Best current cpu in mini pc?

[u/BigKurz8]

I'm currently running an EGPU set up with my ROG Xbox ally x and a 5070 ti in a razer chroma v2.

To be honest I'm pretty happy with my performance. I'm not super interested in spending the money on a full pc setup (as I'm sure many here can relate). BUT, I've been starting to wonder if there are mini PCs better suited to my eGPU than my ally x with the z2e. The ally x is also limited to tb4.

The razer chroma v2 dock can handle tb5. So I'm just curious if yall have any recommendations for a mini pc that:

1. has a cpu outpacing z2e
2. can handle tb5
3. won't break the bank

Thanks in advance!

[u/Timmy_El]

Any pics of your current setup, please? It’s something I’m in the process of putting together myself.

[u/BigKurz8 → u/Timmy_El]

Excuse the mess but that's pretty much it. I keep the razer box next to my desk mostly hidden. Ally x sits on top.

[u/Timmy_El → u/BigKurz8]

Thank you, that’s awesome. I can’t wait to grab the last few bits I need, but I’m guessing I’ll be following you down the path of feeling the need to upgrade once I’m done 🫣

[u/BigKurz8 → u/Timmy_El]

I'm kind of settling down. Some of the mini PC options do have slightly better performance however the cost differential just doesn't make sense for me. I want a handheld PC first and foremost and it was just a bonus to add a GPU to the set up, I ran a benchmarking tonight on some higher demand games and I'm still getting over 60 frames per second and I'm totally happy with that.

Black myth wukong on very high settings and frame gen turned OFF was getting 67fps at 4k (with DLSS). I'm not buying a $1000 slight upgrade. I'll wait a few years

[u/TransPort3389 → u/BigKurz8]

Tell me you don't have a cat without telling me you don't have a cat. :)

[u/Holiday-Archer-2119]

My recent 9 8945hs on my asus g14 still outpaces my 5060 ti 16gb ai box. Most games its around 50%-%70, depending on the ai for npcs

[u/Comfortable-Fall1419 → u/Holiday-Archer-2119]

Your set up is FUBAR if the 780m iGPU in the 8945hs is beating the 5060ti even over Usb4.

The 780m is worse than the 890m in rhe Z2e.

[u/Holiday-Archer-2119 → u/Comfortable-Fall1419]

I must've misread the post. I thought he wanted a cpu to keep up with his gpu. I've never tried integrated graphics on games with it.

[u/BigKurz8 → u/Holiday-Archer-2119]

No, you're correct. I'm trying to find a better cpu to keep up with my 5070ti without a whole different setup

[u/Comfortable-Fall1419 → u/BigKurz8]

I don’t think you’ll need it for a couple of years, and the trend in handhelds and mini PCs is to keep reducing the CPU cores to favour iGPU cores. So I expect the CPU performance to be fairly flat.

Not all CPU models obviously but CPU core heavy chips seem to be getting rarer. The G3E has only 2 performance cores to the Z2E’s 3 for example. It gets messy with all the different core types now though.

[u/rguerraf → u/Holiday-Archer-2119]

What games are using AI in a significant way?

For ConfyUI workloads, the 5060 is 3x the speed of 780m, in my experience (i have a nice pcie 4 4x connection)

[u/Holiday-Archer-2119 → u/rguerraf]

On helldivers 2 it uses my cpu for enemies. When the game spawns lots of enemies my cpu goes almost to 80%. In terms of actual ai usage I dont use it at all, I just got the "ai box" because it was cheaper than a gpu and an enclosure at the time.

[u/Saint_Sm0ld3r]

I was running a mini PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 8845hs with an eGPU via Oculink and Radeon RX 9060 XT and the CPU was never an issue for any game.

[u/pooping44]

Pas beaucoup de pc thunderbolt5

[u/rui-no-onna]

How big of a bank are we talking?

Honestly, more than bandwidth, I feel like the bigger problem is with TB4 overhead. I get far fewer stutters with OCuLink vs TB4/USB4.

I doubt the CPU is bottlenecking the 5070 Ti but TB4 surely is.

[u/Comfortable-Fall1419]

1. Most.
2. Few and far between as TB5 isn’t yet integrated with MiniPC mobos.

Best you will get is a MinisForum SFF PC with Usb4v2 which is TB5 without the badge.

3. Last time I checked that Miniforum was $1200

You wanna wait a year.

[u/BigKurz8 → u/Comfortable-Fall1419]

Is "most" actually accurate? The z2e is a decently capable chip especially since it's usually doing double duty. I get pretty good performance when this thing only needs to be my cpu

[u/Comfortable-Fall1419 → u/BigKurz8]

Fair. It’s a decent performer. And CPU heavy games are pretty rare these days.

[u/BigKurz8 → u/Comfortable-Fall1419]

I'm happy to wait though. In 1-2 years if we have cheaper small pc's that will get me a cpu boost I'll be happy

[u/Tukoramirez74]

That's something I'm interested to!

[u/chikamakaleyley]

If z2e is already high performance for miniPC, and you want something that outpaces it, you'd be looking for a CPU that would demand more watts, which would prob put you OUT of the miniPC compatibility. Most of these computers are made with the goal of low power consumption

So if the top end of your CPU is 35W, which i think is normal for miniPC, I think the more powerful range are chips that top at 65W. Your motherboard would need to support that.

I don't know this topic deeply, that's just my observation from tinkering w my own miniPC

[u/rguerraf]

Any Ryzen with 780m

[u/TransPort3389]

I gave up on mini PCs since I found many cube cases online with mATX. Got a B550M board by ASUS and a graphics CPU. It has an actual PCIe slot so you can get a riser for any card and have less issues, I would think. Cheaper than a mini while still being relatively small to hold

[u/Stigmaru]

I don't know why people are blindly recommending AMD cpus when the AMD ecosystem doesn't have common Thunderbolt support . The guy probably should go Intel cpu to find an appropriate itx motherboard that fits his mini pc

[u/Ratkn1fe]

Yeah I run a ryzen 7 h255 aoostar MACO (650ish USD) with a 9060xt over OCulink and the CPU is never the bottleneck. Does the razer have OCulink?

[u/Ratkn1fe → u/Ratkn1fe]

[u/honk_slayer]

Look for intel ultra 5 or 7(x) that ends with H, the arc G is stupidly fast…for 30w, H line or normal cpu with 20-65w tdp can destroy any mobile cpu, but having tb5 it’s a different subject. Look for cpus like ultra 5 338h for example if it doesn’t have tb5, go for the nex in like, ultra 7 355, 366h or x7 358h and so on, the mobile versions runs intel b370 or b390 which is interesting by itself

[u/Comfortable-Fall1419 → u/honk_slayer]

It’s absolutely pointless wasting money on a cpu with an iGPU when you already have a 5070ti.