Beelink SER5 Pro 5800H Mini PC Review - The King of Cost Performance

Equipped with AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, the Beelink SER5 Pro will become one of the best-selling Mini PC in 2022 due to its excellent performance and high cost performance. Just when many consumers bluntly said that they couldn't understand the operation of Beelink, SER5 Pro made a comeback, but this time it brought a more powerful AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor, but the price remained the same, the barebone system was only $389, 16 The full version of +500GB only costs $499. So how much of a performance boost is it, and is it worth buying in 2023? Hope this article can tell you the answer.

Unboxing

The random accessories of Beelink SER5 Pro 5800H include a 65W power adapter, two HDMI cables, a VESA bracket, a pack of screws, a screwdriver and an instruction manual. I have evaluated more than 50 mini consoles myself, and it often happens that the screws slip due to the wrong size of the screwdriver when disassembling the console. It is measured that the screwdriver that comes standard with the zero mark is perfectly adapted to its own Mini PC, and it is very easy to use.

Design and Appearance

The exterior design of Beelink SER5 Pro 5800H is very similar to the previous version of 5600H. The body size is 126 mm * 113mm * 42 mm, and the volume is not even as big as a book. The solid black case looks understated and professional. The top of the fuselage adopts a hollow design to achieve rapid heat dissipation, and there are also large-area cooling holes on the three sides. Compared with the 5600H version, the SER5 Pro 5800H replaces the body shell from metal to plastic, which can be regarded as some trade-offs in terms of manufacturing costs.

There is an acrylic panel on the front of the top. On the left side, you can see the engraved logo and AMD logo silkscreen, and on the right side, there are certification stickers for the Ryzen 7 chip and Radeon Graphics graphics card.

From left to right on the front panel of the fuselage, there is a CMOS clear jack, 2 USB3.2 Gen2 ports, 1 full-featured Type-C port (the speed of both A port and C port is 10Gbps), and 1 3.5mm audio interface (microphone compatible). The Type-C interface can not only transmit data, but also supports DisplayPort Alt mode.

The back contains 1 Gigabit Ethernet port, 1 USB3.2 Gen2, 1 USB2.0, 2 HDMI2.0, and 1 DC power interface. Both Type-C and HDMI support 4K@60Hz, so SER5 Pro can simultaneously output up to three screens of 4K.

Using the official standard screwdriver, we can easily remove the bottom plate and enter the interior of the fuselage. Compared with the 5600H version of SER5 Pro, the 5800H version has upgraded the heat dissipation. In addition to the dedicated CPU fan and copper pipe radiator, a system fan is added to dissipate heat from the hard disk and memory sticks. In addition, the one-piece aluminum alloy bracket can also effectively reduce the temperature of the 2.5-inch hard drive.

The internal expansion interface of SER5 Pro 5800H includes an M.2 PCIe3.0*4 2280 SSD slot, a traditional 2.5-inch SATAIII HDD/SSD interface, and two SO-DIMM slots for installing notebook memory sticks.

The machine I got has been pre-installed with 32GB DDR4-3200 memory, 500GB NVMe SSD, and the genuinely authorized Windows 11 Pro operating system. The manufacturer of the memory is Micron's Crucial, and the manufacturer of the SSD is Kingston, both of which are international first-line brands.

The standard wireless network card is Intel AX200, which supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. Because it is a standard M.2 2230 interface, it can be replaced and upgraded later.

Hardware Performance

As mentioned earlier, the new version of the SER5 Pro is powered by an AMD Ryzen5-5800H chip. This is also AMD's flagship processor launched in 2021. It adopts TSMC's 7nm FinFET process technology, has 8 Zen3 architecture CPU cores, 16 working threads, and 16MB of L3 cache. The CPU runs at a base frequency of 3.2 GHz and can be turbo boosted to 4.4 GHz. In addition, 5800H also integrates AMD Radeon Vega 8 core graphics card with a running frequency of 2000 MHz, and its 3D performance has reached the level of independent graphics cards such as GeForce MX350 and other notebooks. The Mini PC is pre-installed with the genuine Windows 11 operating system, and all the tests in this article are also carried out on this operating system.

Benchmarks

In the Cinebench R23 test, the CPU single-core score of SER5 Pro 5800H is 1415, and the multi-core score is 9617. Among them, the multi-core score is nearly 70% higher than that of NUC 11 Pro, 22% higher than the 5600H version of SER5 Pro, and better than SEi12 1235U and Apple Mac mini.

In the Geekbench5.4.1 CPU test, the 5800H's CPU multi-core score increased by 16% compared to the 5600H, while the OpenCL score increased by 17%.

PCMark 10 is mainly to test the overall performance of PC office and productivity through realistic simulation. It is generally believed that 4000 points is the threshold for high-performance Mini PC, and the SER5 Pro 5800H scored more than 6000 points in this test, which is very impressive.

Although SER5 Pro 5800H’s standard Kingston solid-state drive is PCle3.0*4 standard, according to CrystalDiskMark test results, the sequential read speed exceeds 3000MB/s, which has reached the level of some entry-level PCIe Gen4 SSDs.

Content Creation

The SER5 Pro supported by Ryzen 7 5800H can naturally smoothly support daily tasks such as web browsing, stock trading, and office work. Edit 4K video in Power Director, all clips are smooth and smooth. Although the rendering speed is not as good as that of a desktop with a high-end independent display, it is actually not bad, and there is no lag or delay.

As we all know, the acceleration capability of AMD core display for video encoding lags behind that of Intel core display, so in the final video production process of PowerDirector, SER5 Pro 5800H takes slightly longer than SEi12 equipped with Core i5-1235U, but the gap is not small. It's big. Compared with the NUC 11 Pro with Core i7-1165G7, the speed of SER5 Pro is much faster.

Using Handbrake to transcode a 4K video of 3 minutes and 11 seconds, the SER5 Pro 5800H finally took 1 minute and 42 seconds, which is 14 seconds faster than the 5600H version, and faster than the SEi12 equipped with Core i5-1235U.

Gaming Performance

Although the Radeon Vega 8-core display performance integrated in the 5800H is far inferior to the Radeon 680M in the 6800H, it does not lose the Iris Xe Graphics of the Intel platform. 3DMark software is mainly to test the graphics performance of the computer by simulating the running of the game. The two sub-tests, Time Spy and Fire Strike, test the performance of the host when running DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 games respectively.

The scores of SER5 Pro 5800H are 1632 and 4001 respectively, and the score of Time Spy is higher than the Iris Xe EU96 integrated in the Core i7 processor, which means that its experience in running DirectX 12 games will be better than the latter.

"League of Legends" 1080P+ medium special effects, the average frame rate is 114 fps, and the entire game process is always maintained above 100fps, including some very complex team battle scenes, which is extremely smooth.

The average frame rate of the game "PUBG: Battlefield" (PUBG: Battlefield) can reach 72 FPS under the setting of 1080P+ low quality. Although it drops below 60 FPS in some complex scenes, overall there is no stuttering at all.

"Genshin Impact" has an average frame rate of 47 FPS under 1080P and medium quality settings, and the whole process has always been maintained above 38 FPS. The experience is not bad. If you switch to the lowest quality, the average frame rate can be stabilized at 60 FPS.

The AAA level game "Conqueror's Blade" has an average frame rate of 29 FPS in 1080P + medium special effects, which can only be regarded as playable, and the fluency is not satisfactory. After switching to low quality, the average frame rate can only be increased to 33 FPS.

And “Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” which has extremely high requirements on graphics cards, has an average frame rate of only 21 FPS at 1080P + low special effects, and the experience is not good. After switching to 720P, the screen fluency will increase to 34 FPS, which is just playable.

To sum up, the core display performance of SER5 Pro can satisfy most ordinary users who do not have high requirements for game quality. If you are keen on playing AAA games, then it is recommended to consider the Ryzen 6000 series or 7000 series mini consoles.

Video Playback

Video decoding has never been the strong point of AMD chips. The number of formats that AMD Radeon core display can support is much less than that of Intel UHD, but fortunately, mainstream video can still support 4K or 8K. The videos in my personal local video library can basically be watched normally, and the resource usage rate is not high when playing.

The online video playback experience is also good, 4K/60fps, 8K/3fps web videos are very smooth. However, because all of Radeon's core displays do not support the AV1 format, once it is switched to 8K/60fps, there will be obvious lag. Of course, SER5 Pro 5800H does not support 8K output, so it is not a slot.

Stability, Noise and Power Consumption

The previous SER5 Pro 5600H is the most stable one among the Mini PCs I have tested, and got a perfect score of 100% in the stress test of 3DMark Time Spy. The SER5 Pro 5800H failed to continue the brilliance of the 5600H version, with a stability score of 96.8% in the 3DMark Time Spy stress test. Although the score is not low, it failed to reach the software's default 97% pass value.

However, in the AIDA 64 one-hour CPU full-load stability test, the software did not report any frequency reduction. The temperature of the CPU reached a maximum of 91°C, and dropped to 56°C within 2 minutes after the test, indicating that its stability is actually not a problem.

In terms of power consumption, the average power consumption of SER5 Pro 5800H in standby is only 11.5W, and when using AIDA64 for CPU full load test, the recorded maximum power consumption value is only 52.6W. Compared with desktop computers that generally consume more than 150W, SER5 Pro can save a lot of electricity throughout the year. If it is used in a commercial environment, the savings in electricity bills are considerable.

The SER5 Pro 5800H is the quietest active cooling Mini PC I have ever used. There is almost no noise at low load, and you have to put your ears close to hear a slight sound when running at high load.

Summary: The king of cost performance

The current price of Beelink SER5 Pro 5800H is 1595 yuan, while the price of the full version including 16GB memory, 500GB solid state, and pre-installed genuine Win 11 system is only 2088 yuan. For a small computer that is compact and beautiful, and whose performance and expandability are comparable to mainstream desktops, this price is naturally very attractive, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the most cost-effective desktop on the market. If you don't have too high requirements for game performance, you can consider starting. If you are a game lover and must buy a Mini PC, then I would suggest increasing the price on a 6800H or 6900HX model. OK, this is the end of this review. If you have any other questions, please leave a message in the comment area. See you in the next article.