Updating my games for benchmarking for End 2020 and 2021: Epic Games Cheap Halloween Sales! Metro Franchise Bargains

Heya all, to keep my games that I use for benchmarking updated, I've gone ahead and purchased a few more games on the cheap. And do take note 2 of these games are from the Epic Games store, and I know a lot of people don't like the platform. However 2 games I'm gonna use are worth jumping in now, especially in lieu of Halloween, so some price cuts are there! Also partially because I have an additional 10 dollar voucher for it. So actually I paid like less than 20 US Bucks, or 30 SGD there.

To check the sales right now: Here's the Link!!

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/discover/halloween-sale

Games worth jumping in: with stars on the title indicated the games I bought

Crysis Remastered* - 19.99 USD to 12.99 USD - a steal if you ask me.
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/crysis-remastered

GTA V - 29.99USD to 14.99 USD

Metro Exodus*: Promotion Ends 6 November
Standard Edition: 39.99 to 15.99 USD
Gold Edition: 64.98 to 25.99 USD

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/metro-exodus/home#editions

It's more worth than spending 40USD on STEAM, so rather you jump in. That said, in addition, Metro Reduxes are also going on the cheap with each  one receiving a 11.25 cut to a cheap 3.74.

Metro Last Light Redux: 14.99 to 3.74USD
Metro 2033 Redux*

Other games I also bought early this year

Borderlands 3* 59.99 to 29.99 - Nice cut deal

Age of Empires III Definitive Edition - More worth it if you had AoE III to begin with!

It's a great time to be a gamer, even under Covid-19 Circumstances!!!! As well as a benchmarker!
Look out for the following devices I will benchmark later down the line:

Deskmini DM5 with Ryzen 5 3550H and Vega 8
GTX 1080 vs RTX 3070 showdown!

NVidia's Ampere! - RTX 3000 series has been launched!!

 2/Sept/2020: nVidia dropped the bombshell on the long anticipated RTX 3000 series of GPUs. Specs have all but confirmed. With 3 Very high end cards, one of the 3 in particular looked a very compelling choice.

By heavily increasing the amount of CUDA cores, and shrunk the process down to just 7nm, the result is Ampere.

FEATURES:
To put it plain, the RTX 3000 series is a beast just by looking at CUDA Counts alone. However the RTX 3000 also implements some following knick-knacks.

RTX new Ampere based Ray-Tracing cores are 70% more powerful than those of Turing, making Ray-Tracing applications and games that use Ray Tracing run much more optimally without too big a performance loss ratio. And memory internal architecture has also been altered. By going with GDDR6 as memory standards, 6X as the top end, nVidia has thoroughly increased the memory bandwidth available, especially now the aim is to hit playable frame rates on 8K resolutions. Moreover, the Tensor Cores are 4 times as potent on Ampere than it is on Turing. Of course, the RTX 3000 natively supports PCI-E Gen 4, but going from Gen 3 to Gen 4 isn't big of a deal yet.

RTX 3090 - RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 24 2020
CUDA CORES - 10496
384-bit 24GB GDDR6X at 19.5 GHz
Core Clock: 1400 - 1700MHz
Predecessor: RTX Titan

The top of the line flagship. The CUDA core count is more than double that believe it or not! 10496 vs 4532 of the RTX 2080 Ti and the 4608 of the Titan. The reason why it cost so high at 1499 USD is that this card is meant as a replacement of the RTX Titan series, rather than the 2080 Ti.

RTX 3080 - RELEASED on SEPTEMBER 17 2020
CUDA CORES - 8704
320-bit 10GB GDDR6X at 19 GHz
Core Clock: 1440 to 1710 MHz
Predecessor: RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080 Super

Another worthy card that is way cheaper than the 3090 at 699. Which for its beefy specs, the price is not bad, not bad at all. This card is meant to replace the top of the line 2080s. But that's not the main card that is gonna throw the competition off the market.

RTX 3070 - RELEASED MID OCTOBER 2020
CUDA CORES - 5888
256-Bit 8GB GDDR6 at 16GHz
Core Clock 1500 to 1730
TDP: 220W
Predecessor: RTX 2070

This is the card that everyone is watching. Because of the price at 499 and providing more Teraflops than even the RTX 2080 Ti / Titan, that made users who bought the old 2080s, feel a bit ripped-off.  Because all for 499, this can even have the potential to perform even better than the old flagships. But if you think about it with regards to the GTX 1070, it was to be as powerful the 980 Ti. And the RTX 2070 and Super, to trade blows or if not be better than the 1080 Ti in many ways than none. So not really that surprising. The only obvious difference between the 2080 Ti or Super that the 3070 doesn't have is using GDDR6X memory and with the latter using a way lower bus-width. This may be huge in some ways but we'd wait till official reviews come out to be sure. And shouldn't really impact performance if your intended resolution is 1440p. That said this card in particular will be a good option especially when upgrading from the Pascal based GTX 10 series like what I have now.

GIGAFLOPS PERFORMANCE

Single Precision:
RTX 3090        29389 (35686)
RTX 3080        25068 (29768)
RTX 3070        17664 (20372)
RTX Titan (T)  12442 (16312)
2080 Ti            11750 (13448)
2080 Super      10138 (11151)
1080 Ti            10609 (11340)
1080                8228    (8873)
1070                5783     (6463)

Bear in mind this is just theoretical Gigaflops Performance. It remains to be seen how good each of them will perform in real life come 2021. I have both a 1070 and a 1080, so it'll be good to check them out how they fare in 2021. The card I might get is the 3070. So we'll see, after I get married.

Chuwi UBook Pro: A big brother version of the MiniBook (UBook Review)

Not too long ago I have been using the MiniBook quite extensively till its battery died. But don't fret, it's still alive and well after replacing the battery couple weeks ago which I would like to add, that doing so was actually quite easy to do. Just ensure you have places where you can safely keep your screws. 

While I was having a battery problem though for a good month or two, I decided to give a big brother, UBook Pro a try. And while reviews on the Notebookcheck are average to bad, there are some very good things about it that make me wanna give a recommendation for.

Before we go any further, let's have a look at the specs. Some of the specs are shared while there are also some differences

CPU: Same. Core m3 8100y

To be honest, so far I am REALLY loving the m3 8100Y from the minibook's performance. Even though reviews have been mixed and criticized for its apparent lack of power. But for office, HTPC use, stuff like that, it's perfect for it, matching with other older Core i3s and Core i5s. So no worries there, at least from me.

RAM: 8GB vs 16GB

16GB had always been my standard. But the UBook uses 8 compared to the Minibook's 16. Sure more is better but I don't feel any significant performance hit. So I'd say 8GB on this for office use is perfectly fine.

SSD: 256GB SSD vs 128GB eMMC Storage.

Now this is where the biggest change is where I feel it makes the most difference. The SSD provided is not the fastest with read and write speeds around 250 and 280 MB Per second. However this is a true SSD instead of an eMMC storage. The SSD has like 30-40% faster transfers and that alone makes it pretty snappy on boot up.

Expandability and Serviceability:

In terms of that, the Minibook fares far better in the servicing and upgrading department. You need a pro to pry the UBook out. I can imagine you need quite a bit of time doing that. Having already serviced and replaced the minibook's failed battery very easily by myself is something. Both Minibook and Ubook can expand a Micro SD card slot. There is already an SSD as the boot drive for the UBook. But lucky for the minibook's case, the eMMC storage though slower, is separate from the SSD card slot. So you can further expand its mass storage to 512GB M.2 2242 based SSD Cards at the time of this writing, but can further expand once high capacity 2242s are in the market. With that aside from the eMMC slot, both storage slots can be expanded on the minibook, whereas you can only have 1 extra slot for the micro SD card slot.

Portability:

This one can be a debatable subject. Cause the minibook is obviously light at 660 grams. But that said, the Ubook, being about a full 12.3" display like almost double the size, it's not that much heavier, only by over a hundred grams, which 780g for a 12.3" Laptop not counting keyboard? Is nothing to sneeze at either. In fact the UBook is probably lightest in its class, could even possibly beat the MacBook Airs in terms of weight.

Add-ons

The Chuwi UBook has added on stuff that came with the tablet / laptop convertible. It came with a detachable keyboard dock which also includes a track pad. And a stylus can also be added if needed. The keyboard is average and alright for typical use, but man the trackpad is almost utterly unusable. The trackpad can be detected but sometimes will fail to pick up any gestures unless I detach and reattach the keyboard. A USB Mouse is definitely needed, thank goodness for additional ports.

Screen Resolution:

I'm not so fussed with the screen resolution because to be honest both displays are nice. Their resolutions are very similar, both at 1920 horizontally. The aspect ratio is what differs a tiny bit. The minibook stands at 1200 vertical, and 1280 at the Core Book. Not exactly a big difference and I can dig at both devices pretty nicely.

Ports:

Port selection is also near identical too. With 2 USB As, mini HDMI, 3.5mm Combo jack, USB-C. The only differences and feel that UBook has the edge is that the UBook Pro uses DC charge, freeing up the USB C port for other add ons. Additionally while the UBook's USB As are USB 3.0 standard, one of the Minibook's USB As are at USB 2.0. Still doesn't take away the fact that both devices offer pretty good IO. It would have been great a full HDMI port could have been jacked in there for both devices instead of Minis. My MacBook Pro is slimmer than than the minibook yet uses a full HDMI Port.

Which is better?

Gosh it is a close one, because  the Ubook's size is perfect size for Documents especially it's like near in line with A4 size sheet music which is perfect use on a regular basis. Whereas the Minibook has the serviceability, upgradability, and the smaller size to boot. Aside from the 8GB RAM difference, they perform similarly to each other.

I guess it will all depend on your use case scenario. Because each form factor has its use. Both are good devices in their tablet modes so do your research before deciding which of the two is best for you!

Minisforum Deskmini DMAF5 MiniPC on Indiegogo: Will it be the return of the AMD Brix Idea?

Just a couple months ago, Minisforum started to talk abit about releasing an AMD based APU MiniPC that could potentially rethink and refresh the idea of a MINI PC.

A few years ago, such tiny PCs were a thing, and to some degree, it still is today. But what the architecture of CPUs were back then were running too hot and running too slow. As demonstrated and reviewed in my Gigabyte BRIX back then, the AMD A8-5557M was hot, slow, and noisy. Not exactly what you want in an APU and even a small block PC.

http://paulstechinsights.blogspot.com/2015/04/review-of-gigabyte-brix-a8-5557-r9.html

Fast forward 5 years on since April 2015. I still think Small PCs have their place and can excel given the right environment and architecture. Today I have backed what would have been a worthy successor to the Gigabyte BRIX which I still have after reviewing that. It's by a company called MinisForum and their campaign on Indiegogo just went live a day or two ago.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-next-gen-minis-amd-yes/x/18860519#/

And for everyone's info, I initially thought of myself more into gaming PCs. But lately not so, I'm a sucker for mini PCs. I have an Alienware Alpha, the aforementioned BRIX that is now upstairs in my brother's flat above mine, a Mini Chuwi Minibook. All good SFF machines. But I'd like to be sure that this one is a good one after I get mine from the campaign.

Now I know that Ryzen has already come out on smaller form factor PCs like the AsRock Desk mini A300 STX. However, this is the first time a company is putting that into a Brick Form Factor that's barely the size of your hand, maybe even smaller. And given how successful and how well Ryzen has aged over the last 2-3 years, now's the time to give this Super SFF idea a try again.

FEATURES

Specs

AMD Ryzen 5 3550H (4C8T)

2 SODIMM DDR4 RAM slots (starts at 1x8GB 2400 DDR4 Module, supports up to 2x16GB)

M.2 2280 nVMe SSD (Starts at 256GB)
2.5" SATA Bay (1TB HDD at stretch goal)

AMD Vega 8 Graphics (512 Stream Processing Units)

WiFi 6 Standard (Intel AX200)

Cutting short to the chase here, The tiny PC, codenamed the Deskmini DMAF5, is meant to be still upgradable, and easily serviced too. In a video with Linus Tech Tips, it just opens up with 2 press tabs to reveal the innards just by pushing the top of the device. It already starts off with a base 8GB RAM, and an M2 SSD. However you can still expand it even further with a 2.5" drive that can be installed in its bay as well as a 2nd SODIMM Slot for further increasing its RAM. On Indiegogo you can also top up the extra to have the 1st SODIMM slot taken by a 16GB RAM module instead, so it can go up to 32GB which is more than plenty for an office PC or HTPC. However it is a slower RAM kit at 2400MHz and being AMD, higher RAM speeds will affect user experience on AMD more than Intel does. I'm hoping that MinisForum will up RAM speeds to 2666 or 2800 MHz because this will also help graphics performance for the VEGA 8

The cream of the crop is the Quad Core SMT Ryzen APU / SoC. The 3550H. I know that the 4000 series is already in the market and wished that they update the models as such but the 3550H is still by no means a slouch of a Quad Core. And the fact that it does come with Ryzen VEGA 8 integrated Graphics means that it has some muscle for graphically intensive tasks. The 512 Stream Processing units on it should perform about as well as the intel's Iris 655 counterparts.

With that all said, the DMAF5 is said to be as comparable if not better than Intel's NUC offerings for a significantly cheaper price as shown in the comparison table below even if the dimensions are ever so slightly bigger. But being AMD, Thunderbolt 3 is absent which is a shame.

However your WiFi does get the WiFi 6 standard which increases efficiency over crowded areas. That's one of the features the competition, the NUC don't have. And also, thanks to overwhelming support, the SSD which was originally configured for SATA is now being tested for an NVMe upgrade. I don't usually fuss about SSDs being super speedy, but rather to ensure a snappy OS at the very least. But it'll be nVMe by the time this rolls out.

PRICE:

At time of this writing, the Super Early Bird of 399 USD is already gone, leaving the 429USD version in the Early Bird Pack. It's not exactly cheap but you're paying for that space saving feature. Lucky I was among the first 20 to back the Super Early Bird Perk which is pretty much the sweet spot for the PC. Initially the first 1500 Contributor IDs will receive an additional micro keyboard free. Not exactly the most usable add on but for a HTPC and a mini keyboard makes sense. This has been changed however thanks to a stretch goal, to a 1TB 2.5" HDD which is great. And the nVMe speed bump being testing is welcome at this price point.

COMPETITORS:

As far as competition goes, as of 21st August 2020, another of such device has appeared on the market. Beelink has entered the competition with a similar device with the same CPU.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Beelink-GT-R-Mini-Desktop-Review.484349.0.html

Bottomline is you have an AMD equivalent of a NUC but slightly bigger, no thunderbolt but quite a fair bit cheaper with WIFI 6, nVMe. It can also be expanded and upgraded to some extent with more RAM and an extra 2.5" drive which is now a stretch goal already achieved. However as of this update on the 16th August 2020, you can also top up 40 USD for another 8GB of DDR4 RAM which I did and is actually quite reasonable and you don't need to fuss with RAM upgrades anymore. I know people with 16 can also up to 32 but I'm not sure as to how  much users will need to top up. It remains to be seen how well it will perform, which I will be testing for once it arrives in October. Also aforementioned with the hard drive, which means I don't need to tinker with the machine right out of the box!

I was regretting of not getting the Chuwi HiGame as it is more powerful in the gaming department. But the mini will to do.

TESTS ONCE IT HAS ARRIVED:

Gonna be a while till it does but my plan is to pit this against my Gigabyte P27G v2 Laptop that has been my bedside daily driver that recently has some plaguing issues especially when it comes to hibernating or turning off the hard drives. But also competing against some old scores that I have with the Gigabyte BRIX.

The laptop has the following Specs:
Core i7 4810MQ 4C8T

16GB DDR3 RAM

GTX 860M

Where the Gigabyte Brix has
AMD A8 5557M
6GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon R9 M275X / Radeon Mobility 8890M

Because my main idea of this miniPC is to see whether it can directly replace my Laptop and see how much better it is over the Gigabyte BRIX. Because CPU spec-wise they have the same number of cores but the BRIX's one doesn't have SMT and the architecture is way off compared to the Ryzen. The 5557M is based off of the Richland architecture, actually a derivative of Bulldozer which was quite bad. And now with Ryzen we'll see how it stacks up against my 4810MQ. Should be very similar! 

But we'll see!

GAME REVIEW: Command and Conquer Remastered Edition - Remaster Done right, But please give MacOS Native Support for this game!!!

This comes as a 25-year Silver Jubilee anniversary for the Command and Conquer series. And it is a remaster rather than a remake of the first two games in the series, Tiberium Dawn and Red Alert 1 including all of their expansions. It's released on STEAM and EA Origins on 6th June 2020. It was developed by former employees of the original Westwood Studios who now formed Petroglyph Games, the same developer company that made Forged Battalions, another RTS Game that was decent.

Tiberium Dawn: New construction options: Global Defense Initiative. I keep forgetting the
Conyard looks so tiny compared to the refinery in TD!

Now I've started first with Red Alert then the expansions of Counterstrike and Aftermath. Later on, I only played the Sega Saturn version of Tiberium Dawn on one of my cousin's interface then later Red Alert Retaliation which is a PS1 port of the Counterstrike expansion. Both similar interfaces. But PC versions are the way to go here.

OVERVIEW OF CHANGES

With that said the remaster does bring about a massive update / overhaul to the game's interface, graphics and music with the aim of keeping the gameplay of the game the same as the original as much as possible. 

Red Alert 1: Defending mountain passes with the Allies! My favorite faction. This was the mission
that appeared on the CD Manual of the original Red Alert. This is from the Chuwi Minibook m3-8100Y.
This will be taken over by the Chuwi UBook Pro with the same specs.

Massive details like guns, turrets, and other stuff in each unit has been tweaked. For a full comparison, I've linked a video by Starfals comparing old vs the new units of Red Alert 1. He's doing all the comparisons at this moment. Alot of the graphical detail that was missed in the original was enhanced, like adding machine gun cupola on the APC, guy at the back with the machine gun on the ranger jeep. The works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHUtYgJqaFE

The other noticeable changes brought to the game was the sidebar. Featuring the Red Alert 2 and C&C3 Tiberium Wars style build tab, separated to buildings, infantry, vehicles (which includes aircraft and naval vessels), as well as super-weapons / powerups. As well as the power meter. It also shares the 3 column icons instead of 2, from C&C3 and OpenRA.

But what they could have done is when a Power Plant or Construction yard is selected the power consumption is displayed, like it did in Tiberium Sun and Red Alert 2. Also the game is designed to run now at 60 fps no matter on the game speed, which makes it way more fluid and smooth and less stiff.

Also what is brought in is build queues. And you can have up to 99 same/different units in the queue at a time. Harvesters and Ore Trucks will automatically harvest ore the moment it comes out of their war / weapons factory provided you have a refinery.

A huge welcome addition that was not in the original is the ability to completely rebind your keys from the keyboard settings of the main menu. You don't need to use the defaulted hot keys preset from the game. You can tweak it to any key you like for faster commands. There's an extensive guide from Bryan Vahey as to get your key bindings going, as well as some basics to help you get used to hotkeys. If you're someone who likes messing with hotkeys, this is the best guide to use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sLB-Hf8Oe4

The Ability to completely rebind your keys is huge.
Credits: Bryan Vahey's C&C Remaster Basic Tips

SOUND FX AND MUSIC:

Sound effects have also been updated to use a newer engine thanks to the advantage of Hi-Definition audio. They sound decent, but not too great. However, there is a little tweak that you can do if you want the nostalgia factor. Head to the settings and turn the old sounds of the classic game back on. That's usually what I would prefer to play along with the High Def Graphics enabled.

The music is remastered and rearranged by the original composer, the legendary Frank Klepecki who did the original soundtracks for both Red Alert and Tiberium Dawn. What I'll say is simply turn up your subs and enjoy it. And if you'd like to relive nostalgia, again from the settings, you can play the old music.

PERFORMANCE:

Comments based on the game are pretty mixed by most people. But I didn't seem to come across much performance issues on mine. Only thing I have at times is sometimes a noticeable drop in frame rates when there are too many health bars on screen, especially when the setting of health bars always on is selected.

But other than that it is a very light title to run. Here's my test device:

Core m3-8100Y
16GB DDR3L RAM
Intel UHD 615 Graphics

And now the requirements below.

Light requirements in 2020, I mean REALLY light. Which makes the game easy to run on most PCs.

With requirements like a Core 2 Duo, pretty much any potato or office Basic PC can run this game. Heck, I have no problems running it with a Core m3-8100Y from a Chuwi MiniBook with an Intel UHD graphics 615. It's worse than iGPUs that have Intel HD 520, 620, and Iris 5100. So if my little minibook can run this game just fine, and at 1920 x 1200 (Although borders limit playable to 1920 x 1080p), don't worry about your old PC if you'd want to run this game. You need about 32 Gigs of storage space which may sound a lot for a light title, but at least it's a far cry from like 120GB games that really irk me off. I strongly believe games should never exceed 75GB in space and really expect all developers to stick to it.

I'd say a GTX 750Ti even for an old budget GPU, is considered overkill. Like real overkill when I tried it on my GTX 860M Laptop based on this GPU, 100+ or more FPS is no problem with that. Kinda says alot of the lightness of the game.

BONUSES: Galleries

As you continue to play the game, you'll unlock some more hidden treasures and behind the scenes picture galleries, what goes on during development. I think it's a nice touch for a way to showcase the rich history of Command and Conquer and how it really became a catalyst of then an all new genre of Computer games, Real Time Strategy. It's worth taking a look as a bit of a breather in between missions and game time. 

THE GOOD: Almost everything, even touchscreen support for small micro missions is nice.

So far I've been playing this on my Chuwi Minibook with a core m3-8100Y and what it brought to the table was touchscreen support. Although you can simply use the mouse and keyboard method as it was in the classic, this was how close I can achieve a mobile experience on the game. Loved the interface, the music and how light the requirements are.

Here's an example of me playing on touchscreen, the first mission of Tiberium Dawn.

Some people do report Sidebar graphical issues which I've seen on STEAM forums but so far on my minibook, no problems. That said it's one problem that needs addressing.

THE BAD: Mainly OS Support, abit crash heavy on Multiplayer

Out of the box, some improvements are definitely needed out of the box in terms of Quality of Life improvements and game balancing. Some people complain of the very slow growth rate of tiberium and ore. I know I can easily address this with the Rules INI file, which is always something I like to mess with, but it should be adjustable in game especially for multiplayer where the universal values isn't exactly the best. Hard difficulty is reported to be REAL hard that it's broken. But usually I go to the max of Medium.

No MacOS Support which is FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!

Multiplayer is a bit flaky as well. With me and my friend RocketAbyss facing constant crashes till we quickly join launch games before it has the chance to crash out. Not perfect but fixable.

The biggest deal breaker for me is the lack of MacOS and Linux native support. Because despite the amount of computers I have, my daily driver is STILL my 2014 13.3" MacBook Pro running on High Sierra. And I've quite a lot of friends from school who still use MacOS that want to play this game without going the route of a Virtual Machine and Boot Camp JUST for this one game. That's a reason why I gave the STEAM review a thumbs down.



And I also don't see why Windows 7 is also supported. Some people who run Windows 7 on it reported it runs fine however. And believe me, Windows 7 is still my favorite windows based OS even though I largely have switched to Windows 10 on most of my platforms.


BOTTOMLINE: Still have tweaks to iron out. But at least it's a remaster done right.

There's still some issues to sort out since the release of the game, like stuttering issues, some UI issues, and complaints over AI pathfinding and slow growth of ore / tiberium. These are the little issues that we've come to expect over launch day and pre-patch. But still the biggest factor is lack of OS support.

However with all that brought to the table for a decent 20 USD, which is fair considering you have 2 games with you, at least it's a remaster, mostly done right. Great graphics, decent sounds and awesome music with the option of using legacy ones along with light requirements, make it a good game to install on office notebooks or Windows Tablets and just play abit on the move.

But Please, for God's sake get MacOS / Linux Support on this damn thing!!!!

New HTPC / Potential Main Gaming PC: Ryzen Five is Nice!

ROLE OF THIS PC:

The role of this PC that it will take over my Gigabyte P27Gv2 as the beside rig and letting this PC take the reins. It'll hide at the corner crevice below the Projector so I can use the HDMI port with the Vankyo Leisure 510 Projector or the Taihe Gemini 15" Screen.

COMPONENTS:

Ryzen 5 1600 with Wraith Max Cooler

16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz Memory

Coolermaster Elite 120

720GB SSD, 2Tb Toshiba 

AsRock A320I Motherboard

nVidia GeForce GTX 1070 (Zotac Mini Version)

Silverstone SFX 600W PSU

CPU: Ryzen 5 1600.

The first Ryzen 6-cores are still great for most tasks and it was cheap when I bought it. It did come with a Wraith Cooler which is actually big for a stock cooler which saves on cost a bit. For a 6 core, it was and is still the better value proposition than then 1600X.

Chassis: Coolermaster Elite 120

This is an old case, but I still like the look of these cause' till now they still look pretty sleek for what they are. In fact I still prefer this case over the newer 130. This came from the guts of my brother's rig that had a Pentium G3258 overclocked to 4.5 GHz. Still love the case, with the Small Desktop oblong chassis ideal as a HTPC or SFF ITX gaming build like this. I'll still be using the Optical Bay. But bad thing is it is just a bit too short as an ATX power supply mount barely clears and just touches the Wraith Stealth Cooler. But it's still short enough for me to use as a bedside HTPC and I can plop my Gemini on it. And the height is way more suitable than the Dell Precision T3500.

Power Supply mount just barely
clears the Wraith Stealth Cooler

GPU: Zotac nVidia GeForce GTX 1070 MINI

The Zotac GTX 1070 in its new home with the 3GB GTX 1060 as backup

This one, oh man, what a roller coaster ride. I intended to use an R9 290 that is handed from a friend and at the time was one of my most powerful GPUs I had in hand. This belonged to Dr Matt, and I gave the GPU a good dust down a couple years ago and applied Thermal Grizzly's Kryonaut. Initially it was working over the first couple weeks till I get random blank screens which signals overheating of the card which was weird. I currently have a GTX 1060 3GB as a placeholder but I intended to get an even better GPU anyway, so I found this for just over 200 SGD, 160 USD which is a nice upgrade over the R9 290. I may repaste it with Arctic Silver MX5 but let's see the temperatures first.

In comparison with the R9 290 and the GTX 1060 (Mine), GTX 1070 Max Q and my Zotac Mini and some notebookcheck scores. Just for giggles I also decided to include an old score with my GTX 970s in SLI, Overclocked with an OC i7 2600K at 4.7 GHz.

Score:

R9 290: 9808, 10799 OC

GTX 1060: 11134

1070 MaxQ: 12058

GTX 970 SLI: 14558, 16582 OC

GTX1070: 14764 Mine, 15906 OC

GPU Score:

R9 290: 11079, 12399 OC

3G GTX 1060: 11965, 12837 OC

GTX 1070Q 14869

Mini 1070: 17171,18906 OC

GTX 970 SLI: 20818, 24116 OC

The scores are interesting in a way that my GTX 1070 paired with a R5 1600 when overclocked has a better overall score than stock 970 SLI at its very worst stock scores and the GPU is not far away from it either. The old 970 SLI with a 2600K rose a lot when I overclocked both but that still suggests a bit of a CPU bottleneck.

Back to current tests though, my mini GTX 1070 is:

Stock:

- 54% better than a stock R9 290, 38% than a R9 290 OC

- 43% better than a stock 3GB 1060, 33.7% better than a 3GB GTX 1060 OC

- 15% better than a GTX 1070 Max Q

Overclocked:

- 70.6% better than a stock 290, 52% than a 290 OC

- 58% better than a stock 3GB 1060  47.2% better than an OC 3GB GTX 1060

- 27.1% better than a GTX 1070 Max Q

Having said that the R9 290 can trade blows with a 3GB 1060 given the right circumstances, but still can get outclassed.

PSU: Silverstone GX-600 SFX PSU (80+ Gold)

The PSU may be a little dated at this point, but it's still a good enough power supply to use. It may be notorious for having a bit of a ripple problem but nonetheless it was considered the best 600W SFX units in the market and has proven that efficiency can be almost consistently be 90% rather than 80% at optimal loads as reviewed by JohnnyGuru and AnandTech in 2014/2015. So it's kinda close to Platinium / Titanium Standard than Gold. I got this new from Shopee for 130 SGD, about 100 USD which is good for an SFX Form Factor PSU, especially when other units cost 40-60% more of that same wattage like the Corsair SF Series and the newer generation of Silverstone SFX PSUs. That form factor benefits the already cramped nature of the case and gives the extra inch for at least everything to breathe.

The PSU can be secured to the top of the mount
But best to be used with the bracket.

But with the cables stuffed in there, it was difficult to make room for some open area around the Ryzen 5 1600 to get that airflow it needs.

16GB 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz 

Now I am abit sketchy for this one, but I'm praying for the best because of some mixed reviews on the units arriving either DOA or as chunks of plywood inside the package. But if it's the true thing, then the Corsair Vengeance should be okay as far as quality goes. I still have Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 RAM running on my Dell Precision T3500 with modules dating as far back to my gaming rig. But we'll see. The motherboard can only take 2933 MHz but it's not far from the advertised 3000MHz and it's still plenty to run it. Got it at 100 SGD and it works.

720GB COLORFUL SSD

The SSD was bought new from EBay for 93 SGD, 68 USD. 720GB is absolutely plenty for an SSD and the speed is not really an deal breaker for me. Hence I'm okay with a SATA 3 based SSD than an M.2 one as my boot drive. And I rather have a good amount of space on an SSD for as little money as possible and keeping to 2.5" Drives makes it a bit cleaner and less bulky in weight. I do have a 256GB M.2 2242 SSD but that will be for the miniBook which is on its way. 

MASS STORAGE: 2TB TOSHIBA P300 Drive

As much as Hard disks are less relevant these days and SSDs can be found 

How the setup will be like?

The TaiHe Gemini makes a nice Low Power Bedside monitor while saving on Power Cables. And 15.6" is just right to plop it on the chassis next to the bed. 

POTENTIAL UPGRADES

The only 2 pieces of upgrades that I may potentially see in the future, is a replacement board to a B350 one that has integrated WiFi on it. The other component is an R7 1700X that may be also be possible if that can be secured at a good price. But these components can wait as soon as they come down in price and I'll only do it if I can sell my GTX 970 SLI and my PIQO Projector.

CHUWI MiniBook: Preview - Tiny but mighty giant? Quickly Crowdfunded, arriving in September 2019 ETA.

OVERVIEW

Chuwi has always been an interesting company, stressing value for money technology. There's only one device that I have was manufactured by them, the Chuwi Hi9, a pretty decent tablet great for watching movies and stuff on the go.

Now do note, the Chuwi Minibook is still in crowdfunding development so it won't be ready until at least September of 2019. At the same time, Chuwi also released the Lapbook, a 4K 15" thin ultrabook powered with an Apollo-Lake Atom X7-E3950 (1.6-2GHz) with Intel 505 Graphics. But let's face it, the minibook that I'm getting has significantly more grunt and muscle and I can bring this portable windows 10 power even in the smallest of my bags that I've got. That's what the Minibook is aimed for, to have productivity that can be carried around anywhere with adequately powerful enough hardware to do the tasks required like in an office environment. Cause' face it, it's sized between my Samsung A8 Star Smartphone, and my 10.1" Samsung Galaxy 2014 and Chuwi Hi9 tablets, making it the smallest machine that I have that supports windows.

Chuwi Minibook compared to the size of a magazine! Quite a difference there.
Source: Indiegogo

First thoughts of the project

Now I've a confession to make. I was actually very close in backing the Topjoy Falcon Convertible (Pentium N5000), another project that has a near identical chassis compared to the Chuwi Minibook. In that case, even though it was like almost last year when the project was conceived, the goods from Topjoy have yet to ship to backers yet but someone has did a review on it already last year.
https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/10/15/topjoy-falcon-review-mini-laptop-windows-10-ubuntu/

The Topjoy Falcon! See the similarity to the Minibook??!
Source CNX

But because I can trust the brand Chuwi from the decent Hi9 Air Tablet I own, I went for them instead. That said, the functionality and objective remains the same as with the two mini convertibles and I believe this is the yoga tablet to get over the Lapbook and the Topjoy Falcon Convertible. And since I was back and forth and getting a mini convertible for so long now is the best chance I've got to go all out and get one for my travels.

689,921 SGD on 14 July 2019
733,207 SGD on 23 July 2019
?? on 28 July 2019.

MINIBOOK SPECS

Spec sheet of the Minibook
Source: Indiegogo

SoC: Core m3-8100Y

This efficient SoC is based on the 14nm Amber Lake Architecture, closer to Kaby Lake than it is Apollo or Gemini-Lake based Atoms and Celerons. It is a dual-core CPU with Hyperthreading and a 1.1 GHz base clock, with a max turbo of 3.4 GHz which is pretty respectable. The Minibook is also offered with the Celeron N4100 which has more cores. However, some would argue that having a much better single-threaded performance is much more optimised than more cores. And the m3 having a much better IPC than the Celeron makes for a far superior SoC in many ways. Performance wise the m3-8100Y should be around some of the generation of dual core i3s and older dual core i5s. 

CHUWI advertises the m3-8100Y having a great single threaded performance. Let's see whether my sample would hold true. If you look at the images that follow, the Celeron's very low base clock speeds might be a problem even if you have more cores. But depending on the user, sometimes the N4100 would serve well enough.

Cinebench, often the best tool for benching CPU Single and Multithreaded performance
Source: CHUWI

Higher Clocks, big benefits. Even dual Core can outperform a Quad Core in Multi Core performance
even though the N4100 has 4 cores. Source: CHUWI

8GB Base RAM, Upgradable to 16GB: Originally when the crowdfunding page came up, the Minibook was to be shipped with 8GB RAM. But now after public outcry, users can double the RAM. Early backers can get their RAM Upgrades for $10, then later 20 then 30. I happen to get it for $10 so that was a cheap add-on and well worth it. Though 8GB is fine and the kinda standard for office use, having double RAM means a lot more resources can be allocated for more memory hungry tasks. It’s a shame the m3 version doesn’t support DDR4 compared to the Celeron configuration, but it is still at least dual channel so there’s enough memory bandwidth and more RAM can be allocated for the HD Graphics 615.

Intel UHD 615 Graphics:

As far as the graphics go, the updated Amber Lake Intel Graphics is a step up from the older 605. It has a base frequency of 300 MHz and a turboboost of 900 Mhz with 24 Execution Units (EUs). It may not run some of the newer titles, but for older games like Diablo III, Torchlight 1, Path of Exile, Terraria and even CS:GO will be a perfect fit for this integrated chip. And because of the relatively small screen, I feel that some games can be gotten away with playing at low 720p or even 480p with a bit of Anti Aliasing. 

See the notebookcheck’s page for the UHD 615.

UHD 615

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-UHD-Graphics-615-GPU.317064.0.html

For the N4100 option, the less powerful Intel UHD 600 is considerably weaker, having a lower base frequency of 200 Mhz and topping at 700 and EUs halved at 12. And if you see the above image at the CPU section, the UHD 600 power is roughly just under half that in Open GL section at 25.01 vs 12.22 fps.

GPU Scores from the Passmark Benchmark Table.

As far as the resolution goes, the UHD 615 is capable of outputting all the way to 4K 60Hz, making multimedia and high res movies a possibility to output to an external high res screen. 

But in General, the GPU should perform around the same as like a Radeon HD 8760D or a GT 640M LE. Other notable GPUs that are down the list that you can't see are:

- GeForce 920M, Score 736
- Intel HD 4600, Score 712
- Radeon R5 240, Score 647

Display: An IPS 1920 x 1200 at a 16:10 ratio is a good resolution for a small 8" Tablet. At 283 PPI, that is actually more than enough of a pixel density to give a good picture. The great thing about the display is that it can be operated in a yoga fashion. Either as a traditional lappie or completely folded to a tablet mode. Having touchscreen is also a very nice get for this purpose.

STORAGE:

128GB eMMC: 128GB is not exactly a lot. Moreover Windows 10 which will come with it has been absolutely a resource hogger lately that 128GB is not really an option. I’m hoping, like really hoping for Chuwi to expand it to 256GB eMMC as part of our stretch goal to have just enough wiggle room. The Minibook is advertised to be able to fit an M.2 nVMe Drive. And as at 23rd July 2019, perks have arrived to add a 512GB SSD to the unit for the m3 which I did snag and the 256GB for the N4100 which is great. But if you want it, you may want to grab it quick as stocks are limited!!

I still feel it's better to have a 256GB eMMC base first as one this is the drives of the competition is not user-upgradable. The M.2 drive, my biggest guess is that it’ll be a 2242 form factor. Do note, mSATA drives cannot fit and therefore can’t be used as the key is different compared to M.2. I have to clear that up first just in case people ask what drives you can put in there. There’s also another mini SD Card slot for additional secondary storage which is great for transferring files off like my Phone for example. 

eMMC is never as fast as SSDs but if you're only based on office work and stuff this shouldn't
be an issue. Source: CHUWI

If you take a look at the score, SSDs will of course trump it, but the eMMC read and write speeds are enough for normal office files. I'm not so hard up on read speeds as long as it boots windows snappily without the agonizingly sluggish crawl of a traditional Hard Drive. But having a room for an extra drive is nice.

Battery Life:The Chuwi Minibook's 26 Wh battery may not sound like much. But since the m3 8100's TDP is only rated at 4.5 watts, this could be sufficient for day to day use. It is advertised to last around 8-9 hours. Personally I'd like a slightly bigger battery but I doubt anything bigger than that could be fitted in there.

Port Selection: Ports are actually very nice for a laptop this small. 2 USB Type A + 1 Type C for both PD and charging is perfect. What would be great is that the Type C only supports standard USB 3.1 Gen 1, not thunderbolt. 

INTEL, please for the love of God give Thunderbolt 3 Support like by means of a firmware or a BIOS update! If this should compete with the MacBook Pro / Air, you would want a Thunderbolt port. The M7 processors in there do support Thunderbolt, there's no reason not to do it for the m3-8100Y! But at least the minibook has a microSD Card slot which is great to supplement the storage. From the discussion in the Indiegogo page, it can support 128GB at most. This one I have, so let's see whether it can support anything higher.

Ports Aplenty. Source: Indiegogo

3.5mm headphone jack, I'm looking at you Apple MacBook!!! This still has the Headphone jack which I am so not ready to let go yet.

MINIBOOK'S COMPETITION:

As far as competing products go, there are a few that fall in the same use case scenario.

- Topjoy Falcon

- GPD P2 Max (Below Photo)

GPD P2 Max, similar hardware and form factor without the YOGA
Source: Indiegogo for GPD P2 Max

And each one has their pros and cons. Ultimately, the Minibook has mostly the best tradeoffs for the most optimal performance.

As aforementioned, the Minibook uses a similar chassis as the Falcon, but with more beefy specs. The GPD P2 Max, has a higher res screen and comes with SSD preinstalled which I am hoping that the MiniBook can add for the Super Early Bird Perk. But the minibook is Cheaper, can do Yoga which the P2 can't, and the 1920x1200 screen is still more than enough compared to 2560 x 1600p and it is a good trade for lower pricing. Also the biggest advantage is that the Minibook can readily accept a Micro SD card thanks to an integrated micro SD card slot which the others would require an external dock for it, like the Keychron T10 Dock I also bought.

And also as a sidenote the Falcon no longer uses the Pentium N5000 anymore since the Pentium N5000 ran out of stock real quick. However they received the Pentium J5005 which has a nice performance bump almost like a Core 2 Quad. And for the 2nd generation of the Topjoy Falcon Convertible, they too will get a SoC Bump  to the m3 8100Y. And since all the miniPCs would eventually top out at this SoC, the competition is determined on who will sell at the best pricing with the best features, so it's now up to Chuwi to see what they can do to better the odds in their favor.

In any case: If you want to explore these links with regards to the competition's SOC and their general performance, here are the links to their NBC Page and their CPUBenchmarks. These benches are not by me but at least they'll give a rough idea on how they can perform against on a universal benchmark.

Pentium Silver N5000: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Pentium-Silver-N5000-SoC.271794.0.html

CPU for all competitions.
Intel Core m3 8100Y, Score 3562: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+m3-8100Y+%40+1.10GHz&id=3367

Entry Level CPU for the Topjoy
Pentium Silver N5000, Score 2436: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+Silver+N5000+%40+1.10GHz&id=3204
Pentium Silver J5005, Score 2910 : https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+Silver+J5005+%40+1.50GHz&id=3144

Entry Level CPU for the P2 Max
Intel Celeron 3965Y, Score 1629: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+3965Y+%40+1.50GHz&id=3234

Entry Level CPU for Minibook
Intel Celeron N4100, Score 2276: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+N4100+%40+1.10GHz&id=3270


Tapping out to the m3 8100Y is a good move as the m3 8100Y's closest resemblance to a proper mainstream CPU is obvious, despite the Falcon's CPU upgraded J5005 which also did produce the 2nd best score across the board which on first glance looks quite impressive. The Celerons are left lying in the dust with the P2 Max's 3965Y model pulling up the rear being just half as powerful as even the Silver J5005, let alone the Core m3.

As far as GPU's concerned, the UHD 615 will just trump the other integrated GPUs of the other SoCs: UHD 600 vs 605 vs 615.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/Intel-UHD-600-vs-Intel-UHD-605-vs-Intel-UHD-615/3876vs3861vs4006

But storage from Chuwi's Minibook as a base is really lacking. The entire competition except us is starting the base as 256GB of SSD Storage while we have to make do with eMMC. Worst still, and again please note that our storage compared to the competition is not user-upgradable so that needs to be maxed out before it rolls off the production line. So this is the KEY area of improvement.

Bottomline: Huge potential, up to Chuwi to unleash it.

Tweaks to the backing:

- eMMC starting at 256GB instead of 128GB

- Thunderbolt 3

This device certainly has a lot of potential if Chuwi can listen to their backers and squeeze to the absolute limit because of what it can offer in a small package. What would be absolutely awesome is a slot for a Micro SIM, eMMC storage just starting right off at 256GB as a base we always wanted, instead of 128GB, or have a 256GB SSD add on to the eMMC without many of us who backed the SUPER EARLY BIRD perk having to cancel and reorder the config at a way higher price which is total utter garbage. To me, doubling that eMMC storage would actually be the best thing you could give to the MiniBook, not really the 8GB of RAM especially since everybody else starts their SSD at 256GB while ours is not even SSD, just an unupgradable eMMC flash like SD card space which is slower which is a huge deal breaker if not improved.

Trust me, many of us are willing to pay abit of extra for it. Hell I wouldn't mind the delays if that is required. Face it, with apps and Windows an absolute hogger these days, 128GB is no longer viable.

And Intel, please give Thunderbolt 3 support for the m3! That would the perfect icing on the cake! 

When it does arrive at my door eventually, Chuwi, I'll definitely play with it, and I can actually leave my MacBook Pro permanently at home.