discussion the unofficial 'talking about building MiniPC emulator boxes' thread

[CMetaphor]

When I see that type of psu with a tiny fan, I smell noise (yes, it's possible for me, and me only. My hidden power. )

I'm kinda curious if a pico-PSU rated for 150 watts peak(? I think some can actually handle short 180w surges but dont remember for sure) could handle one of these safely. But otherwise ya, trying to find a flex ATX or TFX PSU with a really quiet fan might be a bit of a challenge. I think silverstone or maybe corsair make like 1-2 such PSUs, but will need to look into them more closely when or if my own APU build goes forward.

A proprietary DC to DC board crammed into a micro PC with a laptop brick that's the same size as the PC isn't very appealing at all to me. I like standardized, replaceable parts

 

[Marzipan]

Been looking at these guys more and more, and I highly doubt I'll be doing my APU build now... sigh

Cheapest Minisforum with 780m that I can find is $530 on Amazon right now.. with no ram nor nvme drive. So close to $800 once built, if you go for 16gb of fast-ish DDR5 so-dimms. Even more for 32gb obv. So nearly a grand for a minipc with a noisy laptop fan, and barely 60fps @ 1080p for older, non-emulated PC games.

Its not bad, and probably more than enough for most emulator boxes (that arent planning to run modern PC games as much), but: I really want the option for my own fan choice, and want more gpu horsepower.

Then theres the quality Qs: Unless you've got an expensive TV or *gasp* a middle- to high- end receiver that does quality 4k upscaling, emulation gaming is going to look pretty mediocre on anything bigger than a 55" TV at about 8ft. To be blunt though, I haven't looked into retro / emulation gaming on huge modern TVs much, so anyone feel free to jump in if I'm way off here.

I *think* that having the miniPC emulator box getting the fps to 60 for all games should be it's priority, before resolutions above 1080p. That's why I think using a quality upscaler somewhere to lessen pixel blur would/should be used. But again, maybe I'm way off? Just seems like getting your ex: PS2 games to 60fps then getting it to be as clear as possible using upscaling is the way to go for those that might run these emulator boxes on like 70-80" TVs (or bigger).

Thoughts?

yeh, these wonderful boxes are insanely expensive after exchange. hopefully the prices will start to drop when Strix Point / Halo products come out and everyone wants to liquidate their old stock.

if those benchmarks shared in the mini-review of that ES sample are good, it's VERY encouraging to see the RX 8060s having almost RTX 4060 mobile performance...especially considering the iGPU was not getting near its maximum speed. I have to say it was also very encouraging to see they had fast 8000mhz RAM installed too!!!

 

[CMetaphor]

Yeah the performance is promising... the price? Discouraging. I honestly think even a base -model 395+ -based micro PC, complete with proprietary fan, psu, heatsink and more... will be like $1,200. Probably $1,500 for a ready-to-go model with fast ram and a pre-installed nvme. Just wayyy to expensive for an emulator box for sure, and getting pretty pricey even for a mid-fier gaming PC (if the performance figures turn out to be true, I have my doubts as others have about power limits and throttling problems).

Like I've said before: I've got cases, I've got fans, I've got PSUs and RAM and NVMEs... let me use them? I really don't see why they can't drop a 395+ -type die onto an AM5 cpu and just update some mobos to support it. Surely the X870 should be able to, but I'd hope for some more budget-friendly options to support this mythical cpu as well.

Until then... ya. 8700G build, sitting in my Newegg cart. Will keep waiting...

 

[Marzipan]

I'm kinda curious if a pico-PSU rated for 150 watts peak(? I think some can actually handle short 180w surges but dont remember for sure) could handle one of these safely. But otherwise ya, trying to find a flex ATX or TFX PSU with a really quiet fan might be a bit of a challenge. I think silverstone or maybe corsair make like 1-2 such PSUs, but will need to look into them more closely when or if my own APU build goes forward.

A proprietary DC to DC board crammed into a micro PC with a laptop brick that's the same size as the PC isn't very appealing at all to me. I like standardized, replaceable parts

I think you're right. if the performance is like the leaks indicate, AMD will have reasons to charge through the nose to buy one.

wonder how the RX 8050s will perform. it's a BIG step down compared to the 8060s...16 CU, not 40. being there are Ryzen AI 9 370 out there, we have a better idea how the RX 890M performs with 12 RDNA3.5 CU; about 20% better than the 780M. 890M scores around 8400 points on Passmark vs. the 780M and it's 7000. which places it at about the RX 5500's level.

so I probably will make do with a 780M based MiniPC when their pricing crashes

 

[CMetaphor]

Yeah for like 90%+ of emulator boxes a 780m is probably more than enough. But I was hoping for RTX 3060ish performance for decent PC gaming. I wanna play like Skyrim on my big TV (or someday my projector, once I get around to setting up my basement again) without a screaming little laptop fan whirring away and making it's home a little 80c+ furnace.

 

[Marzipan]

Yeah for like 90%+ of emulator boxes a 780m is probably more than enough. But I was hoping for RTX 3060ish performance for decent PC gaming. I wanna play like Skyrim on my big TV (or someday my projector, once I get around to setting up my basement again) without a screaming little laptop fan whirring away and making it's home a little 80c+ furnace.

talking about performance...its going to be interesting to see how the iGPU performance scales via TDP limitations. my understanding is that the 395's is 120w, and in several cases, device makers have lowered the TDP while others, in the MiniPC world, have boosted it. I don't recall who did it, but some have given some of the Ryzen 7000 mobile CPU a 10 or 20w boost.

actually, thinking about it...the RTX 4060 has a 115w TPD and I think the mobile ones can go down as low as 75w, so I can see how AMD was able to integrate such a powerful graphics solution into a 120w TDP. it's all so cool!!!

 

[djbrad]

Been looking at these guys more and more, and I highly doubt I'll be doing my APU build now... sigh

Cheapest Minisforum with 780m that I can find is $530 on Amazon right now.. with no ram nor nvme drive. So close to $800 once built, if you go for 16gb of fast-ish DDR5 so-dimms. Even more for 32gb obv. So nearly a grand for a minipc with a noisy laptop fan, and barely 60fps @ 1080p for older, non-emulated PC games.

Its not bad, and probably more than enough for most emulator boxes (that arent planning to run modern PC games as much), but: I really want the option for my own fan choice, and want more gpu horsepower.

Then theres the quality Qs: Unless you've got an expensive TV or *gasp* a middle- to high- end receiver that does quality 4k upscaling, emulation gaming is going to look pretty mediocre on anything bigger than a 55" TV at about 8ft. To be blunt though, I haven't looked into retro / emulation gaming on huge modern TVs much, so anyone feel free to jump in if I'm way off here.

I *think* that having the miniPC emulator box getting the fps to 60 for all games should be it's priority, before resolutions above 1080p. That's why I think using a quality upscaler somewhere to lessen pixel blur would/should be used. But again, maybe I'm way off? Just seems like getting your ex: PS2 games to 60fps then getting it to be as clear as possible using upscaling is the way to go for those that might run these emulator boxes on like 70-80" TVs (or bigger).

Thoughts?

Before looking for an upscaler, could AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution technology could do the job with emulators?

 

[CMetaphor]

Before looking for an upscaler, could AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution technology could do the job with emulators?

Good question! ... no idea haha. I've barely used any modern gpu features. I'm still regretting putting OBS and Nvidia game optimization on at the same time. Somehow every game I run now starts in 4k, despite my screen being 1440p. I've reverted, reoptimized, etc over and over, but it keeps happening. Oh well, time for a reinstall of windows regardless.

Regarding frame generation, has anyone ever seen it used when the native framerates are below minimum? Maybe if someone with a 7xxx series + 780m for their emulator box can't quite hit 60fps, they could shoot for 30fps and see if frame gen could make it feel smoother?

Same Q for super resolution. Maybe the emulator chugs at anything above 480p, it could make it look half decent on modern 4k tvs?

But again, I don't think I've seen reviewers try such extremes when testing those technologies. Frame gen seems always about trying to get like 120fps to 300fps and super res to get 1080p or 1440p to 4k. Also, how much would using those technologies slow down the emulator box in general, especially when most don't exactly have desktop-fast cores?

I just don't know, but it's worth exploring, I think.