Minisforum Neptune HX90G

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• Minisforum Neptune HX90G $649.99
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Minisforum Neptune HX90G Mini PC

With the HX90G, Minisforum tries to fit very high-end components into a 2.8 liter chassis. For the moment announced under Ryzen 9 5900HX and AMD Radeon RX 6650M graphics, the machine should be declined towards AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX chips but also towards high-end Intel Alder Lake chips.

Minisforum has just published this video presentation of the HX90G which details the internal components and the great effort made on the heat dissipation. We can see a rather large heatsink with a system of heat pipes that pierce it. Two fans are also visible and the whole is quite impressive. It remains to be seen how this solution behaves in practice and especially what noise it generates in use.

Original post: To fit these “muy caliente” components in a chassis of this type, Minisforum embeds no less than 7 copper heat pipes. 3 will transfer the heat from the processor and 4 from the graphics circuit. The whole thing will then be actively ventilated to extract this heat to the outside. The manufacturer also announces that it wants to use “liquid metal” again to ensure conduction between the heat sinks and the cooling systems. A method already used by the brand for the… HX90 and which had been much criticized because it was badly mastered when sending samples to various testers.

This update to the HX90G seems to want to draw a line under these problems and offer a solution even more successful with the same base of components as the previous model. Minisforum announces a controlled power consumption and dissipation. The brand announces a “relatively” discreet device even at full speed. The consumption of the components is ensured by an external power supply of 260 watts.

From a component point of view, there are two dual-channel DDR4 RAM slots equipped with 16 GB by default. A first M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe slot equipped with 512 GB and the possibility of adding a second M.2 2280 SSD in NVMe or SATA. A third M.2 2230 port used to implement a Wifi module not detailed.

The connectivity is complete with an Ethernet 2.5 GbE port, two HDMI 2.0 ports and two DisplayPort 1.4. A USB 3.1 on the front, three USB 3.2 on the back, a USB type-C and two separate audio jack ports. The whole thing will be driven by a Windows 11 Pro.

I admit I am surprised by the design of this Minisforum HX90G, if I understand the idea of raising the machine above its desk with a foot to allow maximum ventilation of components, I am not very serene to see this design. Having seen a lot of such nettops a few years ago, the center of gravity of these machines is quite high and they tend to tip over quite easily. Especially with the weight of the cables hanging from the back. So I’m a bit worried about this layout. The thinness of the front foot makes me think that the whole thing could easily end up on the ground.

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