Mini PC for processing

[nandbytes]

Initially I felt like moving back to PCs for gaming from previously using consoles.
I don't play a huge lot of games, I play on average one game per year! And generally they are not the most graphic intensive.
From long back I have a nice collection of steam games which I would also be able to play again. Given how old they are 10+ years ago, they won't be most graphically demanding I guess.

I am not really interested in large towers. So the option is really a mini PC or a gaming laptop.
I already have a M1 MacBook Pro and it works pretty well for processing. The main annoyance is the odd times I need more than 16GB RAM and I find 512GB hard drive really limiting. I get over the latter limitation with a fast external NVME SSD.

So I was looking at something like a minisforum um790 below:

Minisforum 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.uk

I already have a 2TB NVME and depending how much money I have left I'd get 32GB or 64GB RAM.
Just wondering how well it would perform with Lightroom and photoshop and if anyone has experience with a similar miniPC?

gaming laptops seem more money than I am wanting to spend plus I am rather happy with my MBP which I'd likely keep anyway for travels etc (15-20 hours battery life with smooth performance is hard to beat).

I can always just get the xbox series s for low £100s and be done with it.
I will need to continue putting up with slowness for the large stitches and stacks plus use external NVME but its not end of the world I guess....

 

[LongLensPhotography]

I already have a 2TB NVME and depending how much money I have left I'd get 32GB or 64GB RAM.
Just wondering how well it would perform with Lightroom and photoshop and if anyone has experience with a similar miniPC?

It will be absolutely fine for the bigger part. Anything recent pretty much is, with enough RAM (ideally 64GB) and now they really want some sort of dedicated GPU. So the real question is how much of a bottleneck 780M will be and can you find a much better option without resorting to eGPU. It may be quite relevant if you have 8K files, and particularly if you use "Enhance" NR function a lot. This is all GPU driven. Nvidia 3600TI absolutely destroys integrated intel laptop thingy on any such GPU centric tasks.

CPU wise, it will be totally fine. LR is not well optimised so I have never seen it using more than 50% of my 5600X. PS is even less CPU demanding, but really wants the RAM.

 

[nandbytes]

It will be absolutely fine for the bigger part. Anything recent pretty much is, with enough RAM (ideally 64GB) and now they really want some sort of dedicated GPU. So the real question is how much of a bottleneck 780M will be and can you find a much better option without resorting to eGPU. It may be quite relevant if you have 8K files, and particularly if you use "Enhance" NR function a lot. This is all GPU driven. Nvidia 3600TI absolutely destroys integrated intel laptop thingy on any such GPU centric tasks.

CPU wise, it will be totally fine. LR is not well optimised so I have never seen it using more than 50% of my 5600X. PS is even less CPU demanding, but really wants the RAM.

Depends on what you mean by 8k files.

I currently don't have a 8k body. In the past I had A7riv and A1. In future planning on getting the A7CR and maybe Nikon Z8.

I don't plan shooting 8k videos any time soon but I currently have and in future will have plenty of highres raw files.

I have no plans or intension of buying eGPUs and buying a PC with dedicated graphics. I rather keep my M1 Mac and upgrade it later when I have more money.

 

[Snapsh0t]

The IGPU in that mini PC is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1650 so not too scruffy. Should be fine for your older games and reasonable but not outstanding in LR. Probably won't excel at things like AI noise reduction which benefit from a discrete GPU).

It may be worth seeing if Minisforum does a version with the R7 rather than the R9 as the difference in price seems disproportionate for the difference in performance.
I've just checked and they don't.

The other thing to check for is noise. I bought an Asus mini PC with just a 15W R7 4700U and it was louder than I was prepared to tolerate. Fortunately, Akasa make a passive case for that range so now it's totally silent.

Finally, I would be wary buying from Hong Kong in case support is needed. Oh, also check that VAT is included in the price.

 

[nandbytes]

The IGPU in that mini PC is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1650 so not too scruffy. Should be fine for your older games and reasonable but not outstanding in LR. Probably won't excel at things like AI noise reduction which benefit from a discrete GPU).

I use topaz AI tools a fair bit and I think they might really slow down then
May be I should just stick with my MBP because it works flawlessly for most things.

It may be worth seeing if Minisforum does a version with the R7 rather than the R9 as the difference in price seems disproportionate for the difference in performance.
I've just checked and they don't.

The other thing to check for is noise. I bought an Asus mini PC with just a 15W R7 4700U and it was louder than I was prepared to tolerate. Fortunately, Akasa make a passive case for that range so now it's totally silent.

I did check and the reviews suggest it's pretty silent even under full load.
Which Asus mini pc do you have and how does it perform for processing?

I'm not set on minisforum, just the one that felt like a good price, size and performance ratio.

Finally, I would be wary buying from Hong Kong in case support is needed. Oh, also check that VAT is included in the price.

VAT is included. They also sell through Amazon, could always buy from there too.

 

[Snapsh0t]

It's an Asus PN-51 but it's not my main PC as I have a home-brew midi-tower for heavy lifting. The current one has an i7 9700F but the new one I'm preparing has an R7 7700. I was a slide user in my film days and I've carried that through to digital so I do as little processing as I can get away with.....

The UM790 Pro looks like a decent box and is at a good price at the moment, unlike on Amazon. It should be fine as long as you don't need support. The Reddit reports on support are not encouraging and Minisforum seemed the least awful of those mentioned.

 

[nandbytes]

It's an Asus PN-51 but it's not my main PC as I have a home-brew midi-tower for heavy lifting. The current one has an i7 9700F but the new one I'm preparing has an R7 7700. I was a slide user in my film days and I've carried that through to digital so I do as little processing as I can get away with.....

The UM790 Pro looks like a decent box and is at a good price at the moment, unlike on Amazon. It should be fine as long as you don't need support. The Reddit reports on support are not encouraging and Minisforum seemed the least awful of those mentioned.

Its roughly same price on amazon, you have a voucher that gets applied at checkout.
Yeah I did read plenty of reddit reports and basically came to the same conclusion i.e. its the least awful one.
But depends on the type of support I guess. As much as I prefer computers that just "works out of the box", I am perfectly capable of messing around with them if needed.

In terms of processing, I am the opposite. Shoot with the idea that all my images will be processed. More I read into the Ryzen more I feel I should just keep my M1 Mac for now.

 

[Snapsh0t]

In terms of processing, I am the opposite. Shoot with the idea that all my images will be processed. More I read into the Ryzen more I feel I should just keep my M1 Mac for now.

And save for one of the new M3s?

 

[nandbytes]

And save for one of the new M3s?

will more likely end up being a under M2 pro/max. there'll be people who will want to upgrade to latest and greatest.
I have no issues with the performance of the M1 chipset itself. Its really the RAM and harddrive limitations that's annoying.

 

[velocette]

I have an Intel NUC with an i7 processor and 32 of Ram and a 1 Tb hard disk driving a 27 Dell Ultrasharp which replaced a laptop as my 'downstairs' PC to prevent my having to periodically go upstairs to the tower when processing photos. It has now completely replaced the tower and it's only 'failing' is that it relies on WI FI to connect to the upstairs NAS for everything. This only really became apparent recently when the router failed and I was forced to use an old (6 years) router while waiting for a replacement. Obviously a hard connection would avoid this. It is normally completely silent but does emit a slight noise during heavy processing of multiple files. I don't do video.
I would possibly have considered a MAC Mini but having already some much PC kit including the upstairs tower, scanner printer etc it wouldn't have been worth it and a previous 3 years with an iMac didn't prove we were compatible software wise and then the logic board failed.

 

[nandbytes]

I have an Intel NUC with an i7 processor and 32 of Ram and a 1 Tb hard disk driving a 27 Dell Ultrasharp which replaced a laptop as my 'downstairs' PC to prevent my having to periodically go upstairs to the tower when processing photos. It has now completely replaced the tower and it's only 'failing' is that it relies on WI FI to connect to the upstairs NAS for everything. This only really became apparent recently when the router failed and I was forced to use an old (6 years) router while waiting for a replacement. Obviously a hard connection would avoid this. It is normally completely silent but does emit a slight noise during heavy processing of multiple files. I don't do video.
I would possibly have considered a MAC Mini but having already some much PC kit including the upstairs tower, scanner printer etc it wouldn't have been worth it and a previous 3 years with an iMac didn't prove we were compatible software wise and then the logic board failed.

does your NUC have a dedicated graphics card?

 

[velocette]

No no graphics card but so far, six months I've noticed no difference to the tower which had one. For me it's speed is controlled on images by the Wi FI connection to the NAS. I'm sure though that if you undertook heavy processing or video work you'd notice the difference. A Mac Mini would be better for this but for me more than adequate.

 

[nandbytes]

No no graphics card but so far, six months I've noticed no difference to the tower which had one. For me it's speed is controlled on images by the Wi FI connection to the NAS. I'm sure though that if you undertook heavy processing or video work you'd notice the difference. A Mac Mini would be better for this but for me more than adequate.

I'm tempted by a Mac mini but honestly it's a massive amount of money to pay for one. At the same time NUCs aren't exactly cheap.

I don't need a new processor because the M1 is just fine. But if I need more RAM on a Mac I need to upgrade the processor too. A bit annoying tbh.