MinisForum EliteMini X500 – AMD Ryzen Office Mini PC

Only had it a couple of weeks but seems to be a good bit of kit well pleased

Wanted a small pc and that’s what I got

Fast and quallity service!

The box comes with no specifications about what type of RAM it supports, nor what model of NVMe card it comes with. Dismantling involves undoing 4 screws, but actually removing the panel involves some wrestling -- and same again to get it back together. I feel it could be better designed.

The wifi antennas that are built-in to the box do not perform well. The X500 got considerably worse wifi signal than an Intel NUC sat next to it. Since there are no connectors on the back of this unit for antennas, to remedy this I'll need to drill a hole in the casing to get some pigtails through.

Unfortunately this box comes with Windows pre-installed, so I wrote over that immediately with Linux. Seems generally stable, except for what seems to be a problem bringing the HDMI-connected monitor out of standby.

The fan noise is noticeable. When idling it's certainly a lot louder than, say, an Lenovo X1 carbon's fan, or an Intel NUC's. There does not appear to be an option in the bios to adjust the fan speed, so you are stuck with this.

That said, it is a way of getting a quite beefy CPU in a small enclosure, which is what I was looking for.

Pros:
- The 6 core processor is powerful enough to deal with any productivity work (Excel/Powerpoint/2gb+ file manipulation) - full-size PC performance in a box this size is awesome!
- The iGPU is powerful enough to play most emulated games up to the Wii - major retro-gaming session!
- is dead quiet at idle and low load

Cons:
- No USB-C ports - You will need adaptors for any USB-C accessories you may already have
- The fan can sometimes get a little loud if you're stressing the CPU & iGPU at the same time, although if the PC is behind the TV or a desk you'll struggle to hear it
- The bundled HDMI cable is SHOCKING; I initially thought the PC was defective when I started using it as I could see "snow" (small transient white dots everywhere) on the screen when running at 4k60. Turns out it was the HDMI cable that came with the PC was at fault; switched it out for another cable and the PC performed flawlessly.