Wait THIS is a GAMING PC??

[NickHeavy]

 

Are mini desktops finally starting to make sense? Take a gander at the H13G from MinisForum, it’s a whole lotta power for not a lot of space, and it comes at a reasonable price too!

 

Check out the EliteMini H31G: https://lmg.gg/T79CF

 

Buy a Micro PC

On Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/MIMBKxv

On Best Buy (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/h9aB0R

On Newegg (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/XJgARxX

[Prodigy_Smit]

I would have liked to see a 1650 or 1660 but that is impressive for the size especially with a CPU of that power.

[WhitetailAni]

Linus should team with Tech Jesus and try and run a 9900K in it.

[komar]

Been on the look for a small size desktop for a while now - price tag always turns me down for the purpose of YT/reddit and game released in 2005.

 

Even old Intel Nucs aren't worth it compared to what I can get for the same money as a normal form factor......

 

MAKE THEM CHEAPER PLSSS

[TempestCatto]

No..This is Patrick.

[Nathanpete]

Is that a mobile 1050 Ti? I haven't seen a small form factor 1050 Ti desktop board that wasn't half-height, and that is more than half height. Custom board, mobile, or am I stupid?

[YellowJersey]

Audio seemed out of sync, particularly on the second half. Looked like Linus was doing a bad dub of himself. :P

[OrdinaryPhil]

Honestly what this really made me want was an RTX 3050 series card that only draws the 75w from the PCI-E slot. If they can provide a meaning bump in quality from the 1650 I'd be quite happy to buy it.

[Canttuchdiz]

I was wondering what monitor is being used in this video

[b1k3rdude]

I lost interest and stopped watching after Linus mentioned it had an intel CPU, I was expecing it to have a Ryzen 4000/5000 chip in it...

[FRD]

Expected future video: Watercooled Ryzen mini gaming PC (but a tad bigger).

[treefroggy]

I purchased one of these as my main PC. Here's why:
I live off grid in a van with solar. Using an inverter to provide AC power to my PC is a waste of energy, drains my lifepo fast. Instead I use a simple step up converter to convert the 12V DC from my battery to 19V DC, which is what most laptops use. However, I don't like laptops. I don't need a laptop. I have a monitor mounted on a gas spring arm. With a laptop, I would never use it's screen or keyboard or open it at all. These mini PCs have direct DC input, so it's highly efficient for my lifestyle. Most of you PC guys lament external PSUs but I depend on them. Because that means I can just use direct DC to DC input. This saves me so much power I can leave my PC on all night long. These mini gaming pcs are so new and my needs are ahead of the times. It would be nice to have something better, or more bang for the buck, but it will have to do for now.

 

I'm finding it to be satisfactory enough. I am playing Dragon Quest 11 at maximum settings, 1600x900. I'm over 90 hours deep into the game, with framrates at 60fps 90% of the time. During this chip shortage where everything is so expensive, I plan on using this mini PC to get me through. I don't play any FPS. Other games I play are Sekiro, GTAV, Dark Souls III, Resident Evil, etc. GTAV is especially horrible on this though. Everything else I can run pretty well at lower resolutions. I'm going to try to play Final Fantasy XV soon. From my test, it didn't seem to do very well. Dragon Quest 11 S on steam is actually a port of the Nintendo Switch version, so, not very taxing actually. GTA though, I don't think I could turn it down low enough and still enjoy it....

 

One major falsehood of this video is DISPLAYPORT OUTPUT DOES NOT WORK WITH DISCREET GRAPHICS. It only works with integrated graphics, which no one will use, rendering the mini displayport completely moot. This was a major disappointment because it's too late to return the monitor I bought to use with this, and the price just dropped so I have to sell it at a loss of over $100.

 

Maybe I could have gotten more gaming bang for the buck with a laptop. But that would be much more hefty, I'd be paying for a screen I would never use, and it wouldn't be mountable, taking up a huge footprint in my van.

 

I could have gone with the NUC Phantom, but that costs twice as much. But looking back, That would have been a better choice.

 

I put a 4TB Samsung 2.5" SSD in here, because there are no 4TB 2.5" HDDs, and I have 3TB of game libraries and files. This is convenient for backing up, I just pop it in my SATA Cloner with a full size 4TB HDD and clone it. The NUC Phantom did not have such a storage option for me.

 

This is my first gaming PC since 2005. I just needed something to get me through the next few years until PC prices drop again and I can upgrade. Before this, I was using a Thinkpad X220 i5 from 2013, docked. It was getting really hot just doing basic web browsing in ubuntu. That was pretty shabby. So this thing is a step up in usability. Playing games at all is a plus. I do wish there were better options out there for me at the time. In the meantime, I'll be melting this thing trying to get peak performance.

 

Any replies appreciated, this is my first post here. I've learned a lot about PCs from this. I came into it knowing very little. I made lots of mistakes, but I'm forging my own path since no one has a situation like mine. Normal people have a lot of trouble understanding what I mean when I say DC to DC is necessary.

Here's some photos of the rig and screenshots of gameplay tuned to stable 60fps.

[treefroggy]

Here's the elitemini forum for this product.

 

Here's my thread for discussing PC builds with DC PSUs for solar

[treefroggy]

What especially sucks:

I dropped $279 on a 1440p 144hz monitor
but now because the displayport ability was falsely advertised, I'm capped at 60hz.

.....And now that same monitor is on sale for $199, I'd be selling it at a loss.

[treefroggy]

How to upgrade with external GPU:

More updates on my experience with the minisforum EliteMini H31G:
- I did a playthrough of Dark Souls II Scolar of the First Sin with my friend at his apartment. All settings default (high). We've sunk over 50 hours in and have just a few areas to clear. It runs beautifully. That said,

- It is rather disappointing how poorly Dragon Quest 11 runs, well, not poorly per se but it sure gets hot. That said,
- I'm gonna keep cooking with this baby for the next few years before I inevitably upgrade.

- Tekken 7 runs optimally as heck, and it's beautiful eye candy the whole way through. I guess it makes sense since it's only ever 2 characters on screen at once, in relatively small play space. Sucks that my RPGs are what taxes it the most though, along with GTAV.

- Final Fantasy XV seems like it's going to be out of the question. There would be no point in playing that game at lower graphical settings where it looks like trash. At higher settings, the framerate will probably suck.

- Not sure if I am ready to drop the money for Red Dead Redemption 2 since GTAV runs so poorly.

- Given the performance of Sekiro, I hope Elden Ring runs well on this thing.

Worse comes to worse I'll just buy a new graphics card when the prices drop! I love the mobility and I/O of this unit, and the 2.5" tray is great, putting a 4TB ssd in there was worth it as I need the storage for all these huge PC games to be installed at once for off-grid gaming on a mobile network. Plus I've gotten all my console game backups fully in order for every console up to and including PS3 backups.

I get around the lack of displayport output for second monitor by using Duet on my iPad Pro sometimes. If a game wasn't already causing it to heat up, a second screen at 30fps 720ish sure does! haha. But it's extremely convenient while gaming in full screen.