Saturday, October 28, 2023

Minisforum UM790 Pro 7940HS Mini PC



My new (mini) computer has impressed me so far. On paper, it runs five times faster than my 2017 iMac. Although certain apps, like chess-playing programs, don't run five times faster (because adding more cores does not produce a linear improvement), the computer is a multitasking beast. Not only does it have 8 processor cores, but hyperthreading gives it 16 logical cores. I have tried to slow it down by having 14 cores doing computationally intensive tasks, and the computer handles it with no problem.

This is a different experience than my 2017 iMac which would slow to a crawl if I tried to do something computationally intensive on all four cores. (I'm not sure if some of this improvement is due to Windows 11. I noticed that Windows 10 uses a lot of CPU power just for the Operating System and so far that is not the case with Windows 11.)

I've seen some evidence of thermal throttling if I push the processor, but it is not bad. The fan can get a little noisy. Hypothetically, if the same processor were in a bigger case it could have a better cooling system and maybe be overclocked.

It might be a different experience if I were gaming which is one of the features of the Ryzen 9 7940hs processor, because it has the graphics cores built into it. There is no need for a separate graphics card, which makes the computer cheaper, but it will not be as good as a $1200 to $1500 gaming computer.

I saved $60 by ordering it from Ali Express (in China), but then I had to wait five weeks for it to get here. Now the manufacturer has a Halloween sale with $60 off, but the company is also in China. However, Amazon also has it listed for $60 off.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro?variant=43865372786933

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