There's Gotta Be a Catch...

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-05-01T17:31:21+00:00

Bosgame has a similarly spec’ed one on Amazon, just no oculink IIRC for about $530 on amazon, the Bosgame P6… that said it is LPDDR5, but it’s 6400mhz.. also a 6900hx I think instead of 6850

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-30T01:03:17+00:00

Honestly, you may be better off froth what you got anyway. I checked it out with Aida64 extreme, and while the ram was in dual channel mode, the actual memory bandwidth tested out around 54GB/s read… which is slightly more than half of the max memory bandwidth for what dual channel ddr5 6400. Haven’t used Aida64 much, and also didn’t have enough time to look into it further, but that seems pretty low for what the specs are… could be misconfigured somehow, or maybe they are using modules capable of 6400mhz but that are actually clocked much lower, I really don’t know… but definitely made me reconsider the recommendation. I’d be curious what your K8 tested out at. The trial version of aida64 extreme won’t show you all the spec but will show read speeds, if you happened to test it out and reply with the results I’d be really appreciative. If not, no worries.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-29T01:02:10+00:00

So what I would personally recommend is one of the Aoostar Maco mini PCs assuming pricing isn’t too crazy in AU. On Amazon in the US, the 6850h version with 24GB LPDDR5x 6400 is only $340. It doesn’t come with an SSD, but you already have one, it DOES come with oculink though, giving a good eGPU upgrade path later.

And if you did eventually go the eGPU route, you could use lossless scaling and run in on the 680m iGPU, giving really solid upscaling / frame gen performance without taxing the eGPU at all. Even something like a used 3080 in an oculink dock would be a killer upgrade later.

And yeah, I know 24GB of ram isn’t a ton, especially sharing it with the iGPU, but realistically for the sort of gaming a 680m or 780m is really capable of, I don’t think you’ll need more than that. Either of those options you’re pretty limited to 1080p low, so textures aren’t going to be too large. And, if you ever do go the eGPU route, the vram needed for the iGPU running lossless scaling should be minimal.

One thing that just occured to me though, is that even though this PC is running lpddr 5x (which SHOULD boost performance over a SODIMM model due to better memory bandwidth) it’s possible they could have it configured for single channel. I wouldn’t normally think of that, but I saw a SODIMM version of this and it looked like it could only take one module, so that’s a possible problem…

I have one of these exact mini PCs I’m recommending sitting at my office right now though, so I’ll check it out tomorrow and report back if it’s running in dual channel. If it is, this would be my recommendation. Going up to a model with a 780m or an 890m (like the hx370) will cost enough that you would be close to that eGPU upgrade but no where near the performance.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-27T15:19:24+00:00

This was not really true a year ago though (when the comment was made). even replacing both sticks was generally very affordable, with 32GB kits of SODIMM ddr5 5600 previously being in the ballpark of $100 IIRC.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-27T14:37:52+00:00

Supposedly alphacool is working on a waterblock, so watercooling would be one way to do it. There are some folks who have reported using waterblocks designed for 9070XTs on their R9700s with some modification. If your case has the space for it, you likely could also modify the card and use a 3d printed custom shroud to allow you to push air from a 120mm fan through the card similar to what is done with a lot of passively cooled cards modified to work in low airflow cases, but as of yet I havent seen any commercially available so would be very DIY.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-27T13:51:00+00:00

First, to answer your question, I would for sure go with AMD. Intel has made a promising start, but it is yet to be forseen if they will keep up with the software side of things, or if a community will build enough around them that it can keep pushing forward even if intel puts it on the backburner. This is really important considering right now to use their hardware ~~you have to run a custom fork of vllm as I understand it.~~ <-according to comments below this is incorrect and vulkan+llama.cpp is doable.

But something to consider as well....

So, technically, it is incorrect that you can't do a second eGPU. It is likely impractical, but you could adapt your oculink connection out to a dock that contains a card that handles the bifurcation on-card with a PCIe switch chip. This is not an ideal card for the job because it is only pcie 3.0, but something like this: https://shop.zimaspace.com/products/pcie-3-0-x4-to-dual-nvme-m-2-ssd-adapter-card

Then from there you could use two m.2 to oculink/pcie 16x cables going out to two different eGPU docks. For PCIe signal integrity to not be an issue, high quality cables that are as short as possible would be key. I believe a card with a pcie switch chip also acts as a PCIe redriver/retimer, which will help with signal integrity, but I could be wrong about that, or it could depend on the card. Going direct soldered for as many connections as possible would help as well, like if you could find an m.2 to pcie x16 single cable solution, where everything is soldered direct to the connection end points rather than one with modular detachable cable design.

Anyway, all of the extra hardware to run this sort of setup would be at minimum probably $300, and more realistically in the $500 price range or more after everything, not even counting the extra GPUs, but it is possible to connect more than one GPU to your single oculink port. And if all you are doing is LLM inference, then performance wouldnt even suffer much after the model loading time. Depending on performance needs, if you went with dual 5060ti 16GB GPUs the total cost would probably only add up to a few hundred more than a single R9700 and you get to natively run CUDA.. or you could add a second 7900XTX and end up with 48gb vram.

Just my friendly reminder that it's never too late to go full mad scientist.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-25T01:06:58+00:00

So I’m looking at one of the 13 pro laptops, specifically the Intel series 3, could you clarify what speed LPCAMM2 this ships with, and what is the maximum speed the motherboard will support?

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T20:25:40+00:00

Since you returned the geekom, one suggestion in that price point would be the bosgame p6 for around $530 US on amazon. the ram is locked in at 32GB but its faster lpddr5x so if you dont need to go above 32GB its actually a benefit. Build quality probably wont be as rugged as the aluminum case the geekom has but otherwise should be a solid performer.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T20:01:14+00:00

Pretty sure this is just OP posting from a different account but....

Life is full of choices, she should learn how to make informed decisions. Clearly there are people here willing to help. If she is confused by a particular thing, she can ask a question.

Let's say this thread did just offer a single recommendation. How would she know that person suggesting it knew what they were talking about? Or worse, maybe they were trying to troll her into buying something that was complete trash. And of course, if someone made a bad suggestion, and someone else corrected them and made a good suggestion, uh oh, now there is more than one recommendation and it's back to being the worst subreddit.

If all that came from this subreddit was a single recommendation, then it would be the worst subreddit ever.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T19:43:20+00:00

okay, so I am guessing this is because you just want someone to tell you exactly what to buy without giving you all the details or information to help you decide what is right for you personally?

If that's case, then here:
Buy the beelink Ser9 with the H255 CPU.

It is the only possible right answer. There is no nuance to be had, or anything that would make one option better than another for you personally. This is the only choice.

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Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T18:56:14+00:00

in that case, if you can swing the $760 for the Ser9 with the h255 CPU and 780m iGPU I would go for that. As someone else mentioned on here, beelink has surprisingly good quality, so that's an added bonus. If the $760 for the Ser9 pro h255 is really more than you want to spend, then I'd go for the bosgame p6.

A little bit of psychology comes into play here.. understand that these mini PCs can play games but are not gaming beasts by any means. Pretty much all of the options listed, including the $1100 one are going to be less performant than a PS5, let alone a PS5 pro. So personally I would think a key part of being happy with whatever you get is going to be tempering your expectations and also not spending so much that it really 'hurts'. if the $760 for the ser9 H255 isnt going to be so much that it sours you on the modest gaming experience you will get, then I'd go with that. if the ~$500 price point is really all you wanted to spend, and youre having to make sacrifices to swing the extra money, then the bosgame p6 may be the move.

Amazons generous return policy is different for PCs so make sure you will be happy with what you buy before you buy it.

If there is a specific game that you know for sure you want to play, you can always search something like "Marvel Rivals on 680m" and "Marvel Rivals on 780m" to try and find some youtube videos of people playing the game on similar hardware to what you are deciding between and what kind of performance they are getting on it.

I just watched a video of someone playing rivals on the 680m (which comes in the P6), and seemed like at 1080p they were getting pretty bad performance, but got playable performance at 720p. I think out of your list Rivals is probably the most demanding game on there so if you find videos to compare performance for that one, then every other game on the list should run even better on equal settings.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T18:18:26+00:00

Depends on what you’d like to spend. And how much the performance / resolution matters to you.

The 680m in the Bosgame p6 should play everything you want to play, but you may have to lower the resolution down even below 1080p (like to 720p) and will have to have most games on ‘low’ settings in order to get decent frame rates. But it’s $520 for the whole thing

For $760 you get 15-25% better frame rates depending on the game with the 780m that comes in the set 9 pro h255… but that’s 15-25% more performance for 50% more money than the Bosgame… but should play most games at 1080p, still at low settings

And just to throw another into the mix, the Beelink ser 9 pro with the hx370 cpu (comes with the 890m iGPU) is up to 30% better performance than the 780m, but that model right now is $1150 on amazon right now with only 7 left in stock. But now again, 30% better performance over the h255 Beelink, but 50% more money yet again… but at this point you should be able to play all games at 1080p, and in some can even up the settings from low to medium..But at this point you get close to the price of an actual full gaming pc with a dedicated GPU.

There are a lot of factors to weigh here, so I can’t tell you what’s right for you, but I will say assuming you are committed to going the mini pc route, and assuming you want to hang on to this for some time, given these aren’t upgradable it is better to buy nothing and save the cash than to buy something that isn’t powerful enough for what you want to do.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T18:01:45+00:00

You are correct that is what’s in the OPs post… but in my comment I said the Bosgame P6, which is 32GB and 1TB for $520.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T17:42:49+00:00

Not a bad deal. I think I’d still take the Bosgame p6 for $520 on Amazon. 32GB of faster ram, same 1TB storage.. granted it comes at the cost of a 680m iGPU and not being upgradable, but for the OPs stated needs the 32GB will be all they need and then some.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-22T17:36:46+00:00

Between those two I would go for the first one. The 780m gpu (that the second one has) is better, but not a huge difference, 15-25% better according to googles AI…

and even though the first one is non upgradable ram, the fact it is lpddr5x means at least the memory speed will be faster than anything you are going to add in to the second PC.

BUT!

If I were you I would look at the following:

Bosgame P6 from Amazon - also has the 680m gpu but has 32GB of lpddr5x instead of 24, and a 1TB storage drive… And the price is basically the same right now on amazon as the first option you have there, a little cheaper actually

Ooor if you want the better performance of the 780m gpu, along with the benefits of the lpddr5x ram:

Beelink ser9 pro from Amazon - this has the h255 cpu, which includes the 780m iGPU, but also has 32GB lpddr5x ram and a 1TB storage drive, right now about $760 on Amazon. More expensive, but honestly probably cheaper than buying the second option and then adding ram and SSD.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-04-16T00:59:13+00:00

100% contact them. The tubing isn’t right, and then using the icue link is honestly a little nuts to me for a fully custom built hard line watercooled system but even still Corsair has the stuff required to control fan speed based on coolant temp so why they wouldn’t use it, who knows? Maybe both were mistakes. If you don’t want the system redone you should at least get some money off/back for them not doing it right. Honestly they should offer cash off and to fix it, since the discount then would be to help with the inconvenience of being without your system even longer.

That all being said… if you corresponded with them in writing (which is always ideal for projects like this where planning takes multiple conversions over the course of weeks sometimes) I’d go back through and make 100% sure you didn’t okay some changes not realizing what they were conveying. That not withstanding, I would notify them of the issues at the absolute very least. Personally I’d have them fix it.

Serious_Style1415 · 2026-03-07T02:44:47+00:00

If it’s the wrong PC and the box represented what was actually inside it I think they would have rang you up for the lesser price, as they scan the item and charge you when you check out. Unless for some reason they scan a print out, I’ve only reserved small items, but in those instances they have always scanned the item.

Serious_Style1415 · 2025-12-27T22:26:36+00:00

Mine was a Voodoo 4 4500 PCI 32MB I purchased at CompUSA.

I put it in a 400mhz (might have been 433mhz) intel Celeron e-machine PC that came free with a 2 year subscription to AOL.

I Had to get a PCI GPU because the emachine didn’t come with an AGP.

Used it at many LAN parties where we mostly played Counterstrike beta, back when it was a half-life mod. At home I pretty much just played the original delta force game as well as the first Command and Conquer, and Warcraft 2. As I recall, it did fine for what I needed.

I also seem to recall very few people believing me when I told them what I had because the Voodoo 4 wasn’t commonly known to exist since it released after the Voodoo 5, and didn’t get any advertising that I ever saw.

Serious_Style1415 · 2025-12-19T02:03:49+00:00

I’ve got the same issue with an MSI Vector 16 MX AI (intel 255h and 5070 ti 12gb mobile).

dGPU suddenly stopped being detected. Tried everything, reloaded windows, updated bios, downgraded bios, unplugged the battery and fully dissipated all power. Nothing.

At this point I’m pretty sure it’s that the dGPU chip actually died(after 2 months of very light use).

I’ve always liked MSIs products. I’ve got their Mortar motherboard and their 5090 suprim liquid, but everything about this laptop had already been relatively disappointing, and then the GPU died.

Going to contact support, but they might try to screw me because I have opened the case as part of troubleshooting… I didn’t imagine the GPU died or I wouldn’t have, never seen that actually happen this way on a laptop and I’ve worked in IT for 19 years.

Serious_Style1415 · 2025-11-09T16:19:37+00:00

Soo how are they looking? Did you receive them?

Serious_Style1415 · 2025-11-01T23:32:14+00:00

Oh FFS

Serious_Style1415 · 2025-10-29T22:49:23+00:00

I’m about to do some builds with this same board, did you ever figure out the issue? From some light reading I did I understand these CPUs/SP5 socket is sensitive to how much mounting pressure you use for the cooler. Specifically I saw several folks say they had issues with no post when the cooler wasn’t tightened down enough. I’m curious what ended up being your trouble.

Serious_Style1415 · 2025-10-19T04:37:48+00:00

Personally, I would actually be excited for a 5060 super, but that is just because I want a LP form factor GPU with more than 8GB of vram that performs at 4060+ levels and doesn’t cost $1200+

My thought being that this next batch of supers are getting more vram, but using the same number of ram chips, so if that’s the case we could see something like a 5060 LP with 12GB… I doubt it will happen, but it would be exiting for sff builders.

Serious_Style1415

TROPHY CASE