Minisforum HX90 Power Consumption
In terms of power, the supplied power brick is a 19V unit.
When we saw the power consumption of the unit, the idle surprised us fluctuating between 8-10W. With a single loaded core, we hit 35W. We managed to get to a short peak of around 118W under maximum load.
In terms of noise, in the video we had the unit held up to the microphone so you can hear it. At idle and lower power it is quiet, bot silent. At 100W+ it gets quite a bit louder. For most things, unlike the Topton M6, this is one that feels like it is much better suited to a TV-side compute platform.
Key Lessons Learned
The Minisforum HX90 overall is a nice platform. It feels larger than it needs to be, and there is room for a larger heatsink that could help further lower the noise floor.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is what is the right application for this unit. It is not as small as many of the other units that we are looking at so while it performs well, it is not going to make as compact of a cluster. For a gaming system, realistically having a dGPU system is much better. For just playing video with streaming services, a dedicated FireTV or something like that is probably better with lower power consumption. Still, if you just want a PC connected to a TV this is a strong solution.
We are going to have another Beelink AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX solution that is much smaller in the near future, but this is quieter so many will prefer this one. Stay tuned for that review.
Final Words
Overall, the Minisforum HX90 is a solution that is better than we expected. There are small features that are very nice aside from the CPU. The little touches like using the Kingston SSDs and SODIMMs instead of non-name brand components is certainly a nice touch. Having 2.5GbE along with WiFi 6E is also a differentiation point. There are also a nice set of ports including USB and the display outputs.
This unit ended up both not being perfect, but also exceeding our tempered expectations prior to the review. It is not a direct replacement for TinyMiniMicro nodes but it is also a unit in that spirit albeit in a larger chassis.
Does it support ECC?
Quoting the STH article:
“In terms of noise, in the video we had the unit held up to the microphone so you can hear it. At idle and lower power it is quiet, bot silent. At 100W+ it gets quite a bit louder.”
[The typo was in the version of the STH article that was on their website when I copied these 2 sentences.]
Translation: if you want to do anything truly productive with this little toy be prepared to suffer with fan noise.
So, yet another import product that proves the concept of: “Small, Quiet, Performant. Pick any two.” If this toy is successful in the retail market, then it will prove the old adage: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
It almost makes me think that STH is trying to supplant the “Fanless Tech” website for displaying the most absurd implementations of personal computing platforms.
And in other news, this little toy must be making the reviewing rounds, and that sounds to me like a desparate marketing outfit at work. Another tech website that is heavily populated by PC nerd types did a review on this item. The user comments on that article did not have many nice words to say about this pint-sized joke of a computer; lots of comments about needing more ports if the intended use is “desktop replacement”.
With the number of equipment already tested, it would be interesting to provide a page listing everything, like an intel ark ….
I’d love to see the HM90 reviewed if you can get ahold of one. It has dual ethernet and a pair of 7mm sata drive bays, making it a great STH type mini pc.