Saturday, October 28, 2023

Minisforum UM790 Pro 7940HS Mini PC



My new (mini) computer has impressed me so far. On paper, it runs five times faster than my 2017 iMac. Although certain apps, like chess-playing programs, don't run five times faster (because adding more cores does not produce a linear improvement), the computer is a multitasking beast. Not only does it have 8 processor cores, but hyperthreading gives it 16 logical cores. I have tried to slow it down by having 14 cores doing computationally intensive tasks, and the computer handles it with no problem.

This is a different experience than my 2017 iMac which would slow to a crawl if I tried to do something computationally intensive on all four cores. (I'm not sure if some of this improvement is due to Windows 11. I noticed that Windows 10 uses a lot of CPU power just for the Operating System and so far that is not the case with Windows 11.)

I've seen some evidence of thermal throttling if I push the processor, but it is not bad. The fan can get a little noisy. Hypothetically, if the same processor were in a bigger case it could have a better cooling system and maybe be overclocked.

It might be a different experience if I were gaming which is one of the features of the Ryzen 9 7940hs processor, because it has the graphics cores built into it. There is no need for a separate graphics card, which makes the computer cheaper, but it will not be as good as a $1200 to $1500 gaming computer.

I saved $60 by ordering it from Ali Express (in China), but then I had to wait five weeks for it to get here. Now the manufacturer has a Halloween sale with $60 off, but the company is also in China. However, Amazon also has it listed for $60 off.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um790-pro?variant=43865372786933

Friday, October 27, 2023

5 MB HD

The end of Apple Silicon’s reign


Back in January 2023, people went orgasmic over the "inexpensive" M2 Mac Mini.  However, this seems like a scam because the computer is not upgradeable, and you have to pay dearly to get decent specs.

I just bought a UM790 Pro with the Ryzen 9 7940hs processor.  Not only does the chip trounce the M2, but the computer has four times the memory and storage and is upgradeable.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Slow Windows 10/Minisforum UM790 Pro

Has Windows 10 gotten slower lately? I noticed the same thing with Mac OS. This could be due to security updates, which put more burden on the computer. In addition, Windows Defender sometimes runs in the background making the computer slower.

In late May I had problems with my 2017 iMac and had to reinstall MacOS and Windows 10. During the repair process, I used my somewhat slow laptop as my main computer, but I was impressed at how well it ran Windows. However, I tried the laptop the other day, and it seemed sluggish. I also noticed that the iMac was sluggish.

Fortunately, I recently bought a new mini-computer. It uses the recently released 4-nanometer AMD 7940hs processor with a whopping 8 cores and 16 threads. Compared to my other computers, it is ridiculously fast. This is also my first computer that uses SSD for storage. SSDs are very fast and have been around for a while, but they became much more affordable this year.

I waited for the computer to go on sale and ordered it from China to save money. However, I had to wait 6 weeks for it to ship from China. I just noticed that it is on sale on Amazon.


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Friday, October 20, 2023

HP is scraping the bottom of the barrel

Re: One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) | RetroFocus

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Albert

It's interesting how he thought we would have a workstation at home that would connect to the mainframe. A desktop/laptop PC can do this using the internet, but operate independently using software. Imagine if someone told him, the workstation idea would fit in your pocket and be taken for granted as your phone because it would be part of your mobile smartphone.

It was a good statement about the future. Are we better off as a society? We should be, but are we?

On Thu, Oct 19, 2023 at 8:48 PM John wrote:
>
> https://youtu.be/sTdWQAKzESA?si=0lCYAN1EtSkc9nBF