Yeah but Zen 3 could mean Rembrandt or Cezanne, until you get to the part where it mentions RDNA 2.
Its clear its Rembrandt in the article, no fault on Anand here... but it takes some mental gymnastics to figure out if you don't follow AMD super closely.
m2 sucks as it's overheating as original xbox. If you really want to recommend something nice to use, m1 mac mini is a decent performer and its not whiny, which is much more value than this 20% extra horsepower, As its meant to be on your desk, that noise factor is important.
this is winning with internet speed and can be spec higher, so for anyone who need 64GB ram and that 2Gbps internet, and up to 24TB of storage, if you are madlad
You're not familiar with the pink tax are you? While that generally doesn't apply to things coloured pink, it most assuredly can in some cases and this is one of them.
I really don't understand your complaint. You get 2x USB 2.0 ports and 2x USB-A 10gbps ports. Two of which are most likely going to be plugged up by a mouse and keyboard. How is that even a "bunch"?
And then this comes with 1x USB-C 10Gbps and 1x USB4 ports on the front I/O. That's more than most desktop mobos offer in 2023.
Agreed with your comment until the last sentence... a desktop diy pc with any modern motherboard will have more or less double the USB ports of this mini pc. My desktop built from a few years ago has 6 USB 3.1 + 3.2 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports. Then there's the front panel case usb headers which add another 2 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 2.0 ports... I'm pretty sure any AM5 or Intel Alder/Raptor Lake motherboard will have the USB-C port as well.
As long as PC manufacturers continue to put Type-A ports everywhere, Logitech gets away with continuing to make new Type-A dongles. And because they make Type-A dongles, PCs keep having the ports.
I've been wondering about that myself: there is typically vastly more high-speed USB capacity on-board of these SoCs than is being connected to physical ports. Of course, there are also plenty of USB 2.0 ports available, but why doesn't just everyone ignore the USB 2.0 and use the constrained physical chassis I/O space for the "better" ports?
They are backward compatible, aren't they?
And it's not like a blue connector costs a lot more than a black one?
It's in things like a wireless keyboard manual that I am finally picking up hints as to why USB 2.0 ports persist: they recommend moving the 2.4 GHz receiver dongle to a USB 2.0 port or even to a cabled connection if it doesn't work right in a 3.0 port or next to it... and that rings familar.
It's something that I have actually noticed with my lowly Raspberry Pi 4, too, sometimes the keyboard stopped working, the dongle was pretty hot and putting it on a short cable fixed the problem.
Now if it's heat, if it's RF interference or plain backward compatibility not covering every real-world use case, USB 2.0 ports must have a practical and sufficiently big need, otherwise nobody would do them.
I'll freely admit it's a shame, because you can't ever have too much bandwidth, nor do I always want to crawl under the desk to peek at the color of the port, but this is how things are in IT: never perfect, just close enough to make you want to continue trying and buying.
And then I hate them call 10Gbit or even 20Gbit USB when the most useful thing that one would immediately want to connect to them, is a 10Gbit NIC... and that just can't be had.
Of course, at true 10-Gbit USB line rates, it would be more of a 8Gbit device, but that's still way better than 2.5Gbit. And it's exactly where Thunderbolt 3, to which USB4 is sometimes supposed to be compatible, is a significant advantage.
Not only does it support 10Gbit Ethernet very well via Aquantia/Marvel chips, but it makes for much saner device names on Linux, where USB breaks things like bridges in a hurry with constantly changing NIC names.
In my playbook the availability of Thunderbolt on these boxes is hard to overrate: it makes them really useful as µ-server!
I remember when Type C started in 2015. It sounded like an ugly transitional phase that I hoped we could just get through as quickly as possible so that everything is Type-C only.
I did not anticipate that 8 years later most ports in most devices would still be Type-A.
Even if you build your own PC it's no different. Good luck finding a case that's all-in on Type-C. Not a single one. One port on the top is the best you can get.
What are you talking about? Direct from the article: "M.2-2280 SSD with a PCIe 4.0 interface" That is an NVMe interface. For consumers we get NVMe drives in the M.2 form factor.
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18 Comments
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brucethemoose - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
To save ya'll some searching:This chip is a Rembrandt (6000 series) refresh. Not Zen 4, but fortunately not Cezzane either.
Ubiqutious - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
Says in the article its Zen 3 ? I didn't need to search."The system is based on AMD's eight-core Ryzen 7 7735HS (Zen 3, 8C/16T, 3.20 GHz – 4.75 GHz, 16 MB L3, up to 54W)"
brucethemoose - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
Yeah but Zen 3 could mean Rembrandt or Cezanne, until you get to the part where it mentions RDNA 2.Its clear its Rembrandt in the article, no fault on Anand here... but it takes some mental gymnastics to figure out if you don't follow AMD super closely.
lemurbutton - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
To save you more time, get a Mac Mini M2 instead.PixyMisa - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
Pay twice as much for something that is literally impossible to upgrade?Why?
goatfajitas - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
What is a Mac?deil - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
m2 sucks as it's overheating as original xbox. If you really want to recommend something nice to use, m1 mac mini is a decent performer and its not whiny, which is much more value than this 20% extra horsepower, As its meant to be on your desk, that noise factor is important.this is winning with internet speed and can be spec higher, so for anyone who need 64GB ram and that 2Gbps internet, and up to 24TB of storage, if you are madlad
Threska - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
Floral pink more expensive? Should be cheaper to sooth the abuse others will give.PeachNCream - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
You're not familiar with the pink tax are you? While that generally doesn't apply to things coloured pink, it most assuredly can in some cases and this is one of them.nicolaim - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
Again a bunch of USB-A ports in 2023!meacupla - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
I really don't understand your complaint.You get 2x USB 2.0 ports and 2x USB-A 10gbps ports. Two of which are most likely going to be plugged up by a mouse and keyboard.
How is that even a "bunch"?
And then this comes with 1x USB-C 10Gbps and 1x USB4 ports on the front I/O. That's more than most desktop mobos offer in 2023.
cohed - Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - link
Agreed with your comment until the last sentence... a desktop diy pc with any modern motherboard will have more or less double the USB ports of this mini pc. My desktop built from a few years ago has 6 USB 3.1 + 3.2 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports. Then there's the front panel case usb headers which add another 2 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 2.0 ports... I'm pretty sure any AM5 or Intel Alder/Raptor Lake motherboard will have the USB-C port as well.dan82 - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
As long as PC manufacturers continue to put Type-A ports everywhere, Logitech gets away with continuing to make new Type-A dongles. And because they make Type-A dongles, PCs keep having the ports.abufrejoval - Sunday, April 30, 2023 - link
I've been wondering about that myself: there is typically vastly more high-speed USB capacity on-board of these SoCs than is being connected to physical ports. Of course, there are also plenty of USB 2.0 ports available, but why doesn't just everyone ignore the USB 2.0 and use the constrained physical chassis I/O space for the "better" ports?They are backward compatible, aren't they?
And it's not like a blue connector costs a lot more than a black one?
It's in things like a wireless keyboard manual that I am finally picking up hints as to why USB 2.0 ports persist: they recommend moving the 2.4 GHz receiver dongle to a USB 2.0 port or even to a cabled connection if it doesn't work right in a 3.0 port or next to it... and that rings familar.
It's something that I have actually noticed with my lowly Raspberry Pi 4, too, sometimes the keyboard stopped working, the dongle was pretty hot and putting it on a short cable fixed the problem.
Now if it's heat, if it's RF interference or plain backward compatibility not covering every real-world use case, USB 2.0 ports must have a practical and sufficiently big need, otherwise nobody would do them.
I'll freely admit it's a shame, because you can't ever have too much bandwidth, nor do I always want to crawl under the desk to peek at the color of the port, but this is how things are in IT: never perfect, just close enough to make you want to continue trying and buying.
And then I hate them call 10Gbit or even 20Gbit USB when the most useful thing that one would immediately want to connect to them, is a 10Gbit NIC... and that just can't be had.
Of course, at true 10-Gbit USB line rates, it would be more of a 8Gbit device, but that's still way better than 2.5Gbit. And it's exactly where Thunderbolt 3, to which USB4 is sometimes supposed to be compatible, is a significant advantage.
Not only does it support 10Gbit Ethernet very well via Aquantia/Marvel chips, but it makes for much saner device names on Linux, where USB breaks things like bridges in a hurry with constantly changing NIC names.
In my playbook the availability of Thunderbolt on these boxes is hard to overrate: it makes them really useful as µ-server!
dan82 - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
I remember when Type C started in 2015. It sounded like an ugly transitional phase that I hoped we could just get through as quickly as possible so that everything is Type-C only.I did not anticipate that 8 years later most ports in most devices would still be Type-A.
Even if you build your own PC it's no different. Good luck finding a case that's all-in on Type-C. Not a single one. One port on the top is the best you can get.
wicketr - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
Surprised there's not nVME and instead they went with M2schujj07 - Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - link
What are you talking about? Direct from the article: "M.2-2280 SSD with a PCIe 4.0 interface" That is an NVMe interface. For consumers we get NVMe drives in the M.2 form factor.psychobriggsy - Monday, April 24, 2023 - link
Offer is available in the UK as well.£389 for the barebone (includes VAT).
£479 for 16/512 configuration.
£579 for 32/1TB configuration. Could I source 32GB+1TB for £190, probably.
If external GPU works for future expansion, this could be quite nice.