Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC With AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX “Rembrandt” APU Review – Wccftech

Minisforum has been around since 2012 and has offered some really innovative designs, mostly in the Mini PC segment. The company has a wide variety of options featuring Intel and AMD CPUs but their Venus lineup is definitely one of the most interesting ones, packing AMD’s latest Ryzen APUs and powerful integrated graphics which will be more than enough for a casual gaming session or a performance-focused compute workload.

Minisforum recently introduced the UM690 in its Venus lineup, packing AMD’s flagship Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 APU, the Ryzen 9 6900HX. The Venus UM690 is a powerhouse with lots going for it and comes in two variants, a standalone bare-bone kit to configure yourself for as low as $499 US while the fully decked kit can be purchased for $929 US & gives you a 1 TB SSD plus 64 GB memory. The variant we got was configured with 16 GB memory and 512 GB storage and retails for $649 US.

Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC – Specifications At A Glance

Minisforum has already launched several AMD Ryzen 5000 APU-powered Mini PCs including the EliteMini X500, the Elitemini HX90, the UM590, and the DeskMini HM90. So now the company has decided to shift gears and focus on the Ryzen 6000 series. There’s also the Ryzen 7000 products that will be heading out later this year as supply gets better. Once again, the UM690 aims to offer the best-in-class Mini PC performance utilizing AMD’s latest hardware.

Coming to the specifications, the Minisforum Venus UM690 rocks the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU which features 8 cores, 16 threads, 20 MB of cache (L3+L2 combined), and a boost clock of up to 4.9 GHz. The CPU has a TDP of 45W which can be configured down to 15W and up to 65W.

The CPU cores utilize the brand new Zen 3+ architecture that offers insane amounts of efficiency for the 6nm node they are based upon.

Another primary component of the Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC is its RDNA 2 graphics core. Unlike the older Vega iGPU featured on past APUs, starting with Ryzen 6000, AMD has adopted its brand new RDNA graphics core which provides a bigger boost to graphics performance & also to overall capabilities that the APU can perform. The iGPU is known as the Radeon 680M and houses 12 Compute Units for a total of 768 shaders running at a top clock of 2400 MHz & is compliant with all AMD premium technologies including FSR, Freesync, etc.

Talking about the settings you can configure, the BIOS provides some room for user customization such as setting power limits, thermal limits, shared memory pool for iGPU, and even adjusting ram speeds. We got our DIMMs to run at 5600 Mbps which is a pretty decent boost over the reference DDR5-4800 speeds. We also set the APU to its 54W profile which should also provide a boost in the CPU performance.

Other specs for the Minisforum UM690 include 16 GB DDR5-4800 memory. This isn’t soldered and instead features a SO-DIMM design so users can completely upgrade it as they wish. Storage comes in the form of a single M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD ad a single 2.5-inch SATA HDD. There’s no HDD on the pre-configured units but users can easily upgrade that by disassembling the case which is a simple process. Following are the main configurations of the UM690 available through MInisforum:

• Barebone Kit $499
• 16GB RAM+512GB SSD $649
• 32GB RAM+512GB SSD $729
• 32GB RAM+1TB SSD $779
• 64GB RAM+1TB SSD $929

For I/O, you will be getting 2 HDMI 2.1 ports, four USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a 2.5GbE RJ45 LAN port, a DC19V input on the back, and a Clear CMOS button, a USB4 port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a 3.5mm Combo Jack, a DMIC port and a Power button on the front. There’s also full support for WiFi6 and Bluetooth 5.2 functionality. The Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC also comes with dual 4K Display support and rocks a Thunderbolt 4 port for up to 8K 60 Hz display functionality from the front IO panel.

Software-wise, the Mini PC will come loaded with Windows 11 which is configured on all pre-config units except the barebone version since it doesn’t house any storage device. The Mini PC also gets 2 years worth of warranty.

Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC – Unboxing & A Closer Look

The Minisforum Venus UM690 comes in a small cardboard box package. It has a black color with red colored triangles and a Minisforum logo in the center.

The back of the package has the label on the top left corner and contact information for after-service. The sides is where information such as the CPU/GPU and monitor support are listed.

Lifting the top box cover, you are welcomed by the Venus UM690 itself which sits in a soft-styrofoam casing and is wrapped within a plastic foil to prevent dust from entering the top grills.

Before talking about the case itself, we have to mention the accessories that come with the UM690. It comes with a Power Adapter that is DC 19V/6.3A compliant, an HDMI cable, a mounting bracket, and a user manual. There are also two additional rubber feet that can be mounted at the bottom in case you lose the ones that the unit ships with.

Out of the box, the Minisforum UM690 is definitely one of the best-looking MIni PC to date. It has that premium metallic black look to it which give it a more premium feel.

The Minisforum UM690 might just be the most powerful Mini PC in this form factor, being much smaller than the EliteMini but packing more performance. But a smaller size doesn’t mean lower thermal capacity as the UM690 retains its active cooler with a dual heatsink design that makes use of large heatpipes and the APU itself makes use of liquid metal TIM for better heat conductivity.

The exterior shell of the case is made out of aluminum and is a very solid design. The bottom cover is plastic & can be removed by unscrewing four screws that aren’t hidden beneath the footrests.

The front of the Venus UM690 houses a USB4 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a DMIC connector, a 3.5mm combo jack, a power button, and a Clear CMOS button.

The back of the Venus UM690 features four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, aRJ45 LAN Ports (1 x 2.5 GbE), dual HDMI outputs, a Kensington lock, and a 19V/3.42A DC power in.

All four sides of the Mini PC feature exhaust vents that reveal the aluminum heatsink fins within them. This allows the UM690 to vent hot air out of the internal case.

As stated above, opening the bottom plastic cover is simple and reveals the internals that is just partially upgradable. These include the SATA HDD, the M.2 SSD, and the memory. There’s also a small SATA header but the most important thing to note is that the M.2 SSD features a heatsink which is very important since the limited space might make things hot within the chassis and the extra cooling on the SSD is definitely a plus.

Our test unit came with 16 GB of DDR5-4800 memory, 512 GB of SSD (pre-installed with Windows 11), and a WiFi module. The single SATA 2.5″ drive can be attached to the port on the opposite side of the SSD slot through a SATA III connector that’s bundled within the accessories. Only a 2.5″ drive is compatible given the small and limited size of the chassis.

Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC – CPU System Performance

For performance testing, we compared the Minisforum UM690 to several other Mini PCs that we have previously tested.

Right off the bat, you can see a large increase in performance over the previous generation AMD Mini PC offerings and even the competing solutions from Intel. The Zen 3+ cores are really doing amazing work in getting higher performance in a package of this size and that too with some real nice power figures.

Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC – GPU Gaming Performance

For gaming, we tested a couple of the latest and most played esports titles at 1080p resolution. The performance was measured between the AMD Radeon 680M, AMD Vega 8 and Intel Iris Xe-LP integrated graphics.

Even though Intel’s Hades Canyon comes with a high-end Vega discrete GPU, it isn’t part of the CPU itself and hence ends up much faster while consuming a lot more power. Even the Phantom Canyon Mini PC is fitted with a discrete (embedded) RTX 2060 graphics card but it’s not wise to compare it to that.

As you can see above, the AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture simply crushes all other iGPUs in our tests. It’s one of the fastest around and we even got to see a 2x performance boost over the aging Vega graphics architecture.

Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC – Thermals & Power Consumption

The Minisforum UM690 Venus Mini PC is an extremely efficient design. Once again, the options in the BIOS will let you unlock its full power or switch it to max efficiency mode. Using the 54W mode, we got to see the following power figures.

As for thermals, the Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC did get a little toasty, hovering around 80C but it never went past that limit. The SSD was running under 60C thanks to the pre-installed heat-sink solution and the noise levels were low. There was only a small amount of fan whine when the unit was really stressed causing the fan to spin above the 50% RPM mode but that was only in rare cases.

Conclusion – RDNA 2 & Zen 3+ Make For The Perfect Mini PC

The Minisforum Venus UM690 Mini PC is an insanely small yet powerful Mini PC powered by one of AMD’s most power-efficient mobile designs to date. Sure, they have the new Phoenix APUs coming out soon but Rembrandt is still serving the Ryzen 7000 space and this is essentially the same chip in an SFF form factor.

The unit we got has a price of $649 US which is $150 US higher than the barebone costs. I’d say that is a pretty decent price considering if you were to buy the barebone kit and get the rest of the components yourself, you’d be paying around the same +$150 price as Minisforum has listed. We searched Newegg and found the cheapest 16 GB SO-DIMMs around $60 US and the MSI M450 Gen 4.0 Spatium 500 GB SSD (No heatsink) for $35 US. You can get a 32 GB kit for around $109 US and that’ll end up around a $145 US price point. So even if you go barebones, you can get slightly better value.

As for the performance, this little beast really did impress me with its top-notch performance and even better gaming performance. This is a perfect living room casual gaming box for those who’re going to play retro games, emulators, or even some current-gen esports titles. AAA titles can be a bit more stressful for this machine but with technologies such as FSR2 embedded within the RDNA 2 graphics architecture, it is definitely a game changer. The unit doesn’t draw a whole lot of power and users can adjust it to their liking plus the thermals are decent if not the best.

For a machine like this, you’d definitely need more storage and I’d recommend going for at least 1 TB SSDs because 500 GB can fillup real quickly. The additional SATA HDD slot helps here. Overall, it looks like Minisforum’s latest AMD-powered Venus UM690 has really nailed the performance and design aspects of their Mini PC formula, offering a stunning performance boost in the CPU and more so the graphics department thanks to the latest AMD core IPs. The small form factor looks great & both thermals/noise are great for a machine of this size and capabilities. I’d definitely recommend the UM690 by Minisforum as a set up box or a casual gaming machine for your living room.