 TB SSD on preorder

https://store.minisforum.uk/products/minisforum-um79...

https://youtu.be/86RfmMqBgkM

Very cool, but only Apple has managed to incorporate the PSU into the chassis, everyone else uses a laptop external 'brick'.

… which makes it rather easier to replace in the event of PSU failure.

...or run it from USB-C (PD)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

...or run it from USB-C (PD)

I missed that it supported this as I heard 120watts in the video, and my PD monitor does 90w....

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

… which makes it rather easier to replace in the event of PSU failure.

True - but not a common failure mode I suspect. My parents have two 2013 Mac Mini's that are still going strong, and plenty of Apple TV's etc, all with built in PSUs.

Mine too (Dell U4021QW).

But I run my MBP via an OWC Thunderbolt3 dock, so get a bit more juice that way as the dock has a meaty power supply. One cable for video, power and 10GbE LAN is great.

It is an interesting little machine, but the whole "Mac Mini Killer" stuff is just silly.

So few people who are actually considering buying a Mac mini will see something like this and say "oh, I changed my mind I don't want a Mac and macOS after all".

Don't take it too seriously I think headline wise tis just poking a little fun.

I know, but there is always plenty of coverage of systems like this with people using the "Mac Mini Killer" line unironically.

Review out today from Patrick @ STH.

https://youtu.be/l3Vaz7S3HmQ

Overall a great little machine…

Well I ordered one and after a minor delay it arrived from HK last week, although I only unpacked it last night as was away all week. Looks very neat and well put together. Hoping to be able to fire it up later tonight.

Running GeekBench 6.1 on it:

Single-Core Score: 2116
Multi-Core Score: 10020
OpenCL Score: 25084

Have it powered through a USB4 port via a Minix USB-C 100W power adapter, currently drawing around 6.5 to 7 watts at idle. Peak I saw during benchmarking was 36W for brief spikes, but again mostly in single watt figures. There is a small fan running on the underside of the unit, but it's near enough silent.

Quietly impressed.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Running GeekBench 6.1 on it:

Single-Core Score: 2116
Multi-Core Score: 10020
OpenCL Score: 25084

Have it powered through a USB4 port via a Minix USB-C 100W power adapter, currently drawing around 6.5 to 7 watts at idle. Peak I saw during benchmarking was 36W for brief spikes, but again mostly in single watt figures. There is a small fan running on the underside of the unit, but it's near enough silent.

Quietly impressed.

Mac mini M2 pro
Single-Core Score
2621
Multi-Core Score
12292


OpenCL Score
44222

Topped about 45watts while running, but only for a couple of seconds, most of the time it stayed between 10-18. I have a smart plug on the machine that reads the wattage pulled.

My Mac runs about 7 at idle.

I don't normally take much notice of benchmarks, as it is how the machine work in real life that is important. I got a Mac because i was fed up with Windows, windows is becoming more Apple like than Apple itself. With the forced MS account and pushing their edge browser and to be honest becoming more of a walled garden than Mac Os is.

sure I have less choice with hardware and can't expand it internally , I can add external storage.
the other reason i wanted a Mac is because of the energy use or lack of it and I know it is more expensive than what you paid for your small machine.

Not saying there is anything worn with the machine you have, being able to update the storage is nice and for people who want a powerful machine but in a small form factor and want to stay with Windows, then it is a nice machine.

Mac killer? nope.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Mac killer? nope.

It seems you are getting similar performance, but the Windows machine is considerably cheaper. The Mac Mini with 1TB SSD and only 64Gb comes for £1449.

Pretty much this. Very happy with all my Macs but I do still need to run on native x86 tin for some stuff and don’t want / need a huge desktop/tower. Something around half the footprint of a mini is perfect. Doesn’t need to be a killer 😅

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

It seems you are getting similar performance, but the Windows machine is considerably cheaper. The Mac Mini with 1TB SSD and only 64Gb comes for £1449.

Mine is the Mac mini 2 pro, so it has 16GB of ram and 512GB of storage, 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU, it costs £1,399, but I did not pay that for it, I got it for £1319.

I did think about updating my Windows machine before i got the Mac, but as I said, I got fed up with Windows, been using it for too long and I have seen how it has become.
I only use the PC for games these days, may have to update it at some point as I think the main board is on it’s way out, but not going to go crazy, If I can get a board at a decent price that will keep the Ryzen 7 1700 going then i will if not, then I will go for something like a Ryzen 5 5600 if I see it at a good price. But hopefully the PC will keep going for a bit longer.

Oh, right. That with 1TB disk and 32GB ram is £1999 - nearly 3 times the price of the Winwdows machine with twice the ram.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Oh, right. That with 1TB disk and 32GB ram is £1999 - nearly 3 times the price of the Winwdows machine with twice the ram.

People who buy a Mac do so because of the OS and because it normally just works, where Windows even now seems to have problems galore. I realise producing an OS for different hardware is more difficult.

So far, I have not had to re-install Mac OS, If I was still using Windows as often, something would have gone wrong by now.

As I said the one good thing about that mini PC is that it can be updated, memory wise and Apple charges a fortune to buy a mac with more memory, but even with 16GB of ram this machine is doing fine, far better than my Ryzen 7 1700 machine did with it's 54GB of ram or something like that.

I am a convert now , Should have gone for a Mac years ago

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

People who buy a Mac do so because of the OS and because it normally just works, where Windows even now seems to have problems galore. I realise producing an OS for different hardware is more difficult.

So far, I have not had to re-install Mac OS, If I was still using Windows as often, something would have gone wrong by now.

I think that's something of a myth. I've not had to reinstall Windows, Mac OS, or Linux for many years now,

They all "just work".

The 10,000 or more windows desktops at work “just work”. The 50 Macs give the IT dept the most hassle. 😂

Probably more a case of who the users in the organisation of those Macs are to be fair. Without casting aspersions, you know who/what I mean 😅

As noted above both platforms are very stable these days. Once upon a time I would live by the “clean slate install of windows every few years to keep things sweet” rule. Haven’t had to do that in a very, very long time.

You mean those who think “it just works” and then blame you when it doesn’t?

The same ones who think “If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen” (as if!). Advertisers have a lot to answer for.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Probably more a case of who the users in the organisation of those Macs are to be fair. Without casting aspersions, you know who/what I mean 😅

Thankfully no longer as much as status symbol as decent laptops from Surface/Lenovo or Dell are similarly priced. Its a case of "what do you want to do that job"... thankfully I don't directly work for that company

As noted above both platforms are very stable these days. Once upon a time I would live by the “clean slate install of windows every few years to keep things sweet” rule. Haven’t had to do that in a very, very long time.

Yes, I've seen the same. There was a lot of engineering in Win7 and then increased in 8/8.1 that went into 10 to solve the problem of third party applications destablising the OS and other apps. The amount of "library virtualisation" is pretty clever, but hard to debug. Apple went the other way and made the OS read-only, gave the problem the application developers.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

I think that's something of a myth. I've not had to reinstall Windows, Mac OS, or Linux for many years now,

They all "just work".

I had to redo my brother's PC a couple of months ago because it just started to fail, Word would fail to start, he lost one drive and there were other problems, i thought maybe it was the hard drive, but that checked out fine and to be honest for the amount of use it gets, which is not a lot it should be fine. Over 20 old years with Windows i am glad not to rely on it now.

I've been using Windows since around '92 so harking back to Windows 3.0...ah those were the days 😂

I remember Windows 1 and 2 before then, such a long time ago.

I’m not that old 😅. Still the right side of fifty…just!

I can vaguely remember, trying to use!!, it must have been Windows 2.0 in an office of Aussat (satellite comms, precursor to Optus) in Sydney CBD in circa 1989 when I was doing Year 10 work experience. That long ago! Yikes.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I’m not that old 😅. Still the right side of fifty…just!

Ha, same here... lol

I can vaguely remember, trying to use!!, it must have been Windows 2.0 in an office of Aussat (satellite comms, precursor to Optus) in Sydney CBD in circa 1989 when I was doing Year 10 work experience. That long ago! Yikes.

Yes, I only "used" 1.03 on an Amstrad PC1512 that my Dad had in his office. Then Windows 2.03/2.11 (also known as Windows/286) was on our family shared PC that I did a lot of my coursework on.

Windows 3.1 on 6 floppies. Still got them.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Windows 3.1 on 6 floppies. Still got them.

but have you got device that can read them? If memory hasn't failed me completely didn't you have to install DOS first?

In reply to a post by longedge:

but have you got device that can read them? If memory hasn't failed me completely didn't you have to install DOS first?

You need a 486 or early Pentium to get 3.0 or 3.1 to run reliably, but might work on early core2 models. These likely have a built in floppy interface on the motherboard, but drives are scarce. DOS 6.x runs on almost anything however. Win95 was the first Windows that didn't need DOS first (but the install was tedious if you had a blank hard disk).

6 floppies sounds like the 1.44 MB version, not the 720k version !

Some pictures here...
https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-3/30

In reply to a post by longedge:

If memory hasn't failed me completely didn't you have to install DOS first?

Some of us have 3.0 still running on VMware
https://i.postimg.cc/rFdZgS3x/old-thinkbroadband.png

and Windows 2.03
https://i.postimg.cc/9fbtyXXN/old-203-tbb.png

😂🤣

and going mad...

https://i.postimg.cc/HLRmn6hY/dos33.png

https://i.postimg.cc/gJhWZ3Cv/win103-tbb.png

Edited by jchamier (Sat 29-Jul-23 16:54:51)

Easy there James, I might nerd out all late eighties/early nineties style and have to fire up NeXTSTEP on UTM 😂

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Easy there James, I might nerd out all late eighties/early nineties style and have to fire up NeXTSTEP on UTM 😂

Now that actually might be an antique

Still using XP machine with appropriate drive installed.

"6 floppies sounds like the 1.44 MB version,"

Correct.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I've been using Windows since around '92 so harking back to Windows 3.0...ah those were the days 😂

I have used earlier versions of windows, but my first computer with Windows was a Windows 95 machine, Other versions of windows were to be honest, pretty naff, so was 95, but not as bad.

A mate has aa Apple Lisa, now that really is a pain in the neck to use. If There was more software available for Linux I would have gone for a mini PC, like the UM790 and installed Linux on it.

Not in the same league as you guys but I do still have my Acorn Electron packed safely away in the loft, it must be getting on for 40 years old now

Kind of wish I had kept my old Electron but I have never been good at keeping things. We have a retro shop opened recently near us and they have a load of the old handheld games consoles that I had as a kid/teenager and they are selling them for £250-500 each - crazy money for something with an LED screen that has about 50 little pictures on it and 2 controls.

First PC I owned was an Amstrad 1640. No Windows, had GEM for it but never liked it. Was far more interested in the DOS command line. Windows 2 was the first Windows I used at college. Win 3/3.1 was what was available around when I started work. Have I think used every consumer version of Windows since then and usually upgraded pretty much as soon as they became available. Also used many versions of DOS including the 3rd party ones such as DR-DOS.

Had a MAC mini when they first came out but generally stick to the Microsoft side of the track - gaming is still better supported on Windows and the odd games I play it is just easier to stick with their native OS.

Not sure if it qualifies as a computer but I've got an original PONG in the loft which is about 50 years old (what a mind numbing experience that was ).

In reply to a post by ian72:

We have a retro shop opened recently near us and they have a load of the old handheld games consoles that I had as a kid/teenager and they are selling them for £250-500 each - crazy money for something with an LED screen that has about 50 little pictures on it and 2 controls.

Adding the word 'retro' in front of things and the price always seems to go up

Lol - I am feeling more and more retro - does that mean I can put my prices up

In reply to a post by dect:

Not in the same league as you guys but I do still have my Acorn Electron packed safely away in the loft, it must be getting on for 40 years old now

I remember the Electron, Acorns way of trying to get into the home, it was more or less a cut down BBC, but too cut down if i remember rightly.

I have a ZX81, Zx spectrum and a Jupiter Ace in the loft, also got a couple of Atari STs, but I don't know what models as they belonged to my brother. The shelf beside me has an Amiga 4000/030 on.

If i had the space, I would like to get them all up and running. If i had the money I would love to start up a computer museum around here, but that is not going to happen, just something different in this dingy smelly city

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I remember the Electron, Acorns way of trying to get into the home, it was more or less a cut down BBC

Yes it had only Mode 1 and Mode 7, their may be other things missing but after all these years I really can't remember.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Lol - I am feeling more and more retro - does that mean I can put my prices up

It depends on what private services you are offering 😎🤣

I also have a ZX81 with 16K ram module.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I also have a ZX81 with 16K ram module.

Hopefully with some sticky pads to stop it wobbling.

I've got an original rubber keys (Sinclair) ZXSpectrum somewhere, and and also an (Amstrad) Spectrum+2 with the built in tape casette. No idea what to do with them.

I’ve still got the UK101 that I built as a kit. Hundreds of ICs to solder, with a keyboard of individual switches that had to be soldered to the PCB. And a wooden case that I made from old scraps of plywood.

All of 8K RAM. It should have been 4K but when I opened the kit there was 8K and a note that read “Packed by Dave who used to live in Heather Close” - the road next to mine. So the 4K extra (which should have cost me £75) was a freebie.

It didn’t help that one of the ICs was faulty. Luckily there were two of that one in the design so I managed to track it down by swapping them.

I very much doubt it still works. I don’t think I’d dare plug it in to try.