Should You Buy a Beelink Mini PC?... SER5 Review

Today we're taking a look at a Beelink mini PC. I've seen plenty of Beelink computers over the years, but never tested one, so today I thought we'd do just that by looking at the build quality and testing the performance of the SER5 5560U.
0:00 Specs, What's in The Box, and Teardown
1:43 Noise and CPU Performance
2:47 Gaming Tests
3:00 CS:GO
3:16 Apex Legends
3:38 GTA V
4:07 Cyberpunk 2077
4:41 Marve's Spider-Man Remastered
5:08 Shadow of The Tomb Raider
5:35 Red Dead Redemption 2
5:58 Elden Ring
Thanks for watching :)
Link To PC Tested in This Video:
www.bee-link.net/products/bee...

[@p1xel_rat929]

You are one of my favorite KZbinrs because your videos are so authentic feeling and don’t feel fake or forced.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Thanks :)

[@xtechtips152]

@@RandomGaminginHD are you going bald?

[@EthanH1]

@@xtechtips152 Bruh...

[@Maximus20778]

@@xtechtips152 bruh

[@ca9inec0mic58]

@@xtechtips152 bruh

[@kylerbartsch3898]

This seems like a pretty neat mini PC, with performance far better than what I would have expected. I think it'd be pretty cool to buy one of these and integrate it into a television/media center.

[@archgirl]

That was my thinking, too. If I needed a PC hooked up to my TV for multimedia, this is exactly the kind of thing I’d be looking for. Plenty of oomf for 4K video, especially if you put a nice big SATA SSD in it for storage.

[@AndrewTSq]

It cost as much as a Xbox Series X here with memory, so not sure its a good buy to play games,

[@archgirl]

@@AndrewTSq Thankfully it’s not meant for gaming, so that’s not the target audience. Nice big SSD or hard drive full of movies or shows is the perfect use case for something like this.

[@niedas3426]

Or simply a little home server to run scripts and applications on. Don't get why you'd want to game on this thing anyways. Not like you need that small of a FF for a thing you'd be using daily, but probably perfect to throw into a corner and ssh into.

[@RichardJamesMendoza]

Maybe I could propose this to our office next year as a bridge of sorts between our laptop and our Samsung large TVs. One is hooked to the mini PC, while the other one is connected via Bluetooth. This way, it may end up smoothing up our workflow in the future.

[@Tech.Closet]

I had Beelink Mini PC recently, it's a very solid device, I was able to run games even on 3 monitors.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

That’s awesome :)

[@gordonoboh833]

@@RandomGaminginHD Do you think you could review "Beelink Expand F USB-C Docking Station", this seems like something I might be interested in, a central storage for my ipad, laptops and desktop.

[@NOVABRAND7787]

Could I stream from my Xbox series x console and get at least 720p 60? With this?

[@gavp1336]

Can you tell me if it's fairly future-proof on that you can easily replace the CPU and graphics card?

[@iaincowell9747]

@@gavp1336 Nah, most of these mini pcs use integrated CPU and graphics

[@TheMuffinMan540]

Very very impressed. The temps are alright too, which I didn't expect. Nice review!

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Thanks :)

[@ShockingPikachu]

That's mainly due to how efficient the portable Ryzen cpus are. They're nuts!

[@archgirl]

@@ShockingPikachu Tell that to my laptop’s R7 6800H. 😁

[@djaybeetoo]

I like that you cover different stuff than most of the other tech-tubers.

[@t1e6x12]

Its quite impressive seeing such small computers run demanding games with the help of upscaling. The upgradability of this system is a welcome surprise in the age of soldered ram and storage. I would really be interested in seeing you test one of these with an RDNA2 APU assuming Beelink updates their models to have them.

[@taylorwillis5556]

They already have one available for preorder, with a pretty respectable price.

[@thomas.parnell7365]

I'd be curious it could run fallout 4 or space engineers well

[@KirkKiyosadaTome]

I bought this exact device a couple of weeks ago for $330 USD. I could not be any happier. I mainly use it for streaming 4K HDR vids from my media server or KZbin and other streaming services, and when using it with a Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad, it's just perfect for my needs. Thanks for the great review!

[@edvincentlumbab6198]

How's the unit now? Is it still running good?

[@cobaltrebel3133]

I bought a Beelink PC recently for streaming onto a TV and absolutely love it. Solid little systems you can even upgrade stuff on them too.

[@mCKENIC]

Wow! Much more performative that I expected - Id love to try some music stuff/audio recording on one of these. So small, so cute!

[@racistpandagod]

would love to see some video encode/decode numbers on that. could be a competent stream/record capture box

[@archgirl]

Ooh, another good idea for something like this.

[@michaelthompson9798]

Thanks again for a great review 🥰👍. These mini PCs are an awesome thing for a htpc setup or office where space is a premium and you need a half decent rig for processing 💪. The prices of these are generally a little higher than an equivalent desktop pc but are, imo, a great investment 🤩🤯

[@tdmdchannel2339]

Nice review. I bought one of these Mini PC from amazon last month (Beelink Ser5 5600h) to replace my older HTPC (HP SFF i7 2nd generation, gtx 750ti) as a media center for our TV in the living room. Performance is excellent for the size. For the first week, I had it hook up to my dual monitor (1440p) next to my main PC for testing purposes. I did some 4K video editing on it as well with Premiere Pro and tested a bunch of emulator (Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, PS3, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, PSP). The result are amazing for a tiny mini pc. Dreamcast to Wii games will run full speed at 1080p. A lot of PS3 & Wii U games will also run full speed (upscale to 1080p) while some other you will have to go down to native resolution which is 720p. The whole family had great fun with these older (retro) games on the big screen.

[@nazgulsenpai]

Beelink makes some decent quality stuff. I've used them in a business setting for a couple of years and the performance for the price is great plus the form factor is just a bonus. All still running today with no problems. Love the channel!

[@lapptech]

It's pretty cool that these small computers has gotten this powerful. Would be interesting to see how it would handle less GPU but more CPU demanding titles as RimWorld, Project Zombiod for example. Keep up the great work =)

[@cydernight01]

I was just thinking about buying one last week! Awesome content! Keep it up

[@JMartinni]

This but with a Ryzen 6000 mobile APU at 15-25W could be really impressive, too bad notebooks/mini-PCs with those are still barely available and quite expensive.

[@wesleyhayward7043]

I've had this exact model for a month now and it's a great replacement to my ageing xeon ivy bridge server. In the BIOS I tweaked a few power settings and also used RyzenAdj to set power limit to 50w to get a passmark score of just under 17k. Great for VMs and running game servers.

[@Wrublos212]

Wonderful, small, energy-saving machine. Thank you for testing.

[@Aiza19]

There is something about your voice and videos that always calms me down Keep up the good work 👍🏻

[@eloyferrer9994]

Nice, another video. Keep it up my guy

[@sirdovermeyer]

These things are crazy interesting but I would have to try to find a use case for myself to need one. Very cool content regardless.

[@KiraSlith]

Man, Beelink is racking up Ws this year. They used to be seen as budget trash, and now they're commanding the full attention of every tech tuber I'm subscribed to. Now THAT is an underdog story.

[@lewiskelly14]

Or they're paying the channels

[@Frzyrr000]

I currently have this pc and I have to say I am extremely impressed, for such a small pc it's so good, pcs that are normally this size would be like a chrome box or what not be if you're a starter I highly reccoment 👍

[@markdavenportjr5129]

Excellent review I am totally gonna get one for Christmas to be used as a server host for 7 days to die and Valheim. :)

[@sparklingbra]

These mini PCs or as Intel would call them, NUCs, are basically laptops without the built-in displays and generally no discrete GPUs. Slightly larger mini PCs may have a discrete GPU soldered onto the motherboard. Even larger ones have a full sized PCIe slot to accommodate up to a medium sized graphics card.

[@ryanb.4920]

Never fails to impress me how far technology has come. A gaming PC that's shorter than the length of a graphics card? Amazing.

[@selohcin]

LOL, this is NOT a "gaming PC".

[@ryanb.4920]

Okay bud, with ur dell optiplex

[@prototype_585]

@@ryanb.4920 its really not a gaming pc

[@ryanb.4920]

Y’all are commenting on somebody who takes computer science. If it can play newer titles even at 720p this is considered a gaming PC. Back 10 years ago could integrated graphics run new games? No they couldn’t.

[@prototype_585]

@@ryanb.4920 what the hell is computer science? and if you want to play games on 720p low settings 20 fps on your "gaming pc" then enjoy

[@689moose]

Is it still working 6 months later? That seems to be the approximate length of time it takes for these things to die.

[@OldPoi77]

Solid review, nice work.

[@hixyhicks]

Great video,this looks very cool .Thanks .

[@dadgamer6717]

sweet wouldn't expect those gaming results!

[@ntgm20]

I have the Trigkey S5 version with the same processor, memory, and SSD. I don't game with it, but I am impressed at what it can do for the amount of power it uses.

[@Drev222]

I have a Beelink SER3 and SER4. They are both great for older titles, or less demanding current titles. The fan noise is minimal... much better than other mini PC's in my collection. Great construction, and easy to upgrade (RAM and SSD/HDD... CPU is integrated). I was impressed enough with the SER3 to buy a SER4 several months later. I have been using them both daily, and no complaints so far.

[@smoothmovenyc7992]

yo I just bought my 2nd SER5, returned 1st one because half of the time if I restart it or boot it up it won't start, just a blank screen, same problem with 2nd one, I don't know wtf, must be something on my end, I have to manually shut it down and few hours later it starts up with no problem, wtf ??

[@sharmamanoj]

Unique content with all the details.

[@jeremiahb.1868]

this is cool, this shows what will be the future of computers to use it anywhere

[@charlesburris6314]

I'd never buy one for a gaming rig but it definitely is a candidate for a day to day PC. Great performance for such a tiny build. Have a great day!

[@CommodoreFan64]

Agreed while they can do it, these really are better suited to daily computers, and office machines attached to the back of a monitor, and then locked down to a desk.

[@Checker201lol]

Maybe make a follow up video with an m.2 to pciex16 adapter with something like a 1650 or alike, to see what silence an power efficiency you can unlock?

[@darrens3494]

Such a cute little box man and I'm surprised by the decent power of this little thing. Definitely expected worse but not bad for a low power system. I'd definitely get one of these for work or something

[@d2factotum]

I use one of these (albeit the Celeron N5095 version) as a mini home server and it works beautifully for that. 16Gb of RAM and a decently fast 512Gb SSD, cost about £200 as I recall...I'd say great value for money.

[@bracket12]

that really looked interesting. would make for a good little mediacenter pc

[@PixelShade]

You really need to explore the FSR 2.1.2 mod for Cyberpunk. It is absolutely fantastic for image quality and performance. :D

[@MrWarneet]

We have a couple of Intel NUC's here in the office, that FF is a winner. We love to watch that category and have hope for this model...

[@Clutch4IceCream]

If that’s a thunderbolt port I’d love to see an external dock with like a 2060 or 2070 installed just for fun 😂

[@averagedev7768]

There is no intel CPU so no thunderbolt

[@zoladkow]

​@@averagedev7768 WHAT?? That's world-shattering, i didn't know that. What a bummer 😞

[@workingTchr]

I had a lot of fun building PCs over the years, large units with multiple case fans and water cooled CPUs. I made one very cool case out of aluminum and iron wood. It looks like those days are gone. From now on I'll be tinkering with little boxes like the Beelink here. And instead of three 1920x1200 monitors arranged at a set, I simply have one 48" 4K monitor with multiple sections. Ah, the times they are a changing...

[@spacecy]

Neat machine. Great review.

[@nomadben]

I like these kind of videos. Mini PCs are just interesting for some reason.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

That is awesome dood.

[@OverAndOverAndOver]

My office bought loads of these, they're killer computers if you don't need GPU power, they rock and are cheap! Edit: I work at an IT firm, we stocked inventory with some of these and they're fantastic

[@RandomGaminginHD]

That’s awesome :)

[@siyzerix]

What about a $480 gtx 1650 HP victus with a i5 1260p? I mean, a laptop is literally a desktop as well. Even just ignoring all its laptop features, you're getting what is essentially a ultra compact mini pc with a 1650 and 12th gen i5 for $480

[@_odaxelagnia]

@@siyzerix 8gb ram is enough only for E-sport titles and even if you ignore it's "laptop features" you still are paying for them

[@siyzerix]

@@_odaxelagnia So having a much more powerful gpu and also a more powerful cpu for $90 more, is a bad deal according to you? Great job. Oh but I'm sure your 16gb ram will make the vega igpu game better than a gtx 1650. Get real. The vega igpu struggles with esports, let alone aaa titles. Face it. This mini pc is only good for being stuck at the back of some tv or monitor. Or some extremely enclosed space. Otherwise, its straight up terrible value. Really, really terrible value.

[@FroggyTWrite]

it's pretty amazing what one can do with an APU these days

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah definitely

[@fistingendakenny8781]

Would be great as a discrete emulation pc

[@CaelVK]

You should make a video on CyberFSR2, a compatibility layer that replaces DLSS with FSR 2 for cards that don't support DLSS. As the name suggests its made to work on Cyberpunk but it also works in some other titles.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

I’ll take a look :)

[@Sr1njan]

Downloaded it from nexus for HZD. Didn't work sadly

[@Rose-tl4tk]

I too was looking into mini pcs recently and came across beelink

[@ethearnos6397]

with these temps you can use amd tuning utility and overclock the gpu to 1.9ghz or 2ghz and up the tdp to 45watts you can also change temp limits if necessary

[@unfinishedquest]

I have one from NucBox (NucBox 5 I believe) which is essentially the same with a different design. I love mine and really have no complaints. Got mine for $500 and I say it's packed with power and features.

[@mpcinlv]

I currently run a Beelink SEi8. No problems over the last two years.

[@hereallyisfranz6555]

I would like to see you do Photo and Video Editing on your reviews, even for a small portion the video.

[@mattster7412]

love your videos, Random! when are you gonna review a steam deck?

[@TheMadface80]

Would this work with an eGPU? Cuz if so, this would be pretty awesome, I think

[@princesstrinson]

great video, will you ever add overwatch to your bench marks? I know its pretty all round easy to run but now it's F2P I imagine more people are on it

[@pattskatoey3139]

It’s good to see that the ram is removable as well as the nvme drive.

[@smoocher]

Thanks for covering this. Love the accent!

[@deacon6231]

I have a question. Using something like Dlss (especially 3.0 with frame generation) adds input latency. But can you balance it out with something like TimeResolution or islc?

[@jakefisher8788]

Amazing mini machine !!

[@DJ-Daz]

I love these mini PC's, they make amazingly fast high-spec webservers for someone hosting a website at home or office.

[@FuntimeswithViper]

I'm so glad i got this, it isn't the most powerful thing ever, but it's still a beast!

[@Juan-ng7rs]

Nice, mini pcs has always fascinated me

[@CLOYO]

*have

[@Maximus20778]

@@CLOYO that's great bro but who asked

[@Juan-ng7rs]

@@CLOYO frick

[@Cafeinrush]

How does it compete in esports titles, might be a good one to use these little things for a project im working on.

[@skunk0]

THANKS BROTHER GONNA BUY THIS ONE 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@byteme0000]

I’ve just finished upgrading my mini ITX system to an i9-9900 (not the K). No problems whatsoever-other than the prices lol-and all is well. I’ve already decided, however, that my next PC is going to be one of these tiny PCs. (Beeline seems to have established a good rep in this area so perhaps I’ll go with them.) I’ve purchased, set up, and upgraded many other tiny PCs for friends, colleagues, and family members, and I’ve been getting more and more interested in them. (Fortunately for me, the only game I play is WoW Classic, so I don’t really care about what else one of these little systems can do for gaming.)

[@MandoMTL]

Wish there was a way to juice these things to their full 45w potential. There's a lot of performance left on the table.

[@garethstevens3447]

Could you add a external GPU for crazy performance gains love to see that

[@shaynecarter-murray3127]

I've been tempted to grab one as a media box/emulator to hook up to my TV. Seems legit.

[@FerralVideo]

They also have a version with the 5600H, which a cursory glance online suggests has a somewhat more powerful IGP (one extra CU clocking 200MHz faster) and a significantly higher power budget (45w) for higher clocks (boost 4.2). I'd be curious how much better that unit performs than this unit. Although it would definitely be louder and thirstier.

[@TheCaptainkyka]

I'm peeping one of these to run wow classic. I feel like it'll do the job even with higher settings. Thoughts? I mean if it popped eldenring I'd assume it's fine.

[@plasticelephant1969]

Very impressive, just thinking about it that you can probably drop it in your pocket and go around, maybe travelling and connect it to a tv if you're in a hotel, it is amazing.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah would be perfect for that

[@bobsterwood]

Just curious but would you be able to add an external gpu to this?

[@xgraphics2006]

We have this mini pc, but we have the one with the Ryzen 5 5600H, so far this mini pc have been performing really well.

[@SnprR]

You should do a follow up comparing it to the Steam Deck, seems like similar specs and somewhat similar price.

[@mickrambo6787]

Got one of these to build a infotainment system for my car.

[@jburtonca]

I had a Beelink for 6 years and 8 months until the motherboard finally went down. I used it very hard and I have no complaints. I just got a new Beelink Ser5 with 32GB RAM, 1TB hard dive etc. They are small, quiet and use only 25 watts.

[@BReal-10EC]

They should add a port that would allow for running an external dedicated GPU. That way it could be an efficient little thing.. or you could plug up an RX 6600 and do some real AAA gaming.

[@juanyanez755]

Would this be the best mini pc to almost run all current emulators decently or is there a more powerful mini pc u could recommend? Thank you

[@emilskukojs3783]

We use a lot of these mini-pcs at work they're great in a office like space we mostly use them for single tasks e.g. setting up the saw and changing its settings, managing the cnc machine, viewing/editing technical drawings. They are great for these tasks but i certainly wouldn't buy one to game on it :D

[@jameshare1848]

Wow, Tomb raider actually looks like tomb raider from back in the day with those settings, I might have to have a playthrough like that

[@jakestocker4854]

I'd buy one of these but I just got a micro Optiplex for free that has a i5-7500T. Thinking about upgrading it to a i7-7700T. Plan to mostly use it as a little emulation box.

[@BOBOFSAGGET]

My question is something like this suitable to run as a server for modded minecraft, ark, other survival games etc

[@SennaMotorsports]

Wonder if you could use this as a 2nd PC for say streaming

[@TheAzzgoblin]

'm using it as a media pc in my living room. It's great, I'm glad that I don't have to use my laptop anymore as a media center.

[@kurgisempyrion6125]

Looks good - for lower end graphics devices like this I would add a game like Rimworld - a massively popular game but not hard on graphic need. Or something similar.

[@dockaos924]

Bought a beelink gtr5 very pleased with it played eve online and it has no problems

[@jamescrook99]

The WiFi/Bluetooth antenna are in the top plastic slither and i have found Bluetooth game controllers really suffer with poor reception. Bought a cable and routed it out the side of the box.

[@Mr.CrockyGames]

I would buy one to use it as it is or buy a GeForce sub 😅 Anyway the options are limitless. Thank you for the video. Keep them going ❤️

[@FJ10A]

I've same mini PC with r5 5600 and I installed Rtx 3060 via m.2 port, it's much quieter and runs anything fine in ultra

[@arrivedknight7632]

Actual question, how reliable is these beelink units dude? I'm looking towards a 5700u model

[@jrhymes1357]

I would love to see you install an external GPU like a RTX 3050 on this tiny system.

[@skillz376]

same:)

[@MISTER__OWL]

Would you say this plays games better than an original Xbox one ? Also could you please include minecraft bedrock in your bench marks. I am interested to see how this cpu handles higher render distances.

[@tauntonlad]

Maybe you could do an update to say how this lasted as i have seen other videos on youtube saying it died after a week, some a month, some a few days

[@gabbyh.6765]

How would rate this if used as a dedicated streaming PC for 1080p60fps encoding?

[@Taybarb]

I wonder how far you could push it with an external graphics card?

[@EvocativeKitsune]

Can't wait for Ryzen 7000 iGPU test on this channel when they are more accessible. I understand that they won't really hold up to the old APUs.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah some day 😁

[@ivangerginov5648]

This thing is so cute The only thing I'd change is that AC plug. Powering it through USB C would be ideal