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$579 I think they lost touch with what single board computer buyers are looking for. At that price, there are hundreds of mini pcs with similar (or better) spe

$579 I think they lost touch with what single board computer buyers are looking for. At that price, there are hundreds of mini pcs with similar (or better) specs, that are just as "hackable".

amelius 3y ago
Still 40% more powerful than an M2, according to the benchmark in the article.
softfalcon 3y ago
Yeah, I thought it was cool and worth looking into until I hit “buy” and saw that $579 USD price tag. Here in Canada that adds up to $780 CAD. It’s made worse realizing that’s without an SSD or WiFi chip. It’s even more money with that included. All in, I’m looking at almost $1000 converted to use this thing. Why wouldn’t I just buy a 2 year used laptop that comes with screen, keyboard, battery, WiFi, and likely a discrete GPU to hack on? Because it’s a small form factor? $1000 is too much for that in my opinion.
- gruez 3y ago
  >All in, I’m looking at almost $1000 converted to use this thing. Why wouldn’t I just buy a 2 year used laptop that comes with screen, keyboard, battery, WiFi, and likely a discrete GPU to hack on? Because it’s a small form factor? $1000 is too much for that in my opinion. You don't even need to go used. For instance you can go with this: https://slickdeals.net/f/16371811-lenovo-ideapad-flex-5-laptop-ryzen-7-5700u-16gb-512gb-ssd-14-1080p-ips-529-free-s-h https://slickdeals.net/f/16371811-lenovo-ideapad-flex-5-lapt..., which is cheaper despite being brand new, and comes with a 14" display, 512 nvme drive, and wifi module.
  - softfalcon 3y ago
    This is incredible. That's an amazing device for the price! Thank you for sharing this!
clnq 3y ago
It looks quite appealing for mixed cpu-gpu CI workloads for games. Except for the soldered on memory. We need much more for things like cooking and packaging big games nightly in Unreal Engine. It’s not impossible to engineer around this problem but it’s not ideal by far. Still, these machines would be great for such workloads because the TDP is ridiculously low compared to classic Xenon builds (sometimes approaching a kW per machine), the size is great for a “broom closet” CI farm, and you can get at least 6 of these for the cost of one workstation. For AA games, this could be very appealing, if not for the memory making it a raw deal. The same could probably be said for VFX, archvis, and video production companies that likewise have cpu and gpu combined workloads. Unfortunately, they also need much more memory per machine.
rtp4me 3y ago
While not quite hackable, I just bought (today) a Minisforum UM773 with 32G DDR5 RAM, 512G NVMe, and an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS (8C/16T - 3.2GHz base clock). Paid $579 shipped to my door. Both the RAM and NVMe drive are easily upgradable. Gonna use it as an ESXi lab node.
abudabi123 3y ago
The styling on the hardware has had thought given it looking like Nvidia or Asus offerings. Porcupine slots for adding memory or storage and a way to grid cluster many sbc-slabs adds ergonomy but it looks like the main idea in the picture is to consume AppleTV media and not to attack hacking.
rektide 3y ago
Most RK3588 boards are $120+. I would not be surprised to find this is indeed 5X+ more computer. And in a very small package compared to 5X arm sbc.

$579 I think they lost touch with what single board computer buyers are looking for. At that price, there are hundreds of mini pcs with similar (or better) specs, that are just as "hackable".

amelius 3y ago

Still 40% more powerful than an M2, according to the benchmark in the article.

softfalcon 3y ago

Yeah, I thought it was cool and worth looking into until I hit “buy” and saw that $579 USD price tag. Here in Canada that adds up to $780 CAD. It’s made worse realizing that’s without an SSD or WiFi chip. It’s even more money with that included. All in, I’m looking at almost $1000 converted to use this thing. Why wouldn’t I just buy a 2 year used laptop that comes with screen, keyboard, battery, WiFi, and likely a discrete GPU to hack on? Because it’s a small form factor? $1000 is too much for that in my opinion.

gruez 3y ago
>All in, I’m looking at almost $1000 converted to use this thing. Why wouldn’t I just buy a 2 year used laptop that comes with screen, keyboard, battery, WiFi, and likely a discrete GPU to hack on? Because it’s a small form factor? $1000 is too much for that in my opinion. You don't even need to go used. For instance you can go with this: https://slickdeals.net/f/16371811-lenovo-ideapad-flex-5-laptop-ryzen-7-5700u-16gb-512gb-ssd-14-1080p-ips-529-free-s-h https://slickdeals.net/f/16371811-lenovo-ideapad-flex-5-lapt..., which is cheaper despite being brand new, and comes with a 14" display, 512 nvme drive, and wifi module.
- softfalcon 3y ago
  This is incredible. That's an amazing device for the price! Thank you for sharing this!

clnq 3y ago

It looks quite appealing for mixed cpu-gpu CI workloads for games. Except for the soldered on memory. We need much more for things like cooking and packaging big games nightly in Unreal Engine. It’s not impossible to engineer around this problem but it’s not ideal by far. Still, these machines would be great for such workloads because the TDP is ridiculously low compared to classic Xenon builds (sometimes approaching a kW per machine), the size is great for a “broom closet” CI farm, and you can get at least 6 of these for the cost of one workstation. For AA games, this could be very appealing, if not for the memory making it a raw deal. The same could probably be said for VFX, archvis, and video production companies that likewise have cpu and gpu combined workloads. Unfortunately, they also need much more memory per machine.

rtp4me 3y ago

While not quite hackable, I just bought (today) a Minisforum UM773 with 32G DDR5 RAM, 512G NVMe, and an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS (8C/16T - 3.2GHz base clock). Paid $579 shipped to my door. Both the RAM and NVMe drive are easily upgradable. Gonna use it as an ESXi lab node.

abudabi123 3y ago

The styling on the hardware has had thought given it looking like Nvidia or Asus offerings. Porcupine slots for adding memory or storage and a way to grid cluster many sbc-slabs adds ergonomy but it looks like the main idea in the picture is to consume AppleTV media and not to attack hacking.

rektide 3y ago

Most RK3588 boards are $120+. I would not be surprised to find this is indeed 5X+ more computer. And in a very small package compared to 5X arm sbc.