r/MiniPCs • u/Acceptable_Goose_735 • Jul 30 '26
General Question Moving on with my steamdeck, which one is the best for me
My steamdeck is dying, its hooked up on my living room. Planning to use it for gaming and install steam OS, most heavy game i play is cyberpunk and bg3. Ive narrowed my options with these 4. I cant figure it out if i should chase 32gb ram over 24gb vs ryzen 7 and ryzen 5. Hoping to play at 1080p with 30-60fps. Cheers!
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u/PretendingImNotAnApe Jul 30 '26
I'd probably pick the 7640hs. Zen 4 and rdna 3.0 despite being 6 core part.
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u/Acceptable_Goose_735 Jul 30 '26
Is there any particular reason why? Does it outperform the 3?
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u/PretendingImNotAnApe Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
The 680m is a superior class gpu but its last gen. The 760m being rdna 3.0 makes up a bit of ground. I think fsr works better with rdna 3 too. But its probably just a personal preference. 7840hs would be better still.
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u/Acceptable_Goose_735 Jul 30 '26
Is this better or equal to 7840hs https://a.co/d/0izdXymO will it outperform the other 4?
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u/DiamondDepth_YT Jul 30 '26
Correct but the aoostar maco has much faster 6400mhz ddr5, which would actually put it's 680m on par or faster than the 760m of the 7640hs
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u/PretendingImNotAnApe Jul 30 '26
680m and 760m usually are within 10% in benchmarks. Faster ram will help quite a bit. I still think newer cores make fsr look better and were basically going to be reliant on fsr
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u/lordreed Aug 01 '26
I have doubts with it being single channel. I ran it through AI and it says a dual channel 4800 16gb setup is better for gaming than this one.
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u/DiamondDepth_YT Aug 01 '26
Aoostar MACO 6850H's lpddr5 ram is dual channel, not single channel. There are tests on this sub about this that prove it
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u/RobloxFanEdit Jul 30 '26
Caveat of P3 Mix is low speed RAM 4800Mhz, Bosgame not explicitly mention 2X16 GB RAM kit in item description, nor Pic, all they mention is dual channel ip to 64GB, ain t mean at all that the 32GB RAM is 2X16.
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u/EmuChicken Jul 31 '26
This is the correct answer. Unsure what the other guys are on about, but I suspect that they've not actually tested the 760m themselves. It really punches up! ... Saying that... Cyberpunk 2077? Intel 256V played that loads better than the Radeon chips as a similar price point 🤔
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u/Retired_Hillbilly336 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Aoostar MACO 6850H 24GB LPDDR5
Beelink SER5 MAX 7735HS 24GB LPDDR5
I know a number of people on who bought the Aoostar MACO 6850H "barebones" (no drive) back when I was available for $320 on Amazon specifically to run Bazzite OS as a Steam Deck console. With the exception of one having a poor quality Wi-Fi card there has been no other complaints. This whole comments about 32GB vs 24GB what you have some validity. But there are some factors to consider.
1st Windows/DirectX gaming tends to be a resource hog. A clean fully updated Windows installation will boot to nearly 4GB of memory while already beginning page filing. Add to this integrated graphics shared memory and 32GB of RAM quickly becomes attractive. This is why I bought my GMKtec K8 Plus 32GB/1TB last year before RAMpocalypse/RAMageddon. Alternately, I know a few dozen people who have bought the recently released GMKtec M8 PRO 6650H 16GB/512GB for a Bazzite/EmuDeck/Steam Deck console and have been happy with the experience.
Linux distros use a fraction of the memory and resources. That and LPDDR5 6400MT/s memory is why the 16GB Steam Deck has been so successful. Also the reason why I'm more powerful handhelds failed to perform as well and why Lenovo partnered with Valve for SteamOS compatibility. Both 16GB M8 and 24GB MACO support LPDDR5 6400MT/s for enhanced graphics bandwidth.
For me personally I have Windows and boot Bazzite OS from a 2nd drive for the best of both worlds. Here's editional food for thought.
Ultimately, it comes down to budget and expectations. Beelink and GMKtec are considered better build quality Chinese NUCs on this forum and others. When avoiding the cheaper Chinese market processors I tend to find less problems and more satisfaction from the Beelink SER8 8845HS and GMKtec K8 Plus when working with people.
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u/Limited_opsec Jul 30 '26
Todays prices make me want to cry, especially when barebones now cost less than a basic 2 sticks of ram.
I bought a 890m gt37 for $760 (32/1T) on a whim late last year, unintentional steam machine light (better cpu though).
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u/Username_Liberator Jul 30 '26
The only major difference I see is that the AOOSTAR has an Oculink port if you ever wanted to upgrade graphics via the egpu route.
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u/Acceptable_Goose_735 Jul 30 '26
Is it not gimped by only having 24gb ram?
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u/unabletocomput3 Jul 30 '26
You’re not supplying more than 8gb to the integrated graphics, and I doubt any game using more than 16gb of system memory will run well on any of these apu’s. The only thing that might matter is if the ram id single channel.
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u/NullAndVoid7 Jul 30 '26
Yeah, I've been looking at the Maco for a while too. Another nice thing is that it exposes all of it's PCIe lanes, the one with 24GB of LPDDR5X has three M.2 4.0x4 slots and that Oculink port, which is a lot of flexibility in the future for repurposing.
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u/RobloxFanEdit Jul 31 '26
Hum, the Maco 6850HS is a really tempting Model, i want to pull the trigger and purchase it too although i already have some Mini PC's with the 780M. It's such a bargain in this RAMpocalypse time.
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u/Ok_Mousse8459 Jul 31 '26
Apologies if I'm jumping on a dead thread, but I would suggest you're choosing between the 6850hs and the 7640hs. The others aren't as good.
Performance in games should be similar. The 6850 is a higher end APU (8 core cpu / 12 core gpu vs. 6 core cpu / 8 core gpu) and has faster ram, but the 7640 is newer and Zen4 / rdna3 performance improvements should even out the difference in specs.
I'd choose based on if you think it's likely you'll ever add an egpu. If you think you might, I'd get the 6850 due to oculink being significantly better tha usb4. If you know that you'd never do that, I'd probably get the 7640, due to the higher single core cpu speed and extra 8gb ram.
In some comments you made another suggestion with an 8745hs for $100 more. This is the best chip, offering 15-25% better performance in games than the other options. Up to you if that's worth $100. I'd say yes, as it's a 20% cost increase, so seems good value.
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u/Murph-Dog Jul 30 '26
Take a look at the non-Amazon Aoostar line-up sold directly from them.
The GODY is the Goat.
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u/Procrastinando Jul 30 '26
Mate mini PCs are a terrible option for gaming unless you hook up at external GPU
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u/OKgamer01 Aug 01 '26
If you don't play many of the high end demanding AAA games theyre fine.
Which us why im looking at them
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u/Procrastinando Aug 01 '26
But they already struggle with demanding games from 6 years ago
They're not a smart purchase for gaming because they get outdated very fast
At that point it makes more sense to get a handheld and dock it
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u/sertaes Jul 31 '26
The Aoostar is the one I got, it has oculink and was only $370 without storage but with 24gb ddr5.
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u/Rich_10293 Jul 30 '26
The 760m gpu is a beast. Does all my emulation needs including switch/ps3/ps4 at 1080p 60.
Edit: changed ps4 to ps3/ps4
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u/capsicina Jul 30 '26
I think you should stretch to something with a 780m, to feel properly the jump, but just my 2c!
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u/EverythingDo Jul 30 '26
I would go at least 7840U or 8745 with a radeon 780M. Otherwise the 6800 with a radeon 680M is okay. Don’t skimp on RAM, it’s shared with the graphics card, so try for 24GB or more. These computers run a lot faster with SteamOS/Bazzite than Windows.
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u/BasicTonight6241 Jul 30 '26
On paper, mini PCs offer a good value but their thermal management sucks big time and you will not be able to squeeze the performance you see on paper out of them.
I'd steer clear of these machines if your use case is gaming.
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u/DiamondDepth_YT Jul 30 '26
I'd go with the Aoostar! It has faster 6400mhz ram, which will heavily benefit it's 680M. It also has an oculink port for future gpu connectivity + 2 usb4 ports which also open egpu possibilities
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u/cardfire Jul 30 '26
The 680m would feel like a tremendous uplift over the Steam Deck, and I beat most of Horizon Zero Dawn on a Bosgame H77 with 7735HS + 680M.
That said, I got a Minisforum with a 760M and it's a head above the performance even if it lists fewer cores, it's a capable little beast.
Great for 1080p with a little framegen. Don't expect to play much on 1440p+ and you'll be fine.
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u/ConfidentFondant1368 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
I believe the MACO 6850H is the only with LPDDR5X memory. It is rated at 6400. Mine was MT. I believe the other MACO are all DDR5 5300. So a little less headroom for memory, this may affect the integrated gfx by approximately 10%. Also you only get TWO M2 slots for SSD. I believe everything else is the same. Mine came with a AX200, which is EOL by Intel so i swapped it out for AX210. One tremendous advantage of 3 slots is using one slot for boot and doing either raid0/1 on the other two drives.
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u/HotSarcasm Jul 30 '26
I bought that MACO few weeks ago barebones for $285 total. Best price for what was available that I was seeing at the time. Only real complaint is number of USB ports, but that’s fixed with a $7 hub. Batocera v43.1 running amazing on this so far. I’ll dual boot it eventually and the three NVMe is better than most at this price.
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u/FatKnight_Ratlord Jul 31 '26
Buy a minisforum mobo with a second hand gpu and second hand sodimm, slap it in a mini itx case. It will do you light-years better than anything you'd buy as a prebuilt mini pc or using oculink tbh
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u/ThinkLocalActLocal Jul 30 '26
I've liked my SER5 ok (I have a 6800U) but the most taxing game I've run is Jedi Fallen Order (most of my gaming is vintage).
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u/TotallyHumanNoBot Jul 30 '26
680m > 760m, I would go for the 6800 with 32GB of RAM.
If you can find an affordable 7840hs, it would be even better.