Topton M6 Power Consumption
Power consumption was also an interesting topic.
We tested the unit using 120V power and the included 12V 2A USB-C adapter. This adapter is very small and so that was a nice feature compared to some of the large power bricks we have seen recently.
At idle, we saw 9.5-9.8W commonly with some fluctuations to 10.0-10.3W. That was a bit higher than we were expecting, but perhaps it makes sense with this higher-end configuration.
At maximum load, we saw the system peak at 26.8W at the wall. That means this 12V 2A adapter was being pushed fairly hard.
Key Lessons Learned
While the system itself performed OK for a $299 unit, there were a few disappointments. The SSD performance was poor. Also, the fan in the system was much louder than we expected.
In the video, we held this up to the microphone so that may be the better way to hear it. It is very noticeable from a noise perspective.
Fixing that thermal solution would actually make these more interesting. These small $299 PCs actually make interesting remote desktops. For those struggling with a VDI setup, using these with Windows 10 Pro or 11 Pro, then using a NAS for storage on the 2.5GbE becomes quite intriguing.
Final Words
This Topton M6 unit has both good and bad aspects to it. From a size perspective, this is very compact and an “easy to mount anywhere with Velcro” form factor. Also on the positive side the 2.5GbE networking, WiFi 6, and the Intel Celeron N5105 were all high points of this system.
The cooling solution ended up being too loud for our tastes for applications where there is a quiet room.
The SSD was nowhere near a decent PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe drive speed, but it was required for Windows 11 Pro installation. Moving to the larger 16GB configuration instead of the base 8GB (both are soldered so you cannot change them after), adding this 512GB NVMe SSD, and the Windows 11 Pro license cost us around $96 so that felt like a good value.
At $299 or less, perhaps that value aspect is the real point. The processor is the same as the Intel Atlas Canyon NUC with the N5105, but for around $130 more than the NUC’s barebones price, there are a lot of upgrades. 2.5GbE v. 1GbE, WiFi 6 v. AC, 16GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and a Windows 11 Pro license. To us, that feels like a good value for the incremental $130.
For some of our readers, an inexpensive and low-power system is going to be perfect. for others, this is going to feel a bit underpowered still for a desktop, but it is certainly getting closer. While some may suggest this platform for a router or virtualization node, we also now (finally) have the fanless units, and those make better servers or firewalls. That limits the scope of where this unit is interesting. This will end up being a polarizing unit. Some will love the performance while others will find it too loud and underpowered.
The fact is though that the Intel Celeron N5105 and the Jasper Lake line is a huge improvement over the previous generation J4125 devices, and those J4125 chips were big improvements over their predecessors. Intel is making major strides with its efficient cores and that is making these mini PCs more usable.
 powered mini PC with 2.5GbE and WiFi 6 and see if Atom PCs are fast enough){kind=link}
thank you for your honest review. it’s useful to have someone also point out negatives
In the 7Zip compression charts, the Pentium is mislabeled as a Celeron.
Thanks for the review! Why doesn’t this device fit into Project TinyMiniMicro?
N3350 hits on W10 7zip 9.20 3000 MIPS
4core Elkhart Lake J6412 hits 10000 MIPS
7zip 21.07
N3350 4.653 GIPS
J6412 13.291 GIPS
QuickSync Encode/Decodeon Elkhart IMHO is on par with E-2100/2200 xeon lineup for lowres files
Bad news for us waiting for the Topton or Kingnowy N6005 with 4 x i225 … see answer bellow from Topton :-( seems this could last MONTHs….
“Sorry dear, I asked our warehouse for you, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Shanghai, China, N6005 CPU cannot be sent to our factory temporarily, so N6005 model cannot be shipped normally.
We have three solutions for you now
1. Can you change the CPU to N5105? We will upgrade a 8GB RAM for you for free, and we will give you a VESA mount as a gift
2. If you cannot accept the replacement, can you apply to cancel your order?
3. Continue to wait for N6005
Looking forward to your quick reply, thank you very much!”
Anon –
Tiny = Lenovo
Mini = HP
Micro = Dell
For 1L PCs. We are calling this the STH Mini PC series and STHMPC will be a sister series to Project TMM.
I wouldn’t call the SSD “abysmal”. The most important thing when judging a cheap SSD is random read Q1/T1 numbers and it’s comparable with many other drives, so the basic is up to par.
If you call 1GB/s abysmal, what do you say with 300MB SATAII SSDs? I also have an SATAIII SSD that gets 500MB/s in sequentials but is noticeably slow just a weak, something that’s seldomly experienced with my SATAII X25-M that only gets 70MB/s sequential write or so.
There’s also the saying “there are no bad products, only bad pricing”. If it’s an SSD with a DRAM cache and not QLC that’s absolutely fantastic.
@Patrick, if you ever consider doing the Acer Veriton N series (which are also 1L corporate desktops), would that belong to TMM (or TMMN if a name change is desired) or STH Mini?
Hello. Owners help, please with answers.
1. Can I supply power and get an image over 1 usb-c wire?
(M6—-monitor—-220v)
2. Is it possible to connect an external video card?
3. Is the Thunderbolt standard supported?
Hi, in the video you say you did a clean install of Win 11. When i tried this on a “spare” NVMe drive i hit driver problems as shown in Control Panel\Device Manager. Didi you have the same issue or where did you get the drivers from.