MinisForum Unveils Cezanne EliteMini HX90 and Tiger Lake ...

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

Ganesh T S

on August 4, 2021 8:00 PM EST

Posted in

Systems

AMD

Intel

Core i5

Mini-PC

Ryzen 9

MinisForum

Cezanne

Tiger Lake-U

Ryzen 5900HX

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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 are a couple of generations old (allowing for competitive customer pricing), the company releases products based on the latest processors occasionally. Recently, the company sent across details of two of their 2021 introductions - the EliteMini TL50, and the EliteMini HX90. The TL50 is based on an Intel Tiger Lake-U processor, while the HX90 is based on an AMD Cezanne Zen 3 notebook APU.

The HX90 is the more interesting of the lot - MinisForum has managed to source the top-end APU, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, for the system. The TL50, on the other hand, comes only with the Intel Core i5-1135G7. The TL50 also uses a highly-integrated motherboard with soldered LPDDR4 DRAM (12GB), but the M.2 NVMe SSD the only upgradable component. In fact, the company only offers one configuration with 12GB of soldered DRAM and a 512GB SSD pre-installed with Windows 10 Professional. The form-factor is slightly bigger than the mainstream UCFF NUCs with the 1.2L box including support for the installation of two 2.5" drives. The TL50 is available for shipping today and is priced at

$649

The HX90, on the other hand, uses a 45W TDP notebook processor, and hence comes with additional cooling requirements. The form factor is correspondingly larger, and the system has a 2.2L volume footprint. The key seller here is the Ryzen 9 5900HX APU which delivers gaming capabilities not found in other systems of similar size / cost. MinisForum is also promising a carbon fibre-infused chassis for a premium look. Unlike the TL50, the RAM is upgradable. Other differences are brought out in the table further down.

The barebones version of the HX90 is currently priced at

$629

, which apparently includes a $100 early-bird discount (the units aren't slated to ship until September).

MinisForum EliteMinis (Cezanne and Tiger Lake)

Model

HX90

TL50

CPU

AMD Ryzen 9 5900HXCezanne (Zen 3), 8C/16T3.3 - 4.6 GHz45W TDP (35W-54W cTDP)

Intel Core i5-1135G7Tiger Lake-U, 4C/8T2.4 - 4.2 GHz28W TDP

GPU

AMD Radeon Graphics 8CU @ 2.1 GHz (Integrated / On-Die)

Intel® Iris Xe Graphics @ 1.3 GHz (Integrated / On-Die)

Memory

2x DDR4-3200 SODIMMs1.2V, 64GB max.

LPDDR4 12GB (Soldered)

Motherboard

7.5" x 7" Custom

5.5" x 5.5" Custom

Storage

1x M.2 2280 (key M) PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe/AHCI SSD2x SATA3 2.5" HDD / SSD

2x M.2 22x42/80 (key M) SATA3 or PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe/AHCI SSD

I/O Ports

1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (front)1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C (front)4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (rear)

1x Thunderbolt 4 (front)2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (front)2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (rear)2x USB 2.0 Type-A (rear)

Networking

Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200(2x2 802.11ax Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.1 module)1 × 2.5 GbE port

Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200(2x2 802.11ax Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.1 module)2 × GbE ports

Display Outputs

2x DP 1.4a2x HDMI 2.0b

1x DP 1.4a (rear)1x HDMI 2.0b (rear)1x DP 1.4a (via Thunderbolt 4, front)

Audio

7.1 digital (over HDMI and DisplayPort)L+R+mic (front)L+R+mic (rear)

7.1 digital (over HDMI and DisplayPort)L+R+mic (front)

Enclosure

Carbon fibre-infused plastic / Kensington lock

Plastic / Kensington lock

Power Supply

120W (19V @ 6.3A) Adapter

65W (19V @ 3.42A) USB Type-C (adapter included)

Dimensions

195mm x 190mm x 60mm / 2.22L

149.6mm x 149.6mm x 55.5mm / 1.2L

Miscellaneous Features

VESA mounting plate

Pricing

Barebones ($629 - $729)16GB RAM + 256GB SSD ($799 - $899)16GB RAM + 512GB SSD ($829 - $929)32GB RAM + 512GB SSD ($909 - $1009)

12GB RAM + 512GB SSD ($649 - $699)

Both PCs look a bit weak in terms of I/O capabilities compared to other mini-PCs in the market - while the TL50 does include a Thunderbolt 4 port and dual gigabit LAN ports, the HX90 has only 1x 2.5G BASE-T port and the USB ports are all Gen 1 (5Gbps). The HX90 does support four simultaneous 4Kp60 display outputs, while the TL50 only supports three such displays. The target markets are slightly different, as the TL50 is meant for home / office scenarios, while the HX90 falls under the gaming mini-PC line. Having had

hands-on experience

with multiple MinisForum units in the past, my impression of the brand is generally favorable unlike the host of other no-name Shenzhen-based sellers typically found on Amazon. In general, I would recommend the barebones version of their systems when possible - similar to a lot of other system vendors, the pre-built configurations come with only one DRAM slot occupied, leaving significant performance potential untapped.

Source:

MinisForum

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lemurbutton

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

More expensive than a Mac Mini but less powerful all around.

satai

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

$1,099 for Mac Mini 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. You can't get more RAM.HX90 - 32GB RAM + 512GB SSD ($909 - $1009)CPU and GPU performance will vastly differ based on what you try to do.

lemurbutton

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

Mac Mini is always on sale for $600 which is less than this. It has a significantly more powerful iGPU than anything AMD offers, neural engine, hardware video encoders, significantly faster ST, and only slightly slower MT, all while using 1/3 the power and virtually silent.Because the memory is integrated and unified in the M1, people have been saying that 8GB really runs like 16GB.

lemurbutton

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

Edit: Actually the M1 has faster MT than the 5800HX according to Geekbench 5. And obviously it blows the 5800HX away in ST.

satai

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

Geekbench...

Makaveli

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

lol geekbench?Can you find a real benchmark?

lemurbutton

- Friday, August 6, 2021 -

link

What? Cinebench? That's a real benchmark right? 99.9999% of the people buying computers won't use Cinema4D. Cinebench only became popular because it was heavily skewed toward AMD's architecture. AMD fanbois run Cinebench everyday to get their d hard.SPEC and Geekbench agrees. M1 is significantly better in the CPU department and worlds better in GPU, ML, efficiency.

Wereweeb

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

You can't "Run 8GB like it was 16GB". That's like saying that your 1TB SSD can store 2TB of data. You either have enough space to keep an application in RAM or you don't, period.

QueBert

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

OSX is a lot more memory efficient than Windows. A Macbook Air with 8 gigs will run similar to a Windows laptop with 16 gigs for most things (I don't own anything OSX btw) It's kind of like iOS vs Android. iOS just runs better with less memory.Your disk space analogy's accurate, but programs aren't always the same size between OS's. I mainly use Serato on my Win laptop, the latest Windows version's 752 megs, but the OSX version's 217 megs and they're identical feature wise. So I'd go so far as to say even disk wise, 1tb isn't exactly equal on Win and OSX.

pdakkar

- Thursday, August 5, 2021 -

link

MacOS likes to swap the memory space of processes that aren't active, which does help with the memory management. It also benefits from very fast SSD's that use their custom controller and firmware. But if you have a single program that takes close to 8GB of RAM or more, no OS magic will save you. And third-party programs can be quite grabby when it comes to RAM. In fact, when Mini's were just released, there were tests that showed that 8GB version was doing way more swapping than the 16GB one even under the normal light use. So, it's not so much that it's 8/16GB because you never need more, but because they can't package more, at least not at that price point. It's not simply slotted/soldered, after all.

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