Beelink GTR5 In-Depth Review - a Mini PC Powered by AMD Ryzen 9-5900HX

AMD's Ryzen 9-5900HX Processor has finally been used in mini-PCs! Beelink GTR5, which will be launched in December 2021, is not only equipped with this processor, but also equipped with 32GB/64GB dual-channel memory, 500GB/1TB NVMe solid state drive , and includes dual 2.5Gbps network ports, WiFi-6E and value-added features including fingerprint recognition. Minixpc has been using this small PC as the main computer for the past month. Today, I will share the test results and practical application experience with all of you.

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Unboxing

The packaging of the Beelink GTR5 is exquisite, but it is not fancy at all. The pure black background color gives a sense of stability, and the dragon pattern on the front indicates that the products in the box have powerful performance.

In addition to the mini-PC, the box also contains some accessories, including: a 90W power adapter, a power cord, two HDMI cables, one long and one short, a monitor back mount bracket, a pack of screws, a use manual.

Appearance design

In terms of shape and size, the GTR5 is very similar to an ordinary set-top box, with a length, width and height of 165*119*39mm and a weight of only 678g. In terms of design style, Beelink GTR5 continues the design language of the well-received SER. The top adopts magnesium-aluminum alloy filter screen and acrylic splicing, which prominently displays the Beelink-engraved LOGO and the slogan of AMD Let's Start. The four sides are also made of magnesium-aluminum alloy and are integrally formed, which looks very high-end. Compared with the GTI11 released earlier by Beelink Moment, the design of the GTR5 is obviously more individual.

There are large-area heat dissipation holes on the top, left and right sides and back of the fuselage. Under the action of two high-speed fans inside, air convection can be effectively achieved to prevent overheating of internal components and the surface of the casing.

The AMD Let's Start slogan on the top front is always bright white after powering on, but the brightness is well controlled and won't be dazzling even in extremely dark environments.

Beelink products have always been generous in terms of I/O, and the high-end GTR5 is no exception. All interfaces are set on the front and back of the fuselage, including 3 USB3.0 interfaces, 2 USB2.0 interfaces, 1 multi-function Type-C interface, 2 2.5Gbps network ports, an HDMI interface, and a DP Interface, a 3.5mm audio interface (supports microphone), a DC power adapter interface. This mini machine has a total of two buttons, both on the front of the fuselage, including the power button with built-in LED lights, and the CMOS clear button. It's a pity that there is no memory card slot, but since there are so many USB excuses, it's not difficult to insert a card reader. Compared with the NUC11 series mini-PCs, the GTR5 is not equipped with the Thunderbolt 3/4 interface, because AMD is currently not compatible with Thunderbolt, so the GTR5 cannot be connected to an external graphics dock.

The fingerprint recognition key is square, and the recognition area is relatively large, so the success rate is also very high, at least I have not encountered a failure in more than a month. At the same time, the fingerprint recognition key is also the second power key, which can realize the functions of power on and off and standby. at the very beginning.

The bottom plate of the GTR5 is also made of metal, with a lot of textual information marked on it, including shortcut keys to enter the BIOS and boot menu, and how to select performance mode in AMD CBS.

After removing the bottom plate, we can access the inside of the fuselage. The GTR5 motherboard is equipped with 2 memory slots, 2 m.2 interface 2280 SSD slots (one of which is NVMe protocol, the other is SATA3 protocol), and a m.2 interface 2230 wireless network card slot. In addition, there is a 2.5-inch hard drive slot on the inside of the bottom plate, which can be loaded with an SSD or HDD.

The GTR5 in my hand has been pre-installed with two 16GB-3200MHz memory sticks, a 500GB Kingston NVMe hard drive, and a MediaTek MT7921K wireless network card that supports WiFi6E and Bluetooth 5.2. What is commendable is that although the fuselage is so small and compact, the internal components are arranged neatly without being crowded at all.

A palm-sized GTR5 naturally doesn't take up too much desk space. Of course, if you have severe obsessive-compulsive disorder about the cleanliness of the desktop, you can also fix it to the back of the monitor through the standard bracket. However, it should be noted that using fingerprint recognition in that case will definitely be more troublesome.

Hardware Performance

Beelink GTR5 is equipped with AMD Ryzen 9-5900HX processor, which is one of the three most powerful mobile processors in the AMD family (the other two are Ryzen 9-5980HS and 5980HX). The CPU of this processor adopts an 8-core, 16-thread architecture and a 7nm process technology. The standard operating frequency is 3.3GHz and can be boosted to 4.6GHz. At the same time, it also integrates an 8-core Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics chip running at a frequency of up to 2100MHz, and its performance even exceeds that of many entry-level independent graphics.

In order to help you better understand the performance of GTR5, Jupit3r also chose several other mid-to-high-end mini-PCs with different configurations for comparison.

In the Maxon Cinebench R20 and R23 tests, the GTR5 even outperformed most mainstream desktops and gaming laptops, and was completely unmatched in Windows-based mini-PCs. Its CPU multi-core score is almost 2x that of the i7 version of the NUC 11 Pro. Compared with the Apple MAC Mini, which was previously known as the strongest SFF PC, the GTR5's CPU multi-core score is also nearly 60% higher. It is foreseeable that the CPU performance of GTR5 will continue to dominate the list until the next generation of high-end mini-PCs are launched.

The Geekbench 5 score comparison further shows how powerful the GTR5 is.

In the PCMark 10 standard test that reflects comprehensive performance, the GTR5 scored 6345, still far behind the NUC 11 Pro.

In the comprehensive hardware performance test of Master Lu, which domestic users prefer to refer to, the scores of GTR5 in the old version and the new version of the software are 449570 and 932579 respectively, both of which are very high scores.

In 3DMark, which mainly tests the performance of the graphics card, the GTR5 scored 15097, 4019, 1615 in the three tests of Sky Diver, Fire Strike and Time Spy, respectively, and the GTR5 equipped with the i7-1165G7 processor and Iris Xe Graphics graphics card.IntelThe NUC 11 Pro is comparable, indicating that the traditional advantage of AMD's integrated display performance over INTEL is gradually being reduced.

Due to the use of dual-channel memory with high operating frequency, the memory bit width and data throughput speed of GTR5 are very good, and the performance of the integrated display has also benefited a lot. The numbers of AIDA 64 Cache & Memory Benchmark and GPGPU Benchmark are quite good.

The read and write speeds of the standard NVMe SSDs on the GTR5 aren't the fastest, but they're not bad either. Compared with the SSD of the SATA protocol, it has a very big advantage. Scored 2545 in AS SSD, and the data in CrystalDiskMark is also good.

The benchmark scores are also fully reflected in actual use, and the GTR5 can be said to be an all-around PC. Loading more than 20 web pages in the browser and running multiple large-scale applications at the same time, the system is still smooth, and there is no lag or control delay at all.

AMD's video decoding capabilities have always been behind Intel, but from the reading results of DXVA, common formats including H264, HEVC, VP9 and other common formats can support 8K hard decoding. And GTR5 has such a powerful CPU, even if it really encounters a video format that cannot be hard-decoded, it can be played smoothly using the soft decoding of players such as KODI. Jupit3r has tested multiple 4K@120fps and 8K@60fps videos on this computer, and there are no problems when playing them.

In addition, there is no frame drop or freeze when playing 8K video online in the web page, everything is smooth.

For ordinary content creators, the most commonly used image processing and video editing will not cause any stress on the GTR5. Rendering several 4K videos at the same time in Power Director, the GTR5 has always remained smooth.

Everyone knows that a small console of this size is not suitable for running large-scale games, but every time a small console is reviewed, people all kinds of questions about the game. The Radeon RX Vega 8 clocked at 2100MHz is one of the strongest integrated graphics cards out there, even surpassing some entry-level discrete graphics cards, so the GTR5 can run most 3D games at the right resolution and effects settings.

For those with low graphics performance requirements “League of legends", 1080P resolution plus medium special effects, the average running frame rate can reach 162FPS. If you switch to 4K, the high image quality, the frame rate can continue to be stable at around 75FPS, and the overall is very smooth.

"Spellbreaker" and "Genshin Impact", which have a certain pressure on the graphics card, have 1080P resolution and medium special effects, the former's picture is stable at 60FPS, the latter's average frame rate can reach 46FPS, and there is no perceptible phenomenon during the game. Stuttered or dropped frames.

For "Conqueror's Blade", which has extremely high requirements for graphics card performance, the average frame rate under 1080P and medium special effects is 32FPS. In a relatively complex team battle scene, the real-time frame rate will drop to 28FPS. In general, only It can be said that it can be played, but the experience is not particularly good.

Of course, the performance of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 will still lag a lot compared to the high-end PCle alone. If you want to use the extreme resolution and special effects settings in the game, and still have the lead in the confrontation with other netizens, the GTR5, or any other mini-console of the same size, is not for you.

The stability of GTR5's overall performance is quite good. In 3DMark's most complicated Time Spy stress test, the GTR5's score is 99.9%, which is also the highest score among notebook computers and mini-PCs that we tested so far .

Power Consumption and Noise

GTR5 is not a low-power small PC in the traditional sense, but in most scenarios, its power consumption is actually not high. Only when the CPU is fully loaded, the power consumption will reach more than 70W. In the case of light office work, browsing the web, playing local videos and other low-load operating conditions, the noise of the Beelink GTR5 fan is very small and can be ignored. The sound only becomes noticeable when the fan speed is increased when running some large applications, but in general it is about the same as my Lenovo YOGA Duet, and it is always not uncomfortably noisy.

Windows 11 Professional OS

Most mini consoles and PCs come pre-installed with the home version of the Windows operating system, but the Beelink GTR5 ships with Windows 11 Professional. In addition to all the functions of the Home Edition, the Professional Edition system supports domain joining, group policy management, BitLocker (full disk encryption), enterprise mode IE browser, Assigned Access 8.1, remote desktop, Hyper-V client (virtualization), Join the Azure Active Directory, browse the Windows 11 Business Store, protect enterprise data, and receive updates specifically for business users. At the same time, only users of the professional version of the system can install and run Android applications through the Amazon App Store, but this feature is not yet available in China.

GTR5 is not bundled with any third-party applications, the entire system is completely clean, and users can install the software according to their own needs. If you are a user of MAC OS or Linux before, and you are not familiar with Windows 11, Jupit3r recommends that you go to the video website to see the tutorial first.

Connectivity

Beelink GTR5 supports the latest WiFi-6E, can access the 6GHz network frequency band, can effectively avoid the crowded 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands, reduce interference while enjoying greater bandwidth, higher speed and lower latency. Although WiFi-6E is not currently supported in China, it is definitely the development trend of wireless routing in the future. At the same time, WiFi-6E is also fully backward compatible with WiFi6, so domestic users do not need to worry about practicality. In addition, GTR5 is also equipped with dual 2.5Gbps network ports, and there are various ways to play in wired network.

The HDMI, DP and Type-C interfaces of the fuselage all support 4K@60Hz output, so the Beelink GTR5 can connect up to 3 monitors at the same time to achieve three-screen different display output, which is when dealing with some productivity tasks that require multiple interfaces to be opened at the same time. would be useful.

Conclusion

The Beelink GTR5 is an excellent little console in every way. It has the performance comparable to the large desktop, and provides a wealth of expansion interfaces, but also has a super network configuration. Of course, its price is not cheap. The 32GB/500GB version is currently priced at $799 in the United States, which is basically the same as the Apple MAC Mini and the full version of the INTEL NUC 11 Pro including the system, memory, and hard drive. The price range. Although GTR5 has a great advantage in CPU performance, the Thunderbolt interface with stronger expansion capability of MAC Mini and NUC, and its brand premium cannot be ignored.

If saving space is not that important to you, of course, the DIY mainframe will definitely be much more cost-effective, and it will be easier to upgrade later. But if you happen to need a minimal computer to handle the most computing tasks, the Beelink GTR5 is definitely one of the best devices on the market for that.

Beelink GTR5 available on MinixPC at $949 with 32G RAM+500G Storage and 64GB RAM+1TB Storage at $1,199