Mini PC multi-tasking question

R3X · 17 Dec 2021 at 21:08

Hi with electricity prices going through the roof, have been considering going back to mini pc over a bulky large desktop which my one currently eats 90+ watts.

My query is does anyone have an up to date mini pc (nuc with 4 or 6 core) or AMD ryzen mini PC (6-8 core), and have they found multi-tasking to be efficient and lag free while surfing on a monitor and also at same time playing back an 4K HDR video on a 2nd screen ?

R3X · 23 Dec 2021 at 18:14

Got my answers, for anyone else interested this guy test an 6 core AMD cpu, says you can do web surfing, 4K and even video editing just fine @ 15 watts, max he got from the wall power wise was 24 watts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdfrY8FO7o0

R3X · 2 Jan 2022 at 13:45

I did get some more replies from other communities regarding my original post, sadly it appears these mini pcs and nucs still can still struggle with dual output (4K) TV and monitor (4K) performance, so for example surfing on your 4K monitor and then watching a 4K youtube video on your secondary 4K TV, it can still struggle with performance and multi tasking, this was confirmed from an intel nuc 8th gen owner.

I think Its a fine line trying to save electricity vs performance, so will see if next gen mini PCs (AMD 6x mobile cpus) and nucs (alderlakes) with better AV1 decoding and GPU support might deal with mulit-tasking better here.

We might also get better GPUs from Intel and Nvidia with better AV1 codec support to reduce those precious watts, and if we get lucky we don't see energy prices go the moon and stay there.

R3X · 29 Jan 2022 at 16:40

Cyber-Mav said:
if you use h264ify extension in browser you can set it so it doesnt use av1 and goes through the dedicated asic on the igpu for video doecoding e.g intel quicksync etc. once offloaded to the igpu these small nucs should work well.

thanks I will try and give that a go, might be interesting to see the comparisons with power consumption on and off.

R3X · 29 Jan 2022 at 18:57

Mr Evil said:
I recently set up an Asus PN50 (with an AMD 4700U CPU), and did some tests of 4k video playback. It coped just fine decoding h.264 and h.265, with plenty of CPU to spare for doing other things at the same time. That was playing through VLC though; I don't know how different YouTube would be.

Thanks that is good news to hear, I have heard the same from a few other AMD ryzen 6 and 8 core owners but one area I suspect it may struggle with is with
a dual screen set up especially 4K monitor and an 4K TV. You don't by any chance have a dual 4K set up?

Would be great to hear if one can surf 10 websites on chrome/firefox and then run a 4K HDR clip or Ytube 4K HDR clip on the 2nd screen without lagging.

R3X · 30 Jan 2022 at 13:20

Cyber-Mav said:
Dual 4k should work perfectly fine once video decoding is working in hardware. Should even be able to do dual 4k decoding on each screen

Yeah I would have thought as much but 1 or 2 guys over on reddit did mention it can struggle once dual screen 4K screens are used(they had 4 core nucs from 2-3 years back mind), its possible its an power or gpu limit causing it, but they noticed more lag when multi-tasking for example.

Hopefully todays newer mini pcs and nucs can do it, otherwise I might have an pricey test on my hands.

R3X · 30 Jan 2022 at 19:13

david25 said:
I had this idea last year, here are the options I thought about

Modern 11gen NUC with XE graphics or AMD

Laptop with 1650 or 3060 gpu

Free but time consuming https://www.ultrabookreview.com/31385-the-throttlestop-guide best to have a wall meter to see if you are actually reducing power!

Mini desktop e.g. dell optiplex or thinkcenter, check ebay for deals. These have desktop CPUs in a tiny form factor

cheers, yeah had similar considerations, since the intel 12th gen and Radeon 6x apus are arriving in laptops as early as next month, hopefully mini pcs won't be too far behind so its probably better for me to wait.

R3X · 3 Feb 2022 at 13:21

Yup that's my plan, with energy bills going beyond 50% increase going to cut as much watts saving as possible.

A Mini pc with large nvme/ssds and with AV1 decode support should do the trick, AMDs 6x series will also support AV1 decode but apparently intel has tweaked there AV1 decode to make it even better.

We got Asus PN64 Alderlakes coming at least

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-...52-models-with-Ryzen-5000H-APUs.590486.0.html

R3X · 4 Feb 2022 at 17:47

Armageus said:
Not sure if this helps, but my work machine HP Elitedesk 805 G6 Mini copes fine with a 4K video streaming on one screen and web browsing on the other:

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c06955644

The machine shipped as standard with a 65W PSU, but I found the CPU to be throttling on occasions (due to the extra hard drive installed and numerous USB devices), so swapped it out for a 90W PSU.

Video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ (Shows as VP9 - not sure how to test an AV1?)

thanks, yeah very nice system that power psu issue and cpu throttling is a known drawback to having sff or mini type pcs, sometimes even enabling another 4K screen or usb device or hdd like you say causes it to hit a bump in the road, its probably something ill have to really just test and see for a few weeks.

VP9 I believe is the older YT codecs, they still use it in many videos and I think when AV1 is not available or been converted too, so it still does much of the
decoding off the gpu at least, your usage numbers look good actually 31% for the gpu is decent I hit 44% currently with the Costa Rica in 4K 60fps hdr on
my 4K tv and 10 browser windows open but have 6-9% cpu load. Power varies quite a fair bit anyhow.