The BEST Intel Mini In A LONG While - Minisforum NAB9 Review

it's amazing how much processing power you can get in a Mini PC these days but many fall flat because of what I like to call Top tier Struggle No it's not the name of an 80s glamour rock band I'm talking about the struggle in removing the heat generated by these top tier CPUs in such small boxes which often means a lot of fan noise or thermal throttling to cope well I'm chuffed to say that the minis Forum NAB 9 does much better than most in fact so much better color me aroused I mean impressed more after this message are you looking for a way to safely and quickly transfer files and apps to a new pc well say hello to ease us to do PC trans a simple to use app that can help you transfer programs from one PC to another or create a full backup of your computer try it for free with a link in the video description The Minis Forum NAB 9 is a little bigger than your average Mini PC and features a premium metal chassis allowing for some short putut action while the top and bottom Lids are plastic looks wise this one's definitely a step up above previous efforts I like it and it does feel very solid in the hands none of that plastic Creek seen in some previous units if I was going to complain about something it's the plastic at the bottom which looks and feels subpar but obviously isn't a big deal when it's sitting on a des desk inside the NAB 9 is Intel's I9 12900 HK CPU a flagship from yester year with 14 cores 20 threads and Ira 60 Graphics one cool thing about mini Forum mini PCS is that most if not all of them are available in a barebones option for those that prefer to throw in their own memory storage and Os that would be me and the $359 US price tag for the Bare Bones is very attractive as is the price for the memory storage OS combo when compared to other 12th or 13th gen Intel minis so what does it come with well mini Forum was the first company to introduce Gan power supplies and I'm happy to see the trend continue with a smallish 120 W power brick included along with a power cord HDMI SATA expansion cable 2.5in Drive screws and modern amount the ports are interesting a mix of high features and one major cutback which you might be able to guess there a digital microphone hul 5 GB USBC which only supports data dual USB 3 10 GB 3.5 mm audio jack and a clear camos button the back has another two USB 3 10 GB ports dual HDMI 2.0 dual Intel 2.5 GB Lan and a couple of USBC ports one only supports display out and the other is a full featured USB port with display data and power delivery I did test it with my USBC monitor which can only output 75 wat and isn't enough for this mini but the NAB 9 did turn on and display before powering off so that's enough to make sure it's working so what's missing from a top tier Intel mini like this well that would be 40 GB USB 4 AKA Thunderbolt 4 obviously a deal breaker if you need it but if you're not planning to hook up an egpu fancy capture card or other Thunderbolt device it's not a problem in any case I think it would be nice to have at least one USB 4 with a slightly higher price tag even without it you'll still be able to run four monitors off the HDMI and USBC ports and that's something new to enter my testing regime look at that boys and girls quad display action it's enough to make a grown girl cry there's been a cool Trend lately of using magnetic panels for easy access access to memory and storage well the NAB 9 is the easiest yet press the two points on the front and up Pops the lid a 2.5 in storage Drive can be attached to the topd and connected with the cable provided oh that's new looks like the Gen 4 envi drive has a tiny fan on it along with a heat sink a mediate Tech card handles Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth there's ddr4 3200 memory included and that's about it all right so if you buy them memory storage bundle you'll get Windows 11 Pro pre-installed apart from removing the requirement to sign in with a Microsoft account when setting it up it looks like the rest of the windows image hasn't been messed with and just to make sure I ran a scan with malware bites which came up clean with the bare bones option you'll install whatever OS you like such as ubun which works fine off the USB drive and now let's jump into the benchmarks the mini Forum NAB 9 doesn't have the fastest single core result but it does pretty well against the competition in multicore it's one of the highest Intel performers only being beaten by the Next Generation Flagship as you'd expect in video encoding it nabbed third spot out of all the Intel minis tested so far with the gmk tech knockbox K7 in performance mode slightly edging it out Shame about the fan noise on that mini Intel's biggest weakness is the igpu for gaming and the I9 well still decent is far behind amd's latest efforts it performs as well as the other top tier 12 gen Intel CPUs ddr5 probably could have pushed it a bit more but would also have resulted in a high price tag so the I9 12900 HK is on the higher side of my Benchmark CPU stack and around the middle for graphics the Gen 4 nvme SSD performs above gen 3 speeds in sequential read and right but it's still a ways off the fastest Gen 4 drives Intel CPUs do much better in multimedia and video editing compared to AMD thanks to Intel's quick sync Hardware decoder it's pretty damn awesome in Adobe Premiere and the NAB 9 can handle my 4K Project without issue of course AMD CPUs are far ahead in gaming but the 12900 HK can still do a bit if you stick to Esports and emulation I did mention at the start of the video how minis can have powerful CPUs and fall flat on their faces if they had them because of their Cooling and power limiting issues so to show you what I mean I'm throwing in the gcom it3 I9 which had cooling issues for comparison csgo performs a bit better on the NAB 9 a pretty consistent 80 to 100 FPS in Dota 2 the NAB 9 is far ahead wow 30 to 40 frames higher ruination and valerant the two are pretty much equal while League of Legends is again better on the NAB n an enemy for rizen 5 is a win for the it3 around a 7% frame rate increase and a smaller margin in God of War like Dota 2 GTA 5 is again doing much better on the NAB 9 they answered the wrong call these guys what the is this back the down we bring it to him emulation is almost identical between the two minis Contender eliminated and if you think thinking about Xbox 360 emulation you should quickly mind wipe yourself it just doesn't work properly with Intel graphics and gives slideshow like performance in the bias advaned Tab and then acpi you'll find the settings such as rest on power loss my favorite the power and performance option is important if you want to run the mini using a 100 W USBC power supply or monitor you'll probably need to drop it by at least 10 WS to avoid random power offs and that's because the NAB 9 can draw up to 112 wats maximum idle power drawer sits at around 13 CPU temperature maxed out at 85 wat which is impressive but thermal throttling does kick in at this temp what impressed me the most is the noise levels out of the top tier minis this is one of the quietest underload that still maintains decent performance and CPU temp so good job there the heat sink and fan on the Gen4 nvme storage keeps the drive away from high temps and thermal thring performance so to summarize what I like about the minis Forum NAB 9 is its price which is very appealing the overall design is nice and that includes its Aesthetics ease of upgradeability and metal chassis fan noise is lower than most top tier minis I'm really happy to see a small power supply as well however it would have been nice to include at least one USB 4 port and same with ddr5 but a few per graphics performance increase is probably not worth the extra dollars gaming performance is lacking compared to AMD but this is Intel's fault and not mini for him overall not too much to complain about when you take the price performance Cooling and noise levels into account this is the best high-end Intel mini I've reviewed in a long while so if you're looking for some top tier Intel CPU action and don't need USB 4 the mini 4M NAB 9 is a very good option but you know what's also a very good AMD option the r 10 alloy 9 which you can check out right here cheers

Channel: Robtech

Views: 12,353

Keywords:

Id: 1cUL47rGMiU

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024