I was browsing for a new pc and i found this nice beelink mini pc on a very nice deal ($250 coupon)
Purchased it already
CamelCamelCamel.
i5-8279U can game quite well on Esports titles.
Iris Plus 655 iGPU 48EUs w/ 128mb eDRAM , performs similar to Geforce 940m.
Wow nice deal op :)
What hard drive does it have?
Beelink Intel i5-8279U (up to 4.1Ghz) Mini PC, SEi8 Mini Computer, Equipped 8G DDR4 RAM/500G M.2 NVME SSD,Support 4K Dual HDMI,WiFi5,BT5.0,Auto Power On
Brand?
Yes
If you read the blurb on it, it tells you. Intel, Kingston or Crucial. You find out which when you get it. And its gen 4, but it is only guaranteed to be one of the slower gen 4 ones that can do 3500 MB/s.
@GordonD: It's brave to tell people they will receive Intel, Kingston or Crucial SSD because it's known that a lot of people received generic brand ones.
Furthermore, it is even more courageous to indicate PCIe gen 4 support given i5-8279u only supports PCIe gen 3. So Beelink came up with some voodoo magic to convert an Intel mobile CPU that's only capable of supporting PCIe gen 3 into PCIe gen 4?
You are better off assuming you will get generic brand of SSD and RAM. While a lot of reviewers get Crucial RAM and Kingston SSD, it's been known that a lot of customers get generic brand ones.
Even if you get Intel SSD 660p, it is QLC SSD. I understand Beelink releasing mini PC with RAM and SSD is more appealing to the public (ready to go). However, Beelink does need to cut corners. The 1T1R wifi card is disappointing.
Let you know what I get when I get the unit
I got a Kingston ssd and crucial ram
Which Kingston SSD? NV2?
Could you please also run CrystalDiskMark to see if it gets close to 3500MB/s? A few reviews showed <1000MB/s which are strange unless it is not wired fully to PCIe gen 3 x4.
@Turd: Kingston OEM PCIe gen 4 x4 QLC DRAMless SSD. At this price, the SSD and RAM are pretty much thrown in for free. A 500GB QLC SSD is going to be slow writing data once the SLC cache runs out.
Also, knowing the controller inside and how Kingston does it, it actually performs more like PCIe gen 3 x4.
beelink is hardly a no name brand
Beelink is a very popular mini pc brand. As always, do your own research and check if it is right for you.
Anyone know idle power draw?
The Core i5-1240P 16gb model also has a $230 coupon bringing it down to $669. Still not as good as the recent 5800H deal
Other than retro emulation and office applications I can't think of what else it's suitable for….?
a nextcloud/media server attached to external storage
Plex, Minecraft server, Sonarr, SabNZDB, Torrent,
Running lightweight containers like Pihole or Plex (non-transcoding), NVR (like Blue Iris), NAS with a DAS, desktop with an eGPU (20% performance penalty)
this would have quicksync, so would transcode just fine.
i5-8279U can game quite well on Esports titles.
Iris Plus 655 iGPU 48EUs w/ 128mb eDRAM , performs similar to Geforce 940m.
Managed to get this just before it expired, thanks OP
I reckon the n100 16gb/500gb for $265 is excellent. N100 runs at 6W
i5-8279U supports dual channel RAM and can game quite well on Esports titles.
Iris Plus 655 iGPU 48EUs w/ 128mb eDRAM , performs similar to Geforce 940m.
And the N100's iGPU can do AV1 decode, this can't.
And I'm fairly certain the 8279U Beelink only does 4k 30hz from all my research. That's a likely deal breaker for most.
Where is this?
Was on Amazon
Hmmm.. seems similar to 8i5beh
which was available 2.5 years ago.. at a similar prices, withou any ram or SSD included..
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/product/intel-nuc-kit-nuc8i5beh
Plus the Intel NUC has great support and TB3 support…
Also, whether Beelink SEi8 has those HDMI ports supporting HDR or not. Another corner cut is the 1T1R Wifi card, which is somewhat disappointing. Also trying to figure out whether the m.2 NVMe slot is wired to the full bandwidth (PCIe gen 3 x4) correctly or not. I guess it probably doesn't matter for the included SSD.
Kingston OEM PCIe gen 4 x4 DRAMless QLC SSD with the cheapest controller possible for PCIe gen 4 x4. That controller performs more like PCIe gen 3 x4. Please run a Crystal DiskMark test and check the sequential read is >3000MB/s.
@netsurfer: Here are the results….
https://imgur.com/a/ONSiWqg
Slow. But not too bad.
So is it 3x4 or 4x4?
Thinking getting a Samsung or SK Hynix SSD as the OS drive.
@Turd: The CPU can only do PCIe gen 3 x4. It's OEM SSD so sequential write tends to be a bit slower.
@netsurfer: So i got a 500gb SK Hynix
This is what I get:
https://imgur.com/a/MiTQtSR
Not too bad!!
Wonder would I benifit from a Gen4 Drive hmmm
Are these PCs used for special purposes or they just another SFF factor?
Hi @AppleLime, can we install another DDR5 of additional 16GB and remove the 500GN SDD and install 1TB one in these mini PCs? or they are one slots for each and soldered?
I put my 32 GB ram in mine and updated the M.2 NVme 2280 Hard Drive and it is now flying
OEM Drive - https://imgur.com/a/ONSiWqg
Upgraded SK Hynix - https://imgur.com/a/MiTQtSR
Is this the cheapest way to run Windows (a bit of dev and basic games https://store.steampowered.com/app/2140020/Stronghold_Defini…), or a laptop would be better choice?
Any good for emulation? Best console?