1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,320 We're at the Mini's forum booth at CES 2024 and I get to show you something I've been waiting to see for a while. 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:11,320 It looks like an ordinary small computer, but on the back we have dual 10 gigabit, 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:17,520 dual 2.5 gig, dual 40 gig Thunderbolt, a Core i9 processor, a full PCIe slot, 4 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:21,440 96 gigabytes of RAM. This is basically an entire server. 5 00:00:21,440 --> 00:00:24,880 It even has remote management. I can't wait to check it out 6 00:00:24,880 --> 00:00:29,120 and don't even worry there is even more craziness to see behind me. 7 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:32,720 Let's take it apart. Naturally, I think we should start with what I came here for. 8 00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:37,600 This is the MS01. I'm not really sure how they're positioning this thing, 9 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:41,680 but as far as I can tell, it's designed to be a mini-server, 10 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,760 but a mini-server that packs a serious, serious punch. 11 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:49,520 The front is kind of the boring side. Power button, combo mic audio, 12 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:54,640 a 10 gig USB type A and two USB 2.0 type As, but when you move around to the back, 13 00:00:54,640 --> 00:01:00,720 the business side, let's say, dual 10 gig SFP plus ports powered by an Intel X710 chipset, 14 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,880 which we like to see, Intel makes great mix. We've got dual 2.5 gig LAN, 15 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:09,360 don't know the chipset on those, hopefully it's decent, dual 40 gig USB 4, 16 00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:16,320 two more 10 gig USB ports, an HDMI 2.0 power in, and then this. This I was not expecting. 17 00:01:16,320 --> 00:01:21,040 That's a PCIe 16X slot. Admittedly, despite it being wired as a 16X slot, 18 00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:24,800 which you can see it's soldered like that. Apparently, it runs at eight by speed, 19 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:31,200 which is fine, I guess. You can fit a GPU. They have this RTX 82000 that they were showing, 20 00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:35,680 which actually apparently fits in here. Totally fine. I mean, let's try it, I guess. 21 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:41,280 It has to be a half height like this. I think maybe you would call this half length. 22 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:46,400 I'm not that familiar with like the length monikers, but it does just slide right in. 23 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:50,800 There's like little foamy bits on the motherboard to make it sit nicely. 24 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:59,680 Boom. Now you have a GPU. Now the SoC on this system does already have Intel IRIS XE graphics. 25 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:08,400 It's a 1300H, which is a 14 core chip with six performance cores and eight efficiency cores, 26 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:16,080 a max boost of 5.4 gigahertz and a 45 watt base power. I think it turbos all the way up to 115 27 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:20,080 watts potentially. I'm not sure what this chassis can handle. They didn't have it listed on their 28 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:24,880 specs page, but this entire section right here, it's got kind of foamy bits so you can't really 29 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:30,000 see it, is heatsink. Now immediately, I don't think that I would ever put a GPU in this system, 30 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:34,960 but this could be a really awesome place to put something like a network card. 31 00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:41,680 Imagine you could put on top of these 10 gig ports, how about you put two 25 gig ports on a 32 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:47,120 like a Melanox NIC. There should be plenty enough CPU horsepower to rout at speeds like that. 33 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:51,600 Hell, you might even be able to go faster. Can you tell that I kind of want one yet? 34 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:57,200 Let's look at the other side. You can purchase this thing as a bare bone system. That means it 35 00:02:57,200 --> 00:03:04,480 would come with no storage and no RAM, but this system is configured with 32 gigs of DDR5 along 36 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:11,840 with a 1 terabyte SSD. Socketed Wi-Fi card, 2230, I like that, but what the really interesting thing 37 00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:19,600 on this side is the triple M.2 slots. The top one is a Gen 4 by 4. The second one is Gen 3 by 4, 38 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:26,720 and then the third one is Gen 3 by 2. I think I'm not 100% sure which one is by 2 out of these two, 39 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:31,600 but one of them is. Again, that's probably going to come from the fact that they're using 8 Gen 4 40 00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:37,360 lanes just for that PCIe slot, but there is kind of an alternate configuration you can run and 41 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:43,280 something that again kind of goes in line with that server mindset, let's say. We'll pop this SSD out 42 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:50,640 with its little included cute little heatsink, and it is this, an M.2 to U.2 little board. I try to 43 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:56,560 ask them if this is like an off the shelf part or if it's something that they made. He kept saying 44 00:03:56,560 --> 00:04:00,160 that it was just an off the shelf thing. I don't know if I believe that. It seems kind of weird, 45 00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:05,760 but whatever. It works. It comes with it, so you don't really have to worry about that. It just 46 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:11,280 slots in like that. I just noticed something cool. The Wi-Fi antennas are mounted up front here, 47 00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:15,280 so if you were to slide this into like a cabinet or something like that, the Wi-Fi antennas are still 48 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:21,760 able to receive like unobstructed signal, which is a good design choice. These M.2 slots, if I 49 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:27,520 didn't mention already, support full 110 millimeter M.2 drives, which again leads into that whole 50 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:31,200 enterprise vibe. If you were to get ones that have like power loss protection, a lot of the time 51 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:36,560 they are that full length, not a 2280, which is what you would normally see in a computer or 52 00:04:37,280 --> 00:04:41,600 like this one. I did confirm it does come with three of these M.2 heatsinks, so if you upgrade 53 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:44,880 the storage or buy the bare bones, you have all you need to keep it cool, so you don't have to 54 00:04:44,880 --> 00:04:49,680 worry about that. And yeah, there's a fan back here too, which is nice. Oh, right, the RAM. 55 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:54,000 They only sell one configuration aside from the bare bones, so these are 16 gig 5600 mega 56 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:00,400 transfer per second crucial dims. You can get 48 Gigabyte dims from Crucial Micron, so this, 57 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:06,480 the max configuration for this machine would be 96 gigs because it has the two so dim slots. 58 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:11,920 They don't have heatsinks on them, but I think since it's like directly where the fan is spinning, 59 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:17,120 the fan is open on both sides, so I think it's going to draw a fair bit of air right over it 60 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:21,760 anyways, and it's probably not going to cause any sort of thermal problems. I don't know how I feel 61 00:05:21,760 --> 00:05:28,160 about these little screws. They screw right into the heatsink, and it's very, very short threads, 62 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:32,880 so I could see how somebody could accidentally strip these out. So if you buy one of these, 63 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:38,800 just be careful. Let's turn it on. This is the power brick. It's a 180 watt power brick. I guess 64 00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:44,240 you got the CPU, which is over 100 watts. The GPU slot could be 75. I mean, that's basically all the 65 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:48,880 power budget right there. It doesn't look like the USB 4 type C ports do any sort of PD out, 66 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:53,360 which makes this power brick make a lot more sense. You can at least use them for display 67 00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:57,840 output, but not for power delivery. Is that a mini's forum in your pocket? Are you happy to see me? 68 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:04,720 It's both. While we're waiting for Cinebench to run on the MSO1, let's talk about this little guy. 69 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:10,640 Now, I kind of, at first, I'm like, what is the use case for this? The answer is digital signage, 70 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:15,840 and apparently education. You know, you could put this like at somebody's desk is like a small PC. 71 00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:21,360 You don't need to run like a whole power cable. It's just PoE. So it's a 2.5 gig in, 72 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:25,040 which would help if you're using this as a thin client. You can actually get some decent throughput. 73 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,680 It has PD in as well. If you want to power it that way, and this can be used as a display output. 74 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:36,320 Got two 10 gig USBs on the side and an HDMI 2.0 on the end. Specs wise, it's not the most powerful 75 00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:42,880 thing in the world, as you can imagine. It's about the size of a big USB hub. So there's only so much 76 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:48,720 CPU you can fit in here. It's an Intel Core N100, which is a CPU you'll commonly see in those like 77 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:55,920 little NAS units or the little small router boxes. It's only a 4-core, I believe it's a 6-watt TDP, 78 00:06:55,920 --> 00:07:00,640 so definitely not a performance monster by any stretch of the imagination. But it is still 79 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:05,040 enough to run Windows. They ship these things with Windows 11 pre-installed. I don't think you 80 00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:10,640 can get this as a bare bones because, you know, it's definitely soldered memory. Eight gigabytes 81 00:07:10,640 --> 00:07:20,320 of it, LPDDR5, and there's a 256 Gigabyte UFS 2.1 storage chip in here. Look at that, it's so cute. 82 00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:27,840 Put your two Wi-Fi antennas there. The cutest of fans. That's a pretty sizable heatsink. 83 00:07:27,840 --> 00:07:33,280 You can see the little N100 SoC under there just peeking its head out. Whoa, there's a lot more 84 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:39,600 going on on this side. There would be, that looks to be our little RAM chip, I think. There's a little 85 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:44,640 Wi-Fi chip set. That might actually be the storage. They don't have pricing on this one yet. 86 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:49,200 They're expecting this to come out in the coming months, but seems to be kind of filling the role 87 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:55,040 of like a Raspberry Pi. Just, you don't have to screw around with any of the stuff like trying 88 00:07:55,040 --> 00:07:59,440 to figure out how to PoE power it with a hat or any of that sort of stuff. It's just kind of a one-stop 89 00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:05,840 shop. Pretty cool little computer. Hey, cinema just done and scored 800. So about 20% slower than the 90 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:12,800 155H Core Ultra. I can't wait to get our hands on one of these in the office. Imagine a cluster of 91 00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:16,400 these. You could connect them all with 10 gig. You don't need any sort of external Nix. You could 92 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:22,720 connect them all with 25 gig if you put 25 gig Nix or 100 gig if you're insane. If you're wondering 93 00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:28,240 pricing for this one, you're looking at $680 US for the bare bones, which is kind of getting up there 94 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:33,680 for a mini's forum compared to some of the other ones, or 830 with the 32 gigs of RAM and one 95 00:08:33,680 --> 00:08:38,960 terabyte SSD. Sure, it is more expensive, but you are getting some stuff for that money. That X710 96 00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:44,000 Intel chipset is not going to be that cheap. You know, there's three M.2 slots. There's a PCIe slot. 97 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:49,920 There's, you know, just the raw material cost of making a bigger device like this. I would be thrilled 98 00:08:49,920 --> 00:08:55,760 if something like this was 450, 500 bucks. Maybe we'll get there at some point. Still very cool. 99 00:08:55,760 --> 00:09:01,280 Still want one. Let's boot up this mini PC. I just want to see this boot into Windows. I don't 100 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:08,560 need to run Cinebench on this. We'll be here all day. It's working. I think booting into Windows 101 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:14,000 is going to take a little bit longer on this one. It's just just a moment. It's like, come on, 102 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:20,800 really? You got to wait for this one. Look at that performance. This CPU is just sitting at 100%. 103 00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:27,920 It's a 0.8 gigahertz base clock. Just the Windows like boot up setup that's still happening is using 104 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:33,200 100% of the CPU. I just want to see if it will play a YouTube video like reasonably. 105 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:37,200 They do know how much it's going to cost. Apparently it will be around $100, maybe 99 bucks, 106 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:43,520 which sounds like maybe a lot for it, but also like a raspy if you get one from a scalper is 107 00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:50,320 like 100 bucks, maybe even more. So considering that, it's got PoE, 8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of 108 00:09:50,320 --> 00:09:58,320 storage. That seems pretty reasonable to me. Look at that. It's playing back a 720p YouTube video. 109 00:09:58,320 --> 00:10:09,840 Let's try 1440p. That seems to be playing at full speed. Let's try 4K. I don't know that this is 110 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:17,280 playing at full. No, it's lagging a bit. I think 1440p is the best you're going to get out of 111 00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:22,320 something like this. I suspect once all of the Windows fresh startup bullshit is done, 112 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:28,320 you might be able to play 4K. Windows updates still using 20% of the CPU. Diagnostic policy, 113 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:34,880 another 20%. Almost half of our CPU performance is being used by random crap that Windows is doing 114 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:41,440 in the background. So this one, also pretty cool. These many foreign boxes, they just keep getting 115 00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:47,200 crazier. At some point, they're going to run out of weird use cases to feel like this. I really, 116 00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:53,680 really like this one. This is basically everything I've been asking for in a mini PC. 117 00:10:53,680 --> 00:10:57,280 Proper networking. It's even SFP. So if you want to plug right into your switch, you can plug right 118 00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:01,840 into your switch. If you were to run this as a router, let's say even in a hypervisor, install 119 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:08,000 Proxmox on this thing, have a fairly substantial amount of storage and virtualize your router. 120 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:13,760 Maybe you have two of these things or three of these things in a cluster in Proxmox or XCPNG. 121 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:18,880 It really wouldn't be that much money. If you put it in perspective of something like the UM790 Pro, 122 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:24,880 which has a kind of similar CPU with a Thunderbolt 10 gig, Nick, you're kind of in the same price 123 00:11:24,880 --> 00:11:29,520 point. And this is not a Thunderbolt, Nick. This is proper Intel, proper dual port 10 gig, 124 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:35,120 and you still have all the rest of the expansion left over to boot, not to mention PCIe. So if 125 00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:39,280 you like this video and you like the craziness that Mini's Forum keeps putting out, get subscribed, 126 00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:44,720 like the video, and let me know what would you like to see from Mini's Forum. What would you do 127 00:11:44,720 --> 00:11:49,920 differently about this box? I would personally axe these 10 gig ports and I'll just put my own card 128 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:54,960 in. A little bit cheaper price point, but pretty cool.