Ray Tracing, Frame Generation and 4K Gaming...with NO Graphics Card (ft. Minisforum UM890 Pro)

Playing at high resolutions, using Ray Tracing / Path Tracing, and enabling frame gen are usually features best reserved for high-end PC hardware. But what if you don't have a high-end PC?
What if you don't even have a graphics card? Today we're putting the 780M to the test once again this time as part of the new Minisforum UM890 Pro.
The Minisforum UM890 Pro:
s.minisforum.com/RandomGaming...
0:00 Intro, Specs and Setup
1:37 1080p Gaming with the Ryzen 8945HS / Radeon 780M iGPU
2:00 Cyberpunk 2077
2:18 Spider-Man
2:35 Fallout 4
2:53 Counter-Strike 2
3:05 Starfield
3:28 GTA 5
3:37 Elden Ring
3:55 The Witcher 3
4:22 Ray Tracing & Path Tracing w/ Integrated Graphics
7:01 Frame Generation w/ Integrated Graphics
9:06 2160p (4K) Gameplay Benchmarks w/ Integrated Graphics
9:14 TES: Oblivion
9:23 Half-Life 2
9:53 GTA San Andreas
10:12 GTA V
10:35 Fallout 4
11:27 CS2
11:42 TES: Skyrim
12:08 Forza Horizon 4
12:42 Fortnite
13:09 Final Words
Thanks for watching :)

[@brando3342]

Sadly, it’s already the case that developers are leaning HEAVILY on frame generation and DLSS/FSR in place of actually optimizing their games 🙁

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah that’s a shame :(

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

Or brute force, as they always have been. Just normal.

[@Nat-yf6ff]

Demanding isn't the same as unoptimized Modern rendering techniques are per-pixel effects, that's why you see large gains from using upscaling

[@PixelatedWolf2077]

​@@Nat-yf6ffbut Upscaling is iffy in of itself.

[@FreemanBgTV]

This its way I don't play the most of Modern $hit.

[@__.jxdi.__]

1:54 "Some sacrifices may need to be made" *video shows doggo Me: huh?😧

[@phoenixzappa7366]

Korean people gotta eat

[@QuincyQad]

​@@phoenixzappa7366specifically the ones from the north

[@Mr.Atari2600]

Commence animal ritual sacrifice to appease the gods!

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah not the best timing lol

[@cmja09]

@@phoenixzappa7366 and Yulin Guangxi Chinese bros, dog meat festival for days

[@CapComa]

Everything on low and RT Ultra.. That's like drinking all the ketchup, and leaving the fries...

[@xBINARYGODx]

Depending on the kind of ketchup and the quality of the fries, that might be warranted sometimes.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Still pretty tasty if you ask me lol

[@CapComa]

@@RandomGaminginHD lol STAHPPP!!

[@GenericPast]

Ray tracing PS2 games at native resolution

[@vishensivparsad]

When man said "some sacrifices had to be made" and petted the dog I started feeling uncomfortable

[@DanielCardei]

1:50 Minisforum: Will give you a PC for the dog

[@nintendoatarikiller]

1:54 Doggo :) Your concern about devs using frame gen as a bandaid tool for optimization is so true. AAA devs are going to abuse the heck out of it to meet deadlines, pushing the poop down the poop river for someone else to pick up and clean.

[@ThePhoenix198]

Nice verbal image 🤢

[@MarginalSC]

Not sure how. Half the time they can’t be bothered to include even that.

[@RegularNobody]

​@@MarginalSC It is at least in almost every big AAA title, though. I wouldn't blame the devs themselves for this kind of thing, though. Those decisions are made by people higher up. Besides, devs themselves, generally speaking, always want to do a good job; I mean, who doesn't? It's management that decides how much time will be assigned to the project. I don't seem to have any good AAA example easily accessible on my mind (I haven't played or paid attention to many of them of late), but you get the picture.

[@MarginalSC]

@@RegularNobody It’s barely a question of time. Implementing the features is trivial.

[@RegularNobody]

@@MarginalSC and again, most, if not all, recent AAA releases have upscaling and/or frame gen, specially DLSS and DLFG (DLSS 3) specifically. Was it Alan Wake 2 that didn't even have an option of not using DLSS (or DLAA to be more precise?). I have no reason to doubt it is easy to implement. Still, I was talking in general terms; and I do remember reading it does needs a few days (the exact number escapes me, was it a week?) of coding, which isn't irrelevant. Mayber that's the reason sometimes it arrives in a update sometimes.

[@EpicTyphlosionTV]

It's amazing to see what stuff like FSR can do on low end machines

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah a game changer quite literally :)

[@alexp.8415]

@@RandomGaminginHD Did you ever do a vid on Lossless Scaling with a lower end gpu yet? Maybe like RX 580?

[@L4ftyOne]

Thats a high end system with a mid end gpu(integrated) lol

[@L4ftyOne]

Why, 580 8gig still runs everything on high/med 1080p ​@@alexp.8415

[@zenlev]

yep. it truly is insane and a free gift from amd (and intel)

[@marcin7258]

I can not wait to see the 16 cu 790m in action versus 12cu in this 780m.

[@Shahzad12357]

What???? 790m? What is that? When is it releasing? Who said it is releasing?

[@janbenes3165]

@@Shahzad12357 Probably meant 890M. It will have 16 CU and will be in some of the Zen5 APUs. By the end of the year there should also be the first PS5 performance level APU, Strix Halo.

[@natsu78999]

probably 35% performance uplift

[@chillhour6155]

We're stuck in a limbo of tech companies creating new gimmicks but then also price hike to justify said gimmick, that plus poor optimisation in modern games, you will waiting at least 10 more year's

[@Kykof]

These new thumbnails are awesome Steve. They genuinely do add so much more personality to the channel!

[@yellowblanka6058]

I’m impressed how most modern games manage to maintain their visual identity even on low settings…I’ve been gaming long enough to remember when low settings meant a pixelated, visually indistinct mess. That or a playing in a window 1/4 the size of the screen, lol.

[@RX_Opi]

Another beautifully put together video, appreciate it Steve!

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Thanks for watching :)

[@NathanMatthews.]

Steve 😂

[@vives6164]

@@RandomGaminginHD I mean...as always :)

[@oldrandomcomputing6247]

Thanks steve​@@RandomGaminginHD

[@db8989]

Thanks Steve, back to you you Steve! @gamersnexus

[@spacechannelfiver]

The upcoming Strix Point (especially Halo) APUs from AMD are going to be very interesting; solid gaming performers by the sounds of it.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah can’t wait!

[@zenlev]

the 120W tdp makes questionable performance, also the price.. but we'll see

[@Aiello_]

Please add Metro Exodus to the roster of games when trying ray tracing, that game still is beautiful!

[@AthanImmortal]

Mate, is there a way to send you a link to a channel that's using your footage? I was watching a specific round up and saw a familiar garden and hand in the background and found the original video. The only contact I see is twitter but I can't DM you there and I don't want to publicly call out the channel to avoid brigading.

[@gamersworld4176]

are you talking about budget bin's video ?

[@AthanImmortal]

@@gamersworld4176 Nope. :/

[@thrivingentrepreneur]

if he doesn't reply, then he clearly doesn't care so let it be eh

[@AthanImmortal]

@@thrivingentrepreneur yeah that's what I'm thinking, I can see he's replied to others since this was posted. I doubt it's affecting him or his views, I just wanted to give him the option. Never nice when someone is using your work to make their own content.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Hey thanks for letting me know. I can usually see where my footage is being used in YT studio so I'll have a look but I usually let it slide to be honest.

[@balaam_7087]

I love that pose in the video picture. It reminds me of that thug holding a few bucks in that ‘15 dollars, now that’s gangsta’ meme 😆

[@marknewellmusic]

Great vid Steve 👌

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Thanks!

[@hill2hell]

It's amazing hardware for it's size. It's just showing low number because it's on 4k. But if someone was just using it on a 1080p or a 1440p monitor then it would be totally fine.

[@tobik9455]

If you want to play on a low budget just get a Series S.

[@rekless1110]

Steve you're a legend, love ya :)

[@grumpyoldwizard]

It seems like frame generation just makes extra frames to boost the FPS number. Clever. People like high FPS? Let's make a bunch of extra frames...

[@Mamiya645]

90's we had face budgets, developers learned to put debris down lanes to prevent framedrops from tanking harder than anything, games journalists gave attention and love to games that ran a solid 60fps and optimization was a must. 00's we got games using hefty HDs and blu-ray storage as an excuse to feature uncompressed everything. 10's we started dreaming of a new western games industry crash. 20's and we have lead developers saying "lol just get better pcs".

[@neondemon5137]

Thanks Steve.

[@entryofemotion12]

While these metrics are all CRAZY cool and it's exciting that we're finally hitting a point where this is possible...man Cyberpunk with RT and the FSR boost looks REALLY bad on the combo of settings needed for it. I'm excited this is becoming something we can see nearly realistic to do but it's just crazy how much of a hit to quality something like FSR can be. I generally avoid RT on even my desktop card because I'm usually not happy with the performance hit, but if we're approaching a point where this is feasible in games WITHOUT FSR, I think that's going to be a huge boon for people with entry level/budget systems. I'm at least happy we're getting there, so hopefully over the next ~5 years or so this is more realistic. EDIT: I should clarify I mean BEFORE the path tracing. The scene in the rain is what I was specifically talking about.

[@jeanpips]

i made my main pc from a mini pc (ryzen 7 5800u 32gb ram) ,install "steamos" type Os and boom (more performance on linux than windows ,i use bazzite) i will buy this one soon i think ,for upscaled emulation + portability is perfect , "ultimate emu station"

[@MamadHayayo]

It's a great video.

[@mk-wz2sh]

If you have over 50-60fps in a game on low settings, increase the graphics quality. At high frame rates, the CPU has a greater impact on performance than the GPU itself

[@grootbatavia]

These small windows computers are getting nicer, but they still do not beat a mac mini overall. Yes, some benchmarks may match or even supersede those of the mac mini, but the fact that a mac mini just works (and runs OSX, though that is a personal preference). The mac mini m2 pro is the most efficient computer I have used for photo editing (large batches, denoising raw files, conversions). The problem I still see with these windows boxes are temperatures...

[@ramr7051]

I'm enjoying my 780m. Frame Gen and fsr3.1 help a lot in horizon fw

[@TheSpotify95]

That looks a nice system, and to be honest I'd happily buy one of these even if it was just for general, more simpler tasks. The fact that this beats or matches older dedicated GPUs (think 1050s and 1050TIs) is even better.

[@real_drops]

could you maybe add for the future some sound/noise testing? like db level half a meter away from desktop? like Windows idle, typical gaming and max load

[@danielkowalski7527]

1080p 60fps no RT is a holy grail of a pc player. Now just we need pc consuming 10w to ge tthis performance and we are set for life

[@joshybunny893]

That is INSANE that little box can do that... Cyberpunk is seriously a good game now, shame people still hold it.

[@hoiroi5174]

Wonder if you could try testing games on Linux when its starting to be popular because of steam would be an interesting video to see gaming Linux vs windows.

[@Kiyuja]

the levels of insanity have reached new heights with that one :D

[@RandomGaminginHD]

😁

[@laupatual7137]

Would've been cool to see Lossless scaling being used for the games that don't support Frame gen, eitherway this was nice watch, amazing how absolutely good FSR or upscalers in general are. Just wished they weren't used as an alternative for actual optimization tho lol.

[@nunyabusiness4651]

This thing is a beast. would beat any budget cart from 8yrs ago! That's saying loads for an integrated graphics card!

[@LukeTheJoker]

I don't understand why anyone would trade decent native resolution rasterization performance for Ray tracing with upscaling.

[@afiamoonlight4073]

I know this isn't the channel for that kind of thing, but I've always noticed some kind of overlap with gamers who game on pc AND do music production either in FL Studio or Ableton Live (or some other DAW), and figured I'd chime in on something. These little machines are a great value for music production if any of you are interested in that space, and it's made my life a lot easier in that regard. I used to hate dealing with those hardware limitations from my older PC on the regular, to the point where I would reconsider loading up FL for more than a half hour. Now, I'm creating synth presets and little melodies that I can't get out of my head to ease back into it because now my life is too busy to work on just one song all evening on a workday. Mine cost less than $500 I believe, and now I don't want to build a new tower any more (although that would be nice 😅😩). Edit: As for gaming, I love them for emulation.

[@cry2crysty]

hallo steve 🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Hi :)

[@Lurch-Bot]

IDK why people rave about the new AMD APUs. The 780M is roughly the equivalent of an RX470 and is the practical equivalent of where Ryzen Vega APUs were a few years ago in terms of relative performance. In other words, having this kind of performance in an APU would have been impressive 5 years ago but is really just par for the course in 2024. These minis aren't really gaming PCs. They are compact productivity machines because, when seen from a gaming perspective, you are having to buy a lot of utterly pointless CPU cores just to get the 780M. An 8600HQ with a 780M would have made sense for gaming. But they give you a cut down version with the 6 core that is truly pointless for playing current titles. This is an awful lot of money to pay to end up having performance in gaming that is markedly worse than a budget PC I sold for $350 earlier this year. Pretty sad that the 780M can't even match the performance of a 1650. As for getting the most out of one of these, you need Lossless Scaling, which now does frame gen too. It won't work with literally ALL games but will work with most. You'd be surprised at how well 2x scaling plus 2x frame gen actually looks and plays; been playing FH4 at 1440p60 on a Haswell i7 and a GTX670 SC (which is 75% of the rasterization performance of a 780M, lol) and was pretty much shocked that I could be normally competitive in ranked racing with the game running like this. Smooth and responsive. I do have both the LS1 scaling and LSFG 2.1 running in performance mode which results in the odd visual anomaly, such as a somewhat wonky moving map. But you get the lowest latency penalty that way so worth the tradeoff.

[@christophermullins7163]

Is there a meter for the igpu separately from the cpu? Lossless would be good in some games on this. Ive been using it on alanwake2. It would be interesting to see the release date of the titles as a reference of how demanding the title is. The games benchmarked were an excellent set for a minipc reveiw. 👌

[@MrMoonY-od2ms]

I hope next time, you’ll show us the cpu and gpu temperature during task and noise level.

[@antonn.ivanovic]

you could use lossles scaling frame generation with mini and low end systems

[@Orodreth888]

If only the 780m wasn't so expensive still :(

[@VertexPlaysMC]

Yeah it would be great if you could have 780m on ryzen 3 or 5 for budget gaming

[@System51]

What I would not mind to see if linux compatibility of those devices. Like do all the ports still work or do you get less performance on some things? (I know gaming performance in some games is lower since I am on linux most of the time so no need to test the games again) Would you be able to test some distros on those devices at some point?

[@Rmm1722]

Nice 👍

[@leechurchill5182]

Got my this week and love it. Plays everything retro but im kinda new to all the tweaking. Do i need to install AMD Fidelity? I always get lost with all the riff raff.

[@andrewmutavi590]

Curious,how much ACTUAL PERFORMANCE does one loose using the Oculink EGPU set up

[@emilkitane5916]

You should try checking out those asrock stx Pcs

[@burrfoottopknot]

Fallout 4 results were impressive

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah definitely

[@Zerbey]

Technology such as FSR and DLSS can be amazing, but there's always sacrifices when you use it. Better to just accept a lower resolution than try to upscale in most cases.

[@uros2909]

I'm wondering how much will new mini pc's cost when strix apu's come out, cause I'd love to own one and sell my current pc. I've come to like small factor machines after I bought XSS

[@EzaneeGires]

Lossless Scaling app helps a lot with these integrated graphics (up to a point)

[@skewuulman3174]

This performs very similary to my gtx 950

[@EinSwitzer]

Mods and overclock, not a bad setup

[@TrusteftTech]

Anyone heard about specific dates about the next generation of AMD's iGPU?

[@B-26354]

Fairly certain 240p was the resolution Resident Evil 2 backgrounds were rendered in 1998... 😂

[@Dryde85]

UM790Pro is the best. If.minisforum releases a UM version thats basically the 790pro with a oculink port that doesnt hold a m.2 slot hostage and keeps the port arrangement then would only that be a better sequel.

[@tomekpaliwoda4945]

Hi, have you experienced any trouble with this computer like: keeps rebooting randomly, d.i.e. while gaming or watching videos on KZbin or freezes when idle? I started serching and many ppl suffer this problem with prevoius models.

[@raymondgradzewicz]

10:15 What about GTAV 2160p with lossless scaling (program on steam) providing frame generation? Tech Yes CIty made a video on it.

[@bojc21]

Wow what a cool little beast, I really hope in the future they make APUs focused on gaming and don't paywall it on R9 CPU. Lets face it, it's wasted on R9 since they are to expensive.

[@John_Doe1980]

0:49 as soon as you said 4k gaming i thought of half life 2 on this mini pc not even sure why they even wasted the silicon on the um980 its basically a 5% better 7840/7940

[@SalamaAhmed-pj3jv]

What about the temps? is it high or the fan is noisy?

[@gazzertrn]

Cute pup .

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Thanks. He’s 8 now 😁

[@BlueEyedVibeChecker]

I like these mini PCs that use AMD graphics. I hate finding a good one only to see Intel UHD as the graphics solution, like sure the CPU is strong enough to play Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield at the same time, but the graphics are barely strong enough for 540P Pong. If they did either AMD iGPUs, or Intel CPU with a custom mobile ARC GPU chip, that'd be a huge step up for Intel-based mini PCs.

[@Collin_J]

I'm amazed this "works." That wording might be a little generous.

[@SamuHell782]

I'd like to see your take on the Radeon 880M machines when they come out! Give an ear scratch to your dog from me.

[@jakeparkinson8929]

A fun video you can do is using a capture with a separate computer to generate frames by using Lossless Scaling (on Steam) with obs's preview mode. You can literally use a separate computer to double fps if a game says, runs at 30fps. I did this with two thinkpads to achieve 1080p 60 on an mx450 gpu that can only run games at 1080p 30 (bg3 and newer games). For the framegeneration, i used an a285 thinkpad that had a vega 8 gpu with UXTU to unlock the tdp. Besides the input lag (its manageable), its absolute meth.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Ah that sounds interesting I’ll have to look into it

[@darcyooh3381]

Can this thing run Elden ring? I'm curious

[@lockout5731]

great content how i would benchmark slender the arrival we need that on a video to be benchmarked

[@v.9876]

AMD set the bar some time ago with the igpu and this one is very good if you compare it to the rest but it still gets beaten be decade old graphics cards

[@ShawnLangford]

Does this support RAID?

[@reahs4815]

Would it be possible to add War thunder to the list of games tested?

[@mrbobgamingmemes9558]

War thunder is not that heavy, honestly

[@hashbrownz1999]

Upscaling and generation is awesome for low end gaming, but as a snob, even ultra quality settings make my 1440p monitor feel pointless.

[@GhostLinx]

Should have tested frame gen with every game

[@terrytaylor2104]

These $100 mini pcs are tempting but the small size generating all that heat over time scares me, it's not as easy replacing cooked failing components with something like this. I think the smallest I would consider is micro atx in a HAF configuration.

[@zeronin4696]

Those $100 mini pcs dont have the powerdraw to get cooked

[@kvendy]

Good luck finding a capable mini pc for less than $270+ , this mini pc is $400+

[@buggerlugz6753]

aren't these the ones that come with spyware installed from the factory?

[@JoseLucasd]

Blud thinks windows doesnt alr spyware u 😭🙏

[@chinmayanand1960]

1440p??

[@aarongreenfield9038]

Running cyberpunk at 17 FPS is considered a war crime.

[@danielgriffith8911]

It HAS no graphics card because it has Oculink.. which is support for an external eGPU. You simply cant COOL these in the same unit these days. Plays most games fine without an eGPU, though.

[@MultiDeivas]

It is unfortunate that they don't separate the oculink from the slots for nvme drives. This PC checks almost every single box. Having to choose between storage or gpu is a letdown.

[@AgentLazarus]

There's only so much silicon within a certain space can do.

[@kuyache2]

Now in 2024 to avoid all common problems it is best to set the GPU VRAM allocation to at least 8gb if you have 32gb ram, 24gb is plenty for most games! If you have just 16gb is where you use AUTO so game can allocate enough for both the game and graphics dynamically as needed. If you have 8gb on an APU for the love of gaming please buy more ram ^_^

[@spantoby]

some how it does then my pc in gta 5 in 1080p and my gpu is a rx 6600

[@Acikexe]

3:27 grandfuto5??

[@slapnut892]

The only thing I don't like about FG is that it can create extremely bad tearing. It's implemented terribly in The Witcher 3. Try running that maxed out at 1080p on a RTX 4060, it's not going to be a fun time, unless you use Lossless Scaling which would be just as bad.

[@kibakurosaki]

Maybe you could max the iGPU RAM to 16GB and see if Starfield plays any better.

[@snakeplissken1754]

I think consumers and developers (publishers) have a very much different opinion on why upscaling exists. For consumers it´s to make playing in native resolution/higher settings viable on mid/lower end hardware (or even to have the game run playable at all) While for developers (publishers, i guess even more so pushing for games to be rushed out and not waste time on optimization), upscaling is just there so they can save time on optimization. In general i´d say we are still in a decent spot where a lot of times you can benefit quiet a bit from upscaling specially on older hardware. This would totally fly out the window if it becomes the tool to skip optimization. One a sidenote, i don´t think that gpu manufacturers are that happy with upscaling, as it increases the usability of a gpu by quite a bit. Even some more outdated gpu´s are given a second wind with upscaling, so the consumer might delay his upgrade to a newer card for longer.

[@AgentLazarus]

This is about the power of a GTX 1060

[@burnplaysgames]

Getting to the point where integrated GPUs can do all this is not something I expected for atleast another 5-10 years

[@RmRoyalflush]

Yo bro

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yo

[@UnknownPerson-cl9di]

I personally like the way on this PC CSGO works better than my PC with i7 3rd gen and RX 470 which is equivalent to half as good as RTX 4060

[@TheSlowDude]

Wait what? Steve???

[@jeremygregorio7472]

These are neat but they're useless in the laptops in desktops they put them in. I only have received them in stuff over $1,000. At that point there's plenty of other stuff on the market that has discreet graphics

[@dogfromthepurplezoneoffici5182]

Star field wasn't enjoyable for me with framerates even on the lowest settings with a ryzen 4600 and rx580 super

[@jtenorj]

Do you mean an RX 580 8GB versus a 4 GB model? There is no RX 580 Super( though the RX 590 is basically a die shrunk RX 580 with roughly 200MHz higher base and boost clock speeds). The minimum requirements are an RX 5700 on the AMD side or a GTX 1070 Ti on the Nvidia side. Your GPU is below the minimum requirements to run the game.

[@thrivingentrepreneur]

int thre yet but we close

[@makandalp]

Steam deck 2 will prolly have the same performance

[@vaggelisbasoukas7928]

Sadly the price CANNOT be..swallowed..! it needs at least 50% discound to ..eligible..at EU cause we are US consumers !

[@Kababalax]

hows your dad Kevin doing?

[@lordrushiacanyoupleasesayb3263]

use lossless