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Genesis of my return to mini-ITX (07th April 2024)
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Hello all!
As some of you might know I've finally put to retirement my beloved KI/Sliger Cerberus-X!
From all my cases, the Cerberus-X was the most loved ONE by my cats! (RIP to them![Smiling cat with heart-eyes :heart_eyes_cat: 😻](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.0/png/unicode/64/1f63b.png)
![Smiling cat with heart-eyes :heart_eyes_cat: 😻](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.0/png/unicode/64/1f63b.png)
)
During my last setup update, back to late 2021 (moving to Alder's Lake platform), I was literally mad of the Mini ITX motherboards line-up for Alder's Lake...and AM4 release did not help at all.
I put a link to my thoughts at that time here.
Basically my main problem was the total lack of support of low height 120mm cpu cooler, mostly blocked by M.2 SSDs & CPU power stages heatsinks. On top of that, you generally only have 1 M.2 SSD slot on the top face of the motherboard, and the second is located on the back...not ideal for SSD cooling, especially in sandwich mode.
1 year after (Nov 2022), I moved my remaining Mini ITX rig to ATX, using excellent N-ATX v2 case...no more Mini ITX at home.
Till...
I discovered the Minisforum BD770i motherboard...quite an UFO in mini-ITX world
Minisforum BD770i :
After further investigations, I decided to try its "younger" sister : Minisforum BD790i equipped with R9 7945HX (16 cores / 32 threads), just released by Feb 2024!
Once received, I tested it with this setup (please keep in mind, I did not have a precise Mini ITX rig in mind)
BD790i came with Bios 1.05 (BD770i and BD790i are sharing same bios apparently), here are main features tested :
To be continued...
PS : I tried to create Imgur Posts to compress image display, please let me know if you prefer post vs standard image.
Genesis of my return to mini-ITX (07th April 2024)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello all!
As some of you might know I've finally put to retirement my beloved KI/Sliger Cerberus-X!
From all my cases, the Cerberus-X was the most loved ONE by my cats! (RIP to them
![Smiling cat with heart-eyes :heart_eyes_cat: 😻](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.0/png/unicode/64/1f63b.png)
![Smiling cat with heart-eyes :heart_eyes_cat: 😻](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.0/png/unicode/64/1f63b.png)
![Smiling cat with heart-eyes :heart_eyes_cat: 😻](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.0/png/unicode/64/1f63b.png)
During my last setup update, back to late 2021 (moving to Alder's Lake platform), I was literally mad of the Mini ITX motherboards line-up for Alder's Lake...and AM4 release did not help at all.
I put a link to my thoughts at that time here.
Basically my main problem was the total lack of support of low height 120mm cpu cooler, mostly blocked by M.2 SSDs & CPU power stages heatsinks. On top of that, you generally only have 1 M.2 SSD slot on the top face of the motherboard, and the second is located on the back...not ideal for SSD cooling, especially in sandwich mode.
1 year after (Nov 2022), I moved my remaining Mini ITX rig to ATX, using excellent N-ATX v2 case...no more Mini ITX at home.
Till...
I discovered the Minisforum BD770i motherboard...quite an UFO in mini-ITX world
Minisforum BD770i :
- Mobile Zen 4 chip (R7 7745HX) : 8 cores / 16 threads, basic iGPU
- 120mm CPU heatsink pre-installed
- Height :
- ~50mm with 15mm thick fan (no screws provided, use M2.5x14mm)
- ~60mm with 25mm thick fan (screw M2.5x25mm provided)
- Rear exhaust through I/O shield!
- Liquid metal applied on CPU
- Height :
- Dual SSD slot (gen 5) with optimaloptional heatsink/cooler on top
- Gen 5 PCIe 16x Slot
- 2x so DIMM DDR5 (up to 5200MTS)
- Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675 / BT 5.3
- Realtek 2.5Gbit ethernet
After further investigations, I decided to try its "younger" sister : Minisforum BD790i equipped with R9 7945HX (16 cores / 32 threads), just released by Feb 2024!
Once received, I tested it with this setup (please keep in mind, I did not have a precise Mini ITX rig in mind)
- Motherboard : BD790i (R9 7945HX)
- Cpu Fan : Noctua NFA12x25
- RAM : GSkill 2x32Go 5200MTS
- SSD : Samsung 990 Pro 4 To
- PSU : My very noisy, but reliable, SX700 PT (fan should be faulty)
BD790i came with Bios 1.05 (BD770i and BD790i are sharing same bios apparently), here are main features tested :
- PCIe bandwith : auto, Gen 3/4/5
- iGPU : activated or not
- Redimensionable BAR : activated or not
- CPU max wattage : not sucessful (stick to auto, leading to 100W)
- No profile can be saved (only one at a time)
- No RAM setup (at 1st boot, MB is very slow, testing RAM). It is activating by default RAM speed parameters
- Boot selector
- Temperature monitor & fan management : it is working pretty fine (I stick to bios CPU fan curve even after installing "fan control")
To be continued...
PS : I tried to create Imgur Posts to compress image display, please let me know if you prefer post vs standard image.
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