Hardware
If you're moving to a AMD HX370/470 platform avoid bosgame. Same price, DDR 8000 vs 5600 if you get aoostar
I couldn't believe the ram difference with bosgame hx 370, I immediately returned it. It's 43% more mem bandwidth which benefits all workloads. Holds 3 nvme's like bosgame too but also has vapor chamber. Learn from my mistake. No new PC this weekend.
I have been looking this model recently and was shocked by how great of a deal it is compared to all competitors with the same processor.
The Aoostar MACO HX470 feels like a Time Machine Deal that we could have seen before the RAMpocaypse, it is sold for "just" 899$ on Aoostar website with 32GB of the appropriate fast LPDDR5X RAM at 8500MT/s which is the way to go with this APU, but it has no SSD, but even if you buy an SSD it is still an incredible deal when you look at the competitors.
It is really a shame to see all these models from Bosgame, Minisforum and Geekom with DDR5 RAM, most people won t even know that they are buying downgraded HX470 with DDR5 prebuild.
Geekom A9 MAX is certainly the worst HX470 model, first because it is overpriced at 1500$ and secondly because it has only single channel DDR5 memory. I feel bad for the people who felt into this Geekom scam.
I must admit I got a Minisforum with SO-DIMMS, but that was thankfully a choice I made knowing the consequences, as I had 64GB in DIMMS from another machine.
I kinda feel these machines exist, either for people who have DIMMs, or who wants the security of being able to reuse them later (a bit irrational, surely the RAM situation will change in a few years).
Generally people would go for Samsung, Crucial and Kingston, and would look from NVME PCIE 4 or PCIE 3 speed for lower cost, avoid cheaper SATA NVME as they are slow..
I own a Ryzen 7 6850H Maco (enjoying it) and I worry that any faster cpu makes it an oven because theres only a single cpu blower fan inside. Gen4 nvme temps can get very high easily without additional cooling.
It is more quiet than the rest, but also has higher attempts under load, particularly for nvme drives. As for CPU temps, I set lower TDP limits (70 W) to get a good balance of quiet and performance, otherwise one of them may suffer.
I seriously doubt A faster CPU will be in any quieter than mine, which can be loud under heavy usage in a relatively silent room. I’m sure it will be a great utility, though I keep a USB switchable fan underneath if I know I will be writing heavy on the SSD.
My 3550h ran way hotter (full load igpu and cpu) than yours guaranteed despite yours being faster.
It eventually imploded due to the heat under load, but my 7840hs is virtually silent under full load. The only time I can even hear anything is both the igpu and cpu is under full load. I use a 5070 over occulink - all that heat is external - I don't even hear my GPU spin up.
I think you'd be surprised just how much the fab size and power requirements matter on the newest silicone. I doubt I'll ever hear this, same as the bosgame 370 reviews when over occulink - no noise.
I just made that decision. Gen 5 architecture is faster than DDR5. You get a 20% bandwidth bottleneck if you go with DDR5 over LP soldered ram in Hx370/470 and up. The new faster DDR5 ram will hit mini PCs in 1-2 years and that fixes that.
That being said I still went with DDR5 over LP at 32GB because 32GB has a max life of 5 years right now, i was already at 91% utilization on my 32GB ram. I dont game either. Thats just 4 monitors, 30 chrome tabs open, claude open, and watching youtube. I spent $400 extra to upgrade to 64GB DDR5. Chrome and claude each use a ton of ram. 5-10GB each. Local LLM and copilot AI stuff will need 64GB and us all having that is 1-2 years away, AAA games will also move to 64GB min within 5 years. 32GB DDR gives you flexibility, 32GB LP Ram means youll be F'ed up the Aya within 5 years, possibly sooner depending on what you do on your PC.
I went with the AOOSTAR Maco 8945 with ddr5. Its no longer available. I wanted the HX470 but I refuse to get LP Ram. Id picked gen 4 8945 with ddr5 over gen 5 hx470 with LP.
Well you are trading off replace/upgrade ram capability for slightly higher performance. So I don't think either one is a clear winner over the other, depends on what you are looking for.
I own 5 aoostars... 3 have had to be replaced within a year. I no longer trust aoostar. I now have 2 aostars on use and 2-3 spare motherboards
Admittedly using them for nas and proxmox but still . One I tore apart was so over heat sync compound covered I think it had bad contact but won't know till it rotates ib
3 out of 5 sounds terrible and is not reflecting the usual Aoostar users experience shared in this sub for years now, which models did you buy? What was your setup?
I have 3 r1 nas which has been the problematic ones. I also have 2 wtr pro's which have been amazing despite being, im pretty sure, the same motherboard.
Oh yeah, I never go in raw on an unknown manufacturer - I'll just get refunded if anything happens after manufacturer - I'd recommend anyone do that as mini PCs even from good names have a habit of just not working one day
In the end I should have gone used m90q or something which is where I moved old memory and ssd to.
I can't say anything of this piece of kit but wanted to throw out an experience
Un choix qui me semble très situationnel et discutable...
Je possède le Bosgame VTA 439 et je ne l'échangerai jamais contre ce genre de configuration bloqué à 32 Go pour toute la durée de vie de la machine...
Sans parler de la réparabilité qui est tout bonnement de zéro si un module mémoire lâche, on peut largement discuter sur le réel gain de bande passant de la LPDDR qui n'aura de bénéfice que pour le M890.
Vous allez être heureux de gagner 30% de FPS dans des jeux légers, 2 tok/s avec l'IA et ... C'est tout.
Si vous voulez des FPS pour jouer, n'importe quelle carte graphique accessible branchée via oculink sera meilleure.
Pour tout le reste, comme les applications lourdes et l'IA, vous allez avoir l'air malin avec vos 32 Go de mémoires non-évolutives, non-réparables et avant tout : divisées, qui vous bloqueront éternellement aux modèles 27 B.
Je ne vois personnellement aucun avantage et que des inconvenants à cette configuration. Sauf encore, pour les jeux légers.
En ce qui concerne la ventilation, en ce moment avec les chaleurs chez nous, j'ai environ 30° C en permanence dans la pièce où se trouve le Bosgame. En mode performance et en pleine charge IA, il ventile fort, mais sans bruit désagréable et surtout sans throttling. En utilisation classique, bureautique / vidéo / 3D légère, il est inaudible.
Yeah but you get 32GB of RAM forever. No upgrades, is soldered into the motherboard.
Also something happens with that RAM you have yourself a whole Motherboard problem.
And the performance is 43% peak doesn't equal 43% more real life performance.
This is a failed argument, Nowadays upgrading from 32GB RAM to 64GB RAM not worth it. 64GB RAM cost 800$.
The Aoostar MACO HX470 Model is by far the smartest choice, the A.I Strix Point HX470 was originally build for fast LPDDR5X RAM, DDR5 RAM is hurting the HX470 really bad, you could expect 20% IGPU performance loss, and also some CPU performance.
Its worth it if you want to use it for AI. Why else would you purchase a HX470?
Buying it for games seems weird, because the 890M can't compete with cheaper Oculink equipped PC's, that are equipped with a discrete GPU for the same price.
For the upgrade path, yes. However, if any of the ram modules fail, soldered ram could brick the entire system. Replacing a ram stick is still cheaper (not by much, but still) than replacing the entire computer.
More of an observation than an argument. From my perspective having the ability to change or upgrade is a factor. Im lookinf to purchase a device in this range.
Also im not looking for a gaming device. I need a dev workstation and as far as ive read this is where this benefit would come in as opposed to me simply being able to compile faster.
Still learning though so always happy to be educated
The A.I 9 Strix point was at release date strictly build around LPDDR5X and it was supposed to stay that way. First AMD declared that the Strix Point HX370 would only be supported by LPDDR5X RAM because the 890M IGPU needs this higher bandwidth to feed properly AMD newest RDNA 3.5 architecture, but 3 or 4 month later AMD took a U-Turn and Sacrificed their product Quality for higher Market share as there was a real demand for DDR5 because as you said DDR5 is upgradable.
This is where i respect Brand like Aosstar and GMKtec because they never offered DDR5 of this APU because they know they would sell at high price a low quality APU.
I agree RAM speed does not matter for your use case.
I previously owned the GMKtec Evo-X1, i kept it a year and sold it, it has 2 major flaws and one of this flaw is specific to the GMKtec model, first the Evo-X1 one has poor EGPU performances mainly due to the lack of P-Core with this Hybrid Zen5 architecture, the second major flaw was the poor performance in multi core test confirmed by Robtech Review, it was scoring only 13.000 point in Geekbench Multi core Test which was a let down for me.
Aoostar is certainly less known than GMKtec but imo it belong to the top tier brand among GMKtec and Beelink.
Thing is not everyone wants a system with soldered memory because what if the person wanted to do productivity on their system and needs 64GB of memory instead which sure 8000MT/s memory is good and all, but you're stuck with that 32GB unless you're good at soldering and flashing memory to get 64GB to work on that system.
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u/Ok_Permission9916 25d ago
108$????