Mini-PC

Khadas is a well-known vendor in the ARM-based single-board computer (SBC) circles. Recently, the company made its first foray into the small form-factor x86 PC space with a rather unique product - the Khadas Mind. Unlike regular mini-PCs, the Mind is actually an ecosystem of products created with the aim of bringing a portable modular workstation to the market. Rather than relying on Thunderbolt to achieve this vision, the company has created a proprietary Mind Link connector and interface with an intent to produce a more close-knit set of products. The main processing unit in the ecosystem is the Khadas Mind, which comes with either an Intel Core i7-1360P (Mind Premium) or an Intel Core i5-1340P (Mind Standard). Equipped with the Mind Link Connector, it...

CES 2022: ZOTAC Unveils ZBOX MAGNUS EN173080C mini-PC with Tiger Lake and Ampere

ZOTAC, one of the major players in the SFF PC market, has two different mini-PC families equipped with discrete GPUs. The larger (~5L) one is equipped with desktop-class GPUs...

5 by Ganesh T S on 1/5/2022

ASUS PN50 mini-PC Review: A Zen 2 Business NUC

Ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines have been one of the major drivers in the resurgence of the PC market. The trend was kickstarted by Intel's NUCs in the early 2010s...

32 by Ganesh T S on 10/1/2021

Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS ONE SFF Gaming PC Review: Desktop Comet Lake Charges Up with Ampere

Zotac has been a pioneer in bringing compact small form-factor (SFF) machines to the market right since the ION days. A few years back, they also got into the...

19 by Ganesh T S on 8/13/2021

MinisForum Unveils Cezanne EliteMini HX90 and Tiger Lake EliteMini TL50 mini-PCs

MinisForum, a Shenzhen based manufacturer of compact computing platforms, has been steadily bringing both AMD and Intel-based systems into the market. While the mix has mostly involved platforms that...

42 by Ganesh T S on 8/4/2021

Computex 2021: ASRock Announces Mars 5000U Series Mini PC

During Computex 2021, ASRock unveiled the latest series in its Mars mini-PC range, the Mars 5000U. ASRock claims it's the thinnest AMD mini PC globally and comes equipped with...

21 by Gavin Bonshor on 6/4/2021

Intel's Tiger Lake NUC11: Panther Canyon for Asia Alone

The electronics industry supply chain is facing a number of issues due to the ongoing pandemic. Companies are unable to meet product demand, and are being forced to fine-tune...

27 by Ganesh T S on 2/4/2021

Intel Announces Phantom Canyon: Tiger Lake and Turing Tango in 3rd Gen Enthusiast NUC

As part of its CES 2021 announcements, Intel officially unveiled a number of NUCs based on their Tiger Lake SoCs. The NUC11 Performance lineup was covered earlier. This piece...

33 by Ganesh T S on 1/20/2021

CES 2021: Zotac MAGNUS ONE Gaming mini-PC Flagship Charges Up Comet Lake with Ampere

Zotac's mini-PC lineup received a new flagship as part of its CES 2021 announcements - the MAGNUS ONE. It features a Comet Lake CPU (Core i7-10700) along with NVIDIA's...

13 by Ganesh T S on 1/14/2021

Zotac ZBOX CI662 nano Fanless mini-PC Review: Second Stab at Silencing Succeeds

Zotac is one of the major players in the SFF PC space, having marketed ultra-compact form-factor machines even before the NUCs took off. The growth in that segment has...

16 by Ganesh T S on 1/5/2021

ASRock Brings Zen 2 NUC : 4X4 BOX-4800U Renoir Mini-PC Reviewed

AMD-based ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) systems are slowly gaining market acceptance, with the Zen architecture slowly catching up with Intel on both the performance as well as power consumption front...

53 by Ganesh T S on 11/25/2020

ASRock Industrial's NUC 1100 BOX Series Brings Tiger Lake to UCFF Systems

Intel's introduction of the Tiger Lake U-series processors with support for a range of TDPs up to 28W has resulted in vendors launching a number of interesting systems with...

13 by Ganesh T S on 10/13/2020

MinisForum Unveils EliteMini H31G: 65W CPU & 75W GPU in a Compact Mini-PC

MinisForum has been making some interesting moves in the last few months with their computing platforms, ranging from the DMAF5 based on the Ryzen 3000H-series SoCs to the Ice...

3 by Ganesh T S on 9/29/2020

ASRock Industrial's 4x4-BOX UCFF PC Series Goes Premium with Ryzen 4000U Renoir APUs

ASRock Industrial has been at the forefront of AMD-based UCFF PCs, being one of the first to bring out systems based on the Ryzen Embedded APUs in mid-2019. In...

36 by Ganesh T S on 9/8/2020

ASUS PN50 Mini-PC, with Ryzen Mobile 4000 APUs, Coming September

AMD launched its Ryzen Mobile 4000 ‘Renoir’ processors in January, and one of our questions was around the appetite for AMD to push mini-PC designs. Processors that have both...

66 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/3/2020

Intel NUC10i7FNH Frost Canyon Review: Hexa-Core NUC Delivers a Mixed Bag

Small form-factor (SFF) PCs and gaming systems have represented the bulk of the growing segment in the PC market over the last few years. Intel's NUC line-up has enjoyed...

85 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2020

CES 2020: ZOTAC Announces ZBOX Edge MI643 Powered By Intel Comet Lake

All told, ZOTAC has launched several ZBOX SFF PCs at this year's CES. Typical for the company's wide reach, they're gearing up to release a range of boxes at...

6 by Gavin Bonshor on 1/9/2020

CES 2020: ZOTAC Edge CI341, A SFF PC With 6 W Passively Cooled Intel Gemini Lake CPU

With CES 2020 expected to be dominated with announcements of new mobile processors from both Intel and AMD, ZOTAC has taken things in a slightly different direction, preparing a...

9 by Gavin Bonshor on 1/8/2020

Shuttle XPC slim DH370 mini-PC Review: A Compact Digital Signage Powerhouse

Small form-factor (SFF) machines have predominantly used 5W - 45W TDP processors. The introduction of the mini-STX form-factor standardized a compact form factor for systems with processors having a...

37 by Ganesh T S on 5/6/2019

The ASRock DeskMini A300 Review: An Affordable DIY AMD Ryzen mini-PC

Small form-factor (SFF) machines have emerged as a major growth segment in the desktop PC market. Performance per watt is an important metric for such systems, and Intel has...

89 by Ganesh T S on 4/26/2019

The ASRock DeskMini 310 Mini-PC Review: A Cost-Effective Mini-STX Platform

Small form-factor PCs and gaming systems have emerged as bright spots in the mature PC market over the last decade or so. Intel's NUC form-factor introduction was the turning...

49 by Ganesh T S on 3/15/2019

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