[HN Gopher] Byte Mini PC Powered by AMD - Get notified when avai...
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Byte Mini PC Powered by AMD - Get notified when available
Author : abudabi123
Score : 53 points
Date : 2023-04-04 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (starlabs.systems)
(TXT) w3m dump (starlabs.systems)
| oblak wrote:
| Looked somewhat exciting until I saw the following: "From
| EUR749,70 Excludes Duties and taxes. Excludes Delivery"
|
| That's a bit steep. I am all for OSS but comparable machines
| (even newer than Renoir) are considerably cheaper.
|
| I've been toying with the idea of grabbing a 5800u/H unit off
| AliExpress since Pis have been hard to get by, and kind of old
| and slow. There was a 5800H/16/512 for just 300 euro last
| weekend. Kind of regret not pulling the trigger on that one.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| znpy wrote:
| Software might be free, but hardware is not.
| oneplane wrote:
| If only it came with 2x NBase-T or at least 2x2.5G...
| user_named wrote:
| Looks nice but it's too bad they don't offer it with windows.
| bacchusracine wrote:
| >windows
|
| Why would you want to make it _less_ useful?
| tomxor wrote:
| It must be nostalgia over the fight of getting a Windows
| license refund.
| sosodev wrote:
| It says it can use USB-C for power delivery but the only USB-C
| port is on the front of the device. Makes it seem like they
| expect most people to power it via the barrel plug.
|
| Also, the APU used here is already fairly outdated for a mini PC.
| So I'm not sure what makes this valuable over the many other mini
| PC options.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Also I have noticed this trend where there is no audio output
| on the back. I don't want to connect my speakers to my monitor,
| or have a cable hanging off the front of the PC. A front port
| is convenient, but should not be the primary audio output.
| PietKachelhout wrote:
| Using USB-C for power is great! Smaller power supplies and no
| more non-standard connectors that are hard to replace.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| That's why I'm surprised they only include one USB-C port. If
| you use that for power input can't use it for anything else. I
| expect machines released in 2023 to have at least two
| especially if it supports USB-C power input.
| usrusr wrote:
| True. If you have to sell with a cheap single voltage power
| adapter (instead of selling either completely without or with a
| more expensive USB PD one), you should at least have both
| inputs, the custom DC socket for your cheap wall-wart and a USB
| PD client for when the user wants to slim down the size of
| their power adapter zoo.
| grodriguez100 wrote:
| "From 762,30EUR" here.
|
| So everyone is seeing a different price apparently.
|
| Not sure if this is a social experiment or a joke. Or both.
| layer8 wrote:
| Different tax rates based on country, probably.
| playingalong wrote:
| I guess it's calculated on the fly based on a live feed of
| currency rates
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I bought one of those Minisforums Mini PCs with a Ryzen processor
| like two years ago, it now sits collecting dust. This M1 Mac mini
| that I use as my daily runs circles around it in every
| performance metric.
|
| I see this has open source firmware. Great. You will be giving up
| a lot with that chip compared to M1 though. Asashi Linux may not
| be 100% complete but I hear it is pretty good. Might warrant a
| consideration if you can run your software in the ARM world. In
| my mind there is just too much to give up when going back to such
| a legacy platform such as this one.
| hedora wrote:
| I looked a bit at how AMD is doing vs. Apple. These current
| chips are all 65W TDP and up:
|
| https://www.amd.com/en/processors/ryzen-for-creators#
|
| (vs. the Byte Mini's 45W), but they mostly have base
| frequencies above 4.4GHz. One of the slower chips in the
| current lineup beats the M2 on absolute performance (with a
| higher TDP):
|
| https://versus.com/en/amd-ryzen-7-7700-vs-apple-m2
|
| It's per core speed is comparable, but it has twice as many
| cores.
|
| This old (2018) chip is 45W, but it's _boost_ is only 4GHz:
|
| https://versus.com/en/amd-ryzen-7-2700e-vs-apple-m2
|
| so that's a lower bound on the AMD side. It's about the same
| speed as the M2 when using all cores (half as fast per core).
|
| Assuming they're targeting something AMD just released, and not
| something 5 years old, and the "up to 4.4GHz" is talking about
| base frequency, not turbo, then I'd expect this to be extremely
| competitive with the M2 Mac Mini. (As it better be, since it
| seems to be more expensive than the Mac!)
|
| I wish they'd say what processors they are targeting.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Well, glad your M1 Mac Mini runs circles around some random
| mini PC. This is really great information, with detailed data
| that really shows how much better the M1 chip is than any other
| processor ever made. This really relates a lot to the system
| being reviewed too.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| One thing Apple can't (or won't) compete on is price for RAM
| and storage.
|
| I have 32GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, that cost me $200
| total. The CPU and barebones mini pc (5600G, ASRock DeskMini) I
| bought are about $200 each. So $600 total.
|
| Meanwhile I can't even buy a base model M1 or M2 mac mini with
| 32 GB of RAM, and 24GB of RAM is $400. 1 TB of storage is
| another $400.
|
| The Mac option turns out to be roughly twice as much, for a
| pretty comparable system (including single core speed!). Even
| if I want more storage, I can have it for an extra $100 or so.
| bpye wrote:
| Given that a Mac Mini has USB 4 you could connect an M2 drive
| with an adapter and still get good perf. That still has some
| additional cost though, and doesn't address RAM.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I concede Apple does not sell low bandwidth spec parts. Only
| one bandwidth. What is the memory bandwidth of the AsRock
| compared to the Mac Mini? Is it a bottom binned spec? At this
| point it is well known that they solder the memory dies onto
| the chip to get a specific memory bandwidth that a slot would
| not be able to provide. Some of the magic of the M1 is due in
| part to this design.
|
| Yes for storage the M1 is more opaque. They claim this is the
| only way they can provide truly secure trusted boot. Its
| questionable but at least the theory seems to be holding up.
| I give them the benefit of the doubt just because the machine
| truly feels like it is from the future. It is like the
| desktop perfected. If it was anything less than the rocket it
| is we'd be having a different conversation and I'd give more
| credence to your claims. As it stands to me, the value of the
| platform exceeds that additional memory/storage upcharge.
|
| >>The Mac option turns out to be roughly twice as much, for a
| pretty comparable system (including single core speed!). Even
| if I want more storage, I can have it for an extra $100 or
| so.
|
| Are you sure about this being "comparable"? This is so much
| legacy in these x86/64 designs that either they are slower
| per given clock or they have to compensate with increased fan
| speeds/power consumption. The minisforum I have was a popular
| Ryzen 5 machine being pushed by all the youtuber people two
| years ago. (Minisforum DMAF5). It was slow out of the box and
| is now even more slow about 2 years later. Even this system
| being advertised here has to use a GaN Charger to cover up
| the fact that they are needing a more powerful wattage than
| the equivalent Mac would need (65w vs ~45w) That right there
| is more evidence that the design can't possibly be more
| efficient than the M1. (not to mention the PSU is integrated
| into the case on the Mac!)
|
| This is such a common trope with PC people, they ignore
| design and value it at 0.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > I bought one of those Minisforums Mini PCs with a Ryzen
| processor like two years ago, it now sits collecting dust.
|
| Cool. Sell it to me? I have tons of use cases for it.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| The value of the PC has probably dropped so low that I
| wouldn't feel happy giving it away for a paltry amount of
| money instead of holding onto it in the hopes of possibly
| doing something with it one day. I hoard old computers. You
| don't want to see my basement. For now it will sit collecting
| dust.
| geraneum wrote:
| While we're at it, maybe Minis Forum could be a good alternative,
| price wise. I am thinking about getting one of their devices
| suitable for home lab.
|
| P.S not affiliated, just curious.
|
| https://www.minisforum.com/
| shmerl wrote:
| Is it using the new Zen 4 + RDNA 3 APU?
|
| 2 HDMIs seems excessive. It would be better to have DisplayPort
| instead.
| sosodev wrote:
| No, it's a 5800u so it's Zen 3 + Radeon. Not even RDNA 2.
| [deleted]
| mdmglr wrote:
| One can buy small form factor/mini pc's with not the latest
| hardware but reasonably powerful hardware on eBay from it
| recyclers for 1/4 the price.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Why is this any better than an ASRock DeskMini X300? AFAICT that
| option is cheaper and offers better storage options.
|
| They advertise coreboot support, but on specifications it says
| CoreBoot is coming soon. AFAIK Coreboot does not support Zen3 or
| any recent AMD CPUs. How will they be able to offer it?
| fbdab103 wrote:
| That DeskMini is a pretty attractive option at ~$160 for the
| barebones kit. I wonder if you could undervolt things enough to
| be passively cooled.
| layer8 wrote:
| For a fanless version, you can buy
| https://www.cirrus7.com/en/produkte/cirrus7-incus/.
| Chico75 wrote:
| you can also fit a Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM fan in there, which
| provides a good balance of ventilation to noise ratio.
| openmapsguy wrote:
| Looks like Coreboot support for 5000 series landed recently:
| https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Open-Source-FW-2023
| CameronNemo wrote:
| This is (very welcome) news to me. Hopefully Starlabs can
| actually bring it to market, because that would be a good
| differentiator.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Anyone have a case suggestion for a mini NAS build?
| chrismeller wrote:
| I know, I know, it's LTT, but I really loved the case in this
| NAS build they did recently:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=boKmZKTKXHc
| vamega wrote:
| The new N2 from that company also looks very interesting.
| 1024core wrote:
| "From $771.00" ...
| openmapsguy wrote:
| Firmware updates for the BIOS, Embedded Controller and SSD are
| just a click away with the power of the LVFS.
|
| Pretty awesome to see this become more common.
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(page generated 2023-04-04 23:02 UTC)