$299 2.5GbE Mini PC The Cheap Topton M6

[@JeffGeerling]

I wish there was a standard size for something like this-between the 1L PC and an SBC-style form factor (like the Pi model B), so there could be more standard mounting/case options for it.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Very true. I guess the idea is you can just take it out of the $4 plastic housing and do whatever with it.

[@patrickjoseph3412]

I like how I see Jeff Geerling in the comment section of all my favorite KZbinrs.

[@qazwsx000xswzaq]

There is a sort of "standard" and that is called Ultra Compact Form Factor (UCFF) found in NUC advocated by Intel... which is not so much a standard after all lol

[@JeffGeerling]

@@patrickjoseph3412 We need to have some sort of epic collab again.

[@Catge]

@@JeffGeerling Epic

[@qazwsx000xswzaq]

I have just deployed a bunch of these as thin clients and electronic billboards. They recently ship a new model that uses the N6000 which consumes even less power (on average) and has better graphics. If what I have at hand is correct, the main M.2 slot should have PCIe gen3 x4. The SoC offers Gen3 x8 in total. The bundled SSD is more likely the cause. btw 4K gaming is bit out of its league. It can run pretty smoothly at low to mid settings at 1080p for most games. Also if good graphics performance is your focus, 16GB RAM version is your choice as that is the configuration where RAM runs in ̶d̶u̶a̶l̶ channel. I stand corrected. The 16GB version is also running in *SINGLE* channel.

[@tamoanxx]

Do you have a link to the newer model?

[@benjaminng2983]

Hi do you have the link for the newer model with n6000?

[@MoraFermi]

That fan alone is likely eating 5 W of that total power consumption. This thing would have been much better with just a passive heatsink.

[@Chris.Brisson]

Aye, and such tiny fans clog with dust over the course of a year leading to early system failure. Only clue that this is happening is the fan will get really loud as the system begins overheating, then silence when the fan fails, and shortly thereafter blue screens start occurring.

[@tokiomitohsaka7770]

They are saving on copper since copper prices have gone up…

[@chinmoy1955]

These fans take about 100mA at 12V, which comes to 1.2 Watt. Get your facts correct!

[@karsten_m]

Price with the Lego is approximately $598 😉 Nice little system.

[@darklord14]

I was trying to get some Pi for my K3S project, but they are in shortage with crazy price, then these new Intel mini PC popped up with their reasonable pricing(~1.5K RMB), they do seems like a good substitution at the mean time. Eventually I grabbed a M6 N6000 ver a few days ago to try, the fan is so quiet and the chassis is allowing 2 full length NVME drive. However the air vent is way too small for efficient cooling (Up to 90c vs ~71c without cover under an overnight stress test), so I'm thinking to mod the vent and change the NVME cover with a plastic mesh, then grab anoth 1-2 if that works better.

[@L4X1K3]

would be interesting to see how fast these PCs can push SMB traffic through, considering it had SSD in it (which should still be faster for transfering data over 2,5gig ethernet), I wonder if the little processor can handle the full speed of the ethernet port, this could be a decent candidate for a small NAS

[@SuspiciousAra]

I still don't understand why aren't already out there computer displays that can house mini pc's inside them. something like the display having a slot where you can put your mini pc and have it powered directly from the display while also having the display output connected to it. also TV's should have this. want to go linux/windows or whatever on your tv? no problem. make that casing + ports an industry standard

[@fe5ks]

I got this little thing a week ago and it's awesome for the price for a new machine!

[@TerraMagnus]

I think it would be really interesting to pick up a pile of these, shuck them, mount the bare boards into the kind of layouts you usually see Raspberry Pi clusters mounted in. Folks, this is a cheap PC that can run Linux and mount NVMe in a very tiny form factor and deliver data on a relatively high speed ethernet port. If you're running into ceph in your homelab, your brain might be going where mine is. If you stacked one board on top of the other with brass stand-offs, I bet you could get at least 8 of them into 1U rackmount (especially if you lop off the fan and took a more quiet/efficient approach to actively cooling them.

[@AskIveSolar]

I've been considering a fanless and likes this one because of the USB c that does video but that fan noise, no bueno. I'll wait to see if the mele or whatever adds video out over usb c soon ish.

[@MM-fe9mz]

Was about to buy one of these, but reconsidering. Wanted to use it as a TV PC for watching video from the web in a bedroom. Is there a better similarity priced unit you'd recommend?

[@edwardgreenjr167]

About gaming: I think a more realistic test on these low-power PCs shouldn't be 'can it play games?' but rather 'can it run cloud-gaming?'. Nobody should have any expectations to play games from the last several years on these things. However, if I could sign into the Xbox app and cloud-play Forza using a BT controller, now THAT would be something I'd like to know. Especially if it results any dropped frames or screen-tearing.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Super idea. What about in home steam streaming?

[@morosis82]

To relate it back to business, is it useful to access high end VDI infrastructure, like cloud/datacentre hosted workstations. There's a bit of crossover between that and gaming in terms of things like video fidelity and latency.

[@MultiYogibear]

Or steam link from a more powerful machine when your not at home?

[@edwardgreenjr167]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo in home streaming from say a plex server would only stress a system if we start talking about a 4K uncompressed file, high MB per second. However, local streaming under the same set of variables would be a good way to compare machines against each other. I'd say a good modern test would either be a high frame rate cloud gaming stream and/or a remote session into a box for a fidelity test. Say remoting into an editor's PC to see how viable it is to edit a video through one of these like a terminal PC. That's why I suggested Forza, as that over cloud will show real quick if it's playable vs another genre. IMHO, cloud gaming will only get more popular over the coming years. And having a low cost terminal PC for say WFH tasks may be a variable for some. Just spitballing ideas.

[@gherbent]

I had a try. The heatsink is undersized, the fan noise is iritating, the fan is always at max, is quite slow, I do not recommend this mini PC because of the inadequate cooling. Also, no space for a heat spreader for an SSD, the SSD will get very hot. It did not want to work with my 512GB Samsung 970 evo NVMe SSD. Worked with Crucial.

[@theoneyoudontsee8315]

a samsung 970 pro 512gb nvme ssd will really fix most of the crashing and timing out gone however thats with more than a extra watt of power draw over oem drive.

[@Mecrom]

i would be very interested to see how using the 2.5G ethernet affects power draw. As far as Ive read on the usb implementions of 2.5gbe, I'd expect around 5 additional watts.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

We have done that in a few videos. The Intel i225/i226-V and some of the Realtek (non USB) NICs are more like 1.2-2W. We have shown it with shorter cables on a few of the firewall reviews, but ~2W is more with longer cables.

[@daninmanchester]

This would make a nice little router, mini server machine. I've been looking for a more powerful home assistant box, maybe this is it.

[@JamesMyatt1]

Odroid N2 is probably better for HA but not much, ceetainly better than J4125. For a router there are versions with 4 or more 2.5GbE ports.

[@SP-ny1fk]

I would love to see computers of this size factor be stackable (but obvious physical limitations) - could have one for memory, one for storage, one for CPU processing, one for gpu... but the latency would suck.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Latency would be rough on that, especially in the consumer space. Servers will trend that way with CXL

[@johnknightiii1351]

I don't know if the 5900HX is worth the premium over a 5800H

[@BennyColyn]

This might make a nice telescope/camera control computer for astrophotography.

[@ИванБрагин]

AC1-Z COST $150 AND NO FAN (j4125 cpu 8G Ram 128 SSD) + hdd 2.5" slot

[@babugowda1683]

Amazing content. Loved it❤

[@stevelk1329]

For home, I want something I could strap to the TV. So really: if it was bigger that's ok, uses more power, thats ok, just needed/basic # of connections (ie, easy wireless mouse and keyboard), is ok... BUT... is pretty quiet, and the drive wasn't super slow - it would be perfect at that price..🙂

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

I totally agree. If the fan was quieter, I could see this being mounted under desk lips.

[@stevelk1329]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo thanks for the quick reply. Updated my comment a little bit FYI..

[@congenio]

I believe that another SSD might not even help, because with many of these type of units, due to shortage of PCIe lanes, there is only PCIe 3.0 x 2 available for the M.2 slot. This is definitely true for the 4-ethernet-port N5105 Topton unit you just received. Maybe the specs are incorrect for the M6?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

2x PCIe 3.0 lanes can carry slightly less than 2GB/s (GigaByte per second ), so I'm pretty sure it's far from being the bottleneck here. SSDs are only as good as the controller, if the controller sucks then it's slow, and this seems to be the case, cheap chinesium SSD.

[@qazwsx000xswzaq]

Chinesium SSDs often if not always use low-tier/remarked/recycled parts. Even the Chinese do not trust them. Better avoid like the plague.

[@TheArtium]

Thank you for this great review. I saw this online and was wondering why it is so cheap. They are marketing it as Intel NUC and I have a feeling it is one of those you get what you pay for thing.

[@christopherjackson2157]

I've wondered about the topton systems before. The price is very attractive

[@logskidder5655]

Time to install a better SSD and retest. Let us know if there is any real improvement.

[@mgkleym]

There are a ton of games you could run on this. They are just going to be more like caves or qud or duskers rather then league. You could probably run half to 1/3 of my steam library on this thing.

[@gregneumarke9373]

As the 2.5GbE was in the headline, I was expecting some networking speed tests to validate the claims, but perhaps with the Intel chip it is considered a known quantity?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

B3 stepping NIC. It was like 2.4-ish Gbps IIRC on a quick iperf3 so I just said 2.5GbE. Pretty well-known quantity with the B3 stepping parts

[@marcosscriven]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo What's also crucial to know is how this NIC is connected internally. I tried two Mele Quieter2 PCs, one was connected internally on the same USB controller as the ports, the other was connected to the PCIe bus. I contacted the manufacturer, and they admitted they just use whatever they can get from suppliers.

[@ilyavli]

I received that device. There was installed Win10, though it was promised Win11. I can't use this PC, because I don't know password. What should I do now ?

[@KartikoNugroho]

does the memory configured as dual channel or just single channel?

[@ValdeSanus]

The new Alder Lake N cpu, with 8 Gracemont cores with the same power consumption is going to be killer.

[@ChimpRiot]

I was thinking of upgrading my OpenMediaVault server Nucbox J4125 to this, but the power consumption doesn’t seem worth it.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

the amount of people craving for the multiple interface version in the comments is staggering, lots of fellow pfsense users

[@doogle4144]

“This is Patrick from STH” while waving a small device… are you going to introduce yourself too or only the device? 🤪

[@talbizle]

I'm so lost. Is there a 2.5GbE router on the consumer market? I mean just a router. Not a AP, Switch, Router combo. I don't want to build one I just want to but one. Plug it in and set port forwarding, DHCP and such.

[@d00dEEE]

What do you use to clean boxes for the b-roll shots? I've used tack cloths as used by (automotive) painters, that feel like waxy cheesecloth. They are very static suppressing, so once you've wiped something down, it doesn't have a charge and hence doesn't suck up dust immediately.

[@reneb5222]

The SSD they standard throw in are extremely disappointing slow. I replaced mine with Samsung SSD in the Pfsense unit.

[@foureight84]

Banana for scale, Patrick. Always use a banana. An Intel n6005 would be great in one of these things. Higher performance for the same TDP.

[@tpttecmic]

I wonder if you can use the power input as a usb as well? I would love to try “docking” it. Then you can have triple monitors

[@floogulinc]

I really want to find a mini PC with a USB C port that functions as power delivery in and regular USB and DisplayPort so you can use it with a standard USB C dock.

[@derekp6636]

huh, looks like a cool nuc alternative. I wasn't really sold on the 500+ price tags so I'll give this a whirl for a small linux box to run workloads against.

[@Phil-D83]

China box. Looks ok for a home docker build

[@bakakafka4428]

So if you get it without a drive, there's also no Windows 10 OEM key in the BIOS?

[@whocares3132]

Keep posting Idle and at load power uses and mention OS(and use ubuntu/debian sometime to check this) pls. LOVE YOU

[@BryceDearden]

Kind of random question but what is the keying on the m.2 slot? Just m? Or m+b?

[@gsi87]

is it real to build storage spaces direct cluster of some mini pcs from review?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Interesting idea

[@ewenchan1239]

That's an interesting to value proposition. It's too bad that the performance of the processor is so underwhelming otherwise this could've been a contender to replace our aging Mac Mini to drive the TV in our living room.

[@joshuamaserow]

Great coverage. The only negative that would bother me is whiney fan

[@benjaminng2983]

Any idea why I can’t power this with my MacBook Pro charger?

[@davidhettinger8873]

Any chance we could see some numbers on remote access to Parsec, Moonlight, etc? I've been looking for a thin client that wouldn't force me to tear my hair out if i had to actually use it alicart.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Probably not on this one, but I can tell you I used RDP since it is Windows 11 Pro and RDP over LAN was very similar to what was shown on the screen in terms of opening web browsers and such. We may try like Steam streaming in a future video.

[@UltralifeTech]

What gen is the USB-C port? Is it also 5Gig like the USB-A?

[@joshaprior3699]

Does 3 mini pc's with proxmox for ha makes sense?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

You can also do nested Proxmox

[@kock156]

Would this be a good low cost low power NAS with usb hdds or a usb hdd enclosure that support mulitdrive raid? It is faster than a pi based nas and surely can utilise the 2.5g

[@Apex180]

drop one of the usb ports and have another 2.5gb port.... ?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

We have the 4x 2.5GbE version. It just arrived during the filming/ photos of all of this and I am flying a lot. That will be coming. We also have the N5095 version of the 4x 2.5GbE unit.

[@fhgnius]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Received my N6005 quad 2.5 from aliexpress last weekend - looking forward to your review! : )

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Really?!?! Mind sharing the seller? I have orders in with three. One told me that production was scheduled for 5/6-5/8 because they had to change something.

[@jhippl]

That would be perfect for a firewall

[@bskull3232]

If you want, there are quad 2.5GbE N5105 mini PCs or N5105 routers with dual 2.5GbE plus single GbE plus TWO FREAKING 10GB SFP+ cages from AliExpress. This particular one is, AFAIK, designed to be actually used as a PC, not a piece of network gear or a server. FWIW, Google R86S. Most info you will find are in Chinese, but I'm sure you can find ways to read them. In short, it is a dream router. The only part I don't like about is that N5105 has only 8 PCIe lanes, so rest of a few lanes for WiFi and a few GbE/2.5GbE ports, you only have 4 remaining lanes, so you can either have 10GbE SFP+, or NVMe, not both. I guess if one really tries hard, one can shove the GbE plus dual 2.5GbE to only one PCIe 3.0 lane using a PCIe switch, but that will be really expensive, but that will free up 2 lanes for a B-key NVMe.

[@denvera1g1]

Ok, hear me out. TrueNAS, Ubuntu, or other OS with ZFS Internal SATA SSD for host OS Intel Optane drive for cache 3 of those portable external 5TB HDDs Maybe a 12-16TB drive off of the USB-C port for a backup VDEV of the primary Host plex on it to record TV shows, and use the network to backup to a redundant server, or stream to other machines

[@JamesMyatt1]

I'd love to see this

[@RobertParker2]

Could you add some of the ryzen 5000U series to the benchmark comparisons? They are pretty popular in minipc's right now like the ASUS PN51 Mini PC or countless chinese ones on aliexpress.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

PN51-S1 review will be up with the 5700U in the next 10 days or so. Just waiting on the video to be edited.

[@DrDingus]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Phenomenal :)

[@drifter4training]

so other manufacturers used the same chassis under model names, Nordine M6 and dingdian n3

[@emilypeters8888]

I want one of these mini pcs with a full thunderbolt 3/4 port or a external pcie slot in addition to the internal nvme sliot etc... I also want to see the power usb ports handle data if hooked to a hub

[@Angultra]

Intel NUCs have thunderbolt and nvme, along with quieter fans. You get what you pay for

[@TheRealFrankWizza]

My fan became pretty loud. Does anyone know a part number for the fan?

[@harrythehandyman]

candidate for pfsense? Driver support?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

For pfSense, you will probably want the 4x 2.5GbE version. They arrived the same day this was filmed. Those reviews are coming.

[@diuran1919]

Normally all pentium N golden or silver are fanless I mean companys add much more heatsink or plate to cooling down and here we got little fun and very small heatsink

[@s8ncho676]

fanless in so small case is met up to 6w at good brands

[@ABrag4]

Is this thing runs at dual channel?

[@lolololowbx280]

How many vm this mini pc could possibly run?

[@Iceever]

I wonder how these type of PC would do as Chia mining pc with 20 external usb hdds

[@Vincentb63fr]

Hi, i search irst drivers for nvme m2 , do you have that?

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

Why all these 2.5gbe, is 10g dead?

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

2.5GbE uses existing in wall wiring. 10GbE is actually dropping like a rock in new switch port counts

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

​@@ServeTheHomeVideo 10 GbE is old, I wonder if a new 10GbE standard with modern signal processing could be created? Been wiring everything with cat6 for over a decade because the cost delta from 5e was negligible especially compared with man hour costs. With how fast we went from 10 to 100 to gb I expected 10gb to become commonplace years ago.

[@FARBerserker]

i wish somebody made something small with one of the 10 or 11 series i3's with 4 cores, 8 threads and iGPU

[@wayland7150]

I keep looking at the Lego.

[@keyboard_toucher]

All my PCs have a visible hard drive bulge.

[@jivexero]

It’s ok. You can say that this sux. We won’t get mad.

[@emilypeters8888]

The question is emulation, honestly for gaming.

[@AchwaqKhalid]

The #5900hx is still ruling 💪👑

[@RevFilmore]

Another 51xx with fan. Maybe I should get an odroid rather.

[@yourpcmd]

I'm sad it doesn't come with the legos.

[@irfanb4332]

You could have given us the dimentions in centimeters.

[@JamesMyatt1]

ETA Prime has some great videos on this machine, including adding a discrete GPU via NVMe. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pqDSpnt4jKp-pdE The problem with this box is that you can get a J4125 node that's good enough for under $200 or a used 10th gen i5 TMM node for under $500.

[@orangezeroalpha]

I got this one because it allows two solid state drives and had newer wifi6 vs the j4125, for almost the same price as the j4125. The same config with a pi4 would be more costly or way less useful for networking/storage.

[@grauss]

Banana for scale.

[@LiraeNoir]

2007: ship a million 10GbE ports. 2022: sell new computers touting 2.5GbE port. A for several hundreds in price. What the actual fuck?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

ebay: you want some 10+ year old 10Gbit SFP+ card and optical module for three fiddy?

[@BennyColyn]

@@marcogenovesi8570 I suspect you are a crustacean from the paleozoic era?

[@wayland7150]

I've got 10Gbit SFP+ daisy chained from my PC to my servers as well as 1Gbit normal connection. The thing is I average at 2.5Gbit so not really a lot of point in having more than 2.5Gbit.

[@AlpineTheHusky]

That symbol for the power is...not...it just doesnt make sense

[@MiniArts159]

This $300 computer has better features than most $300 desktop motherboards

[@slithery9291]

You could have used a banana for scale.

[@rt.]

i love how STH brings focus on quality & enterprise gears just as much as anybody, but calling this $300 PC cheap is just dumb

[@ikkuranus]

It's always a bananna for scale.

[@ImSaari]

Sheesh!

[@martysdomain]

Needs more NICs

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

4x 2.5GbE passively cooled version is here.

[@martysdomain]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo This is what I get for not watching the video yet! Thanks!! Keep up the good work.

[@Pit_stains]

Need this with 2 ethernet ports.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

We have one with 4 already being tested.

[@dimovstanimir]

Next time simple put a banana for scale :))))

[@DiomedesDominguez]

I still prefer a LattePanda Delta over this one.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Interesting since this is much lower cost and with more modern features.

[@DiomedesDominguez]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Maybe, but the 2.5GbE is a $35 usb adapter and the other "modern features" doesn't cover the slow performance for a home/portable pc.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Well the Delta's N4100 is less than half of the CPU performance and has older GPU IP/ acceleration. I guess my comment was that for $61 more you get: >2x the CPU performance 4x the memory 16x the storage 2.5x the wired bandwidth Newer Wifi a case To me that is a lot for $61.

[@wayland7150]

Or you could buy the board from a Framework laptop. Loads of performance.

[@jasongooden917]

Xbox One mini

[@RedBearAK]

“It will do Wordle.” I am now deceased.

[@JosephHarry]

Too bad this is not POE.

[@ServeTheHomeVideo]

Oh just wait for a piece that is like half done :-) We have some of these powered via PoE and with 2.5GbE now.

[@qazwsx000xswzaq]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo With a multi-gigabit PoE splitter?

[@iScherma]

@@ServeTheHomeVideo Where did you find it? I was looking for a 12V PoE Splitter and a DC 5.5 plug to USB-C adapter, but it was getting too much work-around-ish. :P

[@Catge]

lol league of legends installed