thirteenth Gen cell components make speedy NUCs, and the NPB7 is actually quick. And with the wonderful port choice, it gives nice flexibility at an inexpensive worth. There’s little or no mistaken with this design and it is superior to the newest Intel NUC.
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Minisforum Venus NPB7: 30-second overview
Minisforum Venus NPB7 Specs Right here is the Minisforum NPB7 configuration despatched to TechRadar for overview: CPU: Intel Core i7-13700H (14 cores, 20 threads)
Graphics: Iris Xe (96 EU)
RAM: 16 DDR5 RAM (Expandable to 32GB)
Storage: 512 GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD
Ports: 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Sort-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-C, 2x USB 4.0, 2x HDMI, 1x common audio jack, 2x 2.5GbE RJ45 Ethernet port
Connectivity: Intel Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth v5.2
Audio: 1x DMIC, no audio system
Digicam: None
Measurement: 128 x 126 x 56 mm (W x D x H)
OS put in: Licensed Home windows 11 Professional (on these with storage included).
Equipment: Adapter 19V/6.3A
We’ve seen some fascinating Mini PC methods come from Minisforum previously yr, together with the distinctive Mars MC560.
That used an AMD cell chipset to nice impact, however the NPB7 demonstrates what the newest thirteenth Gen Intel cell processors provide for these seeking to personal a strong NUC.
The NPB7 is one in every of three NUCs on this Venus collection, with the NPB5 and NAB6 providing barely totally different processor choices however with the identical chassis and port choice.
What’s nice about these Minisforum machines is that they are often purchased with reminiscence and storage pre-installed, or they be purchased ‘barebones’ with out reminiscence or storage.
Subsequently the NPB7 could be bought for as little as $489 barebones, and the most affordable operational model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is $609.
A variant with 32GB of DDR5 and 1TB of M.2 storage is $699, making the addition of these objects solely $210 costlier than the barebones mannequin.
All NPB7 fashions have the thirteenth Gen Core i7-13700H cell processor with a minimum of fourteen cores and twenty thread dealing with for some aggressive computing.
Additionally they have twin HDMI outputs, twin 2.5GbE LAN ports, 4 USB 3.2 Sort-A, single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-C and twin USB 4.0 ports.
That port choice makes the NPB7 prepared for a really big selection of challenges that may embrace being a desktop workplace system, a devoted firewall, a media server or a file distribution hub.
This machine is well probably the most highly effective and versatile NUC designs we’ve seen, and contemplating the expertise in it, the worth appears exceptionally worth delicate.
Minisforum Venus NPB7: Worth and availability
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
How a lot does it value? $489/£499/€549
$489/£499/€549 When is it out? It’s beginning to be obtainable now
It’s beginning to be obtainable now The place are you able to get it? Direct from Minisforum
In contrast to many mini PC system makers, Minisforum sells its merchandise instantly via its web site, alongside Amazon and different on-line retailers.
The entry-level is $489 for the barebones choice. The three different decisions include 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, and the highest choice is 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. These pre-installed fashions value $609, $669 and $699, respectively for US clients.
Within the UK, the barebones value is £499, and the pre-installed fashions are £609, £669 and £709. Factoring within the foreign money trade price and VAT, that is costlier than American pricing. EU pricing can also be barely elevated, with €549 for barebones, and for ones with reminiscence and storage are €689, €745 and €789.
That mentioned, even in Europe, this NUC is considerably cheaper than the workplace Intel NUC 13 Professional, and that machine comes with the much less spectacular Intel Core i7-1360P processor.
General, for a mighty NUC, the NPB7 is a discount stateside and nonetheless an inexpensive choice exterior that area.
Worth: 4 / 5
Minisforum Venus NPB7: Design
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
Loads of equipment
Easy accessibility
Wonderful port choice
We’ve seen NUC that include a PSU and possibly a mounting plate, however not at all times.
However, the NPB7 comes with a VESA mounting plate and screws, substitute screws for the system, an HDMI cable, PSU and energy cable, and a customized cable to attach a SATA drive.
Placing a SATA drive contained in the NPB7 is a remarkably simple course of due to a intelligent quick-release lid that this design sports activities. Urgent on each the left and proper entrance corners of the highest cowl prompts a sprung catch, and the lid pops as much as be lifted away.
No screwdrivers are wanted, and this panel provide you with entry to the reminiscence, storage and some different particular inner options.
Within the underside of the duvet is a mounting location for a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD, and a particular cable will join that to the system board beneath. The board mounts two DDR5 SODIM modules as much as a most of 32GB in a twin channel configuration, a single PCIe Gen 4 2280 M.2 NVMe drive (with a fan cooler), and a smaller 2230 M.2 with a Wi-Fi board put in.
It is likely to be potential to make use of a 2230 NVMe drive within the WIFi slot should you don’t want that performance for further storage.
We’d of favored to have seen a second 2280 M.2 slot, however given the variety of exterior ports this machine has and the PCIe lanes these occupy, we are able to simply rationalise why it doesn’t.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
Air flow is an enormous a part of this design, with a myriad of holes milled into the aluminium case partitions to let air in via the edges. As soon as circulated, the warmed air is then expelled alongside the underside rear under the I/O. The NPB7 has a brand new cooler design that mounts the fan on the backside, the place it pulls warmed air down via the system earlier than ejecting it.
The case additionally performs an element in radiating warmth, though the highest and backside are plastic. Even below stress circumstances, the NPB7 didn’t get noticeably sizzling, and the fan is nearly silent.
Ports are restricted to the back and front, with 4 alongside the entrance and eight on the again.
With each USB-C and USB-A on either side, there are extra choices than most desktop computer systems provide, and the inclusion of twin USB 4.0, HDMI and a pair of.5GbE LAN are most welcome.
General, it is a well-conceived and designed NUC that makes even the Intel NUC 13 Professional look under-engineered.
Design: 4 / 5
Minisforum Venus NPB7: Options
Very highly effective CPU
Might-be-better GPU
Spectacular port choice
To say that the thirteenth Gen Core i7-13700H processor on this machine is highly effective is one thing of an understatement. With fourteen cores, of which six are efficiency, and eight are effectivity, this CPU can fortunately course of as much as twenty threads concurrently. That makes many desktop processors look on the weak facet, and the chip can turbo clock as much as 5GHz when the god of thermodynamics permits it.
The snag right here, and it is solely related to people who want graphics processing, is that the stability between this monster processor and the built-in GPU is considerably off-kilter.
Intel’s built-in GPU of selection is the Iris Xe, and on this silicon, it’s the 1.5GHz 96 Execution Unit mannequin, successfully the highest GPU choice for Iris Xe.
The problem is that whereas the principle CPU can crunch numbers impressively if the chain of processing ends with this GPU, it’s somewhat like attempting to push an elephant via a keyhole.
The CPU desperately wants a discrete GPU or something higher than the Iris Xe to stability this equation, because it isn’t in a lot equilibrium right here.
For those who aren’t concerned in graphics issues, none of this issues a lot.
A big energy of this design is the ports. Not solely the quantity obtainable however the kind and specification of these Minisforum included.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
Particularly, the twin LAN ports make this machine perfect for being a firewall, even when that process might be beneath this processor class. It could be potential to channel bond the 2 LAN ports to attain as much as 5Gbps of LAN throughput to an appropriate swap.
And, utilizing the USB 4.0 ports, it ought to be potential to improve that community connection to 10GbE, if wanted.
We’ve seen USB 4.0 ports on some NUCs that don’t hit the specification normal, however the ones on this machine do, because it fired up a Thunderbolt dock from Caldigit with none tweaking required.
With two of those ports, every rated for as much as 40Gbps transfers, fast exterior storage is feasible and sensible. You must also have the ability to join a 3rd show via Thunderbolt or USB 4.0, must you be utilizing the NPB7 for show advertising and marketing.
No matter you plan to make use of this mini PC for, it has the port choice to make these plans work.
Options: 5 / 5
Minisforum Venus NPB7: Efficiency
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
Faster at multithreaded duties
Mediocre SDD
Not perfect for graphics duties
Benchmarks This is how the Minisforum Venus NPB7 scored in our suite of benchmark checks: 3DMark Wild Life:15791; Hearth Strike: 5806; Time Spy: 2096;
Cinebench R23 CPU pts: 1726 (single-core); 13195 (multi-core)
GeekBench 5: 1705 (single-core); 13204 (multi-core), 20910 (OpenCL)
CrystalDiskMark: Sequential Learn: 4799 MB/s; Sequential Write: 3533 MB/s
PCMark 10 (Workplace Take a look at): 5660
Home windows Expertise Index: 8.5
The Intel Core i7-13700H is a beast, delivering distinctive efficiency for each single-thread and multi-threaded checks. That 5GHz turbo clock can be utilized to nice affect, and the power to work fourteen totally different threads effectively with out overheating is spectacular in a system this small.
The Core i7-1360P used within the Intel NUC 13 Professional has related single-thread outcomes, however when a check just like the CineBench23 multi-cire check is executed, the Core i7-13700H dominates by round 10% quicker.
The one different platform we’ve examined that may maintain a candle to the NPB7 is the Beelink SER6 Professional 7735HS and its Ryzen 7 processor. The processor isn’t as highly effective as this Intel CPU, however the Radeon 680m built-in graphics are higher than the Iris Xe in most graphical checks.
A flavour of that’s the GeekBench 5 OpenCL check, the place the NPB7 managed a rating of 20910, however the Beelink SER6 Professional 7735HS bettered that with 31122, nearly 49% higher.
Graphics efficiency is the one function holding this method again should you particularly want high-performance visuals.
The NVMe drive that was pre-installed was a Kingston om8pgp4512q-a0, an OEM product made particularly for system builders. This drive is just not one thing that retail clients would usually buy or set up, although it performs the identical job as Kingston’s branded strains.
It’s a PCIe Gen 4 drive, and it is promoted on its worth reasonably than uncooked efficiency.
In our checks, the 512GB drive pre-installed within the overview machine managed a decent 4799 MB/s reads and 3533 MB/s writes. There are quicker drives round, and with better capacities than the 1TB capability, this vary is restricted to. And, with an exterior NVMe drive caddy, swapping it out for one thing higher wouldn’t be tough.
Even with this SSD, the system managed among the best scores, 8.5, a Mini PC has ever recorded on WEI (Home windows Expertise Index), and it additionally delivered a excessive PCMark outcome.
General, except you want speedy graphics, the efficiency of the NPB7 is exceptionally good.
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
Efficiency: 4 / 5
The NPB7 is the second NUC we’ve seen this yr that undermined the premium Intel NUC 13 Professional product, however this time with an Intel platform.
The place this method wins out over the wonderful Beelink SER6 Professional 7735HS is that the processor on this design is much more potent. Its weak spot is that it demonstrates the scaling limitations of the Iris Xe GPU and the way Intel badly must deploy its ARC GPU expertise within the subsequent 14th Gen cell processor.
Having this a lot processing energy is great, however having the ability to use it successfully is likely to be a problem for some clients.
What sells this machine above even the official Intel providing is its energy, complete port choice, good construct high quality and aggressive worth.
The NPB7 is an exceptionally well-rounded answer for these wanting an Intel-based NUC.
Minisforum Venus NPB7: Report card
Swipe to scroll horizontally Worth Extra energy than the Intel NUC 13 Professional for 75% of the fee. 4 / 5 Design Steel chassis, easy accessibility and efficient cooling make this an aesthetic NUC. 4 / 5 Options thirteenth Gen cell CPU, DDR5 reminiscence, twin 2.5GbE LAN, USB 4.0/Thunderbolt, what’s to not like? 5 / 5 Efficiency The processing energy of a desktop system and extra. The one weak spot right here is the Iris Xe and its limitations. 3 / 5 Whole A really robust contender for Mini PC of the yr. 4.5 / 5
Do you have to purchase a Minisforum Venus NPB7?
(Picture credit score: Mark Pickavance)
Purchase it if…
You want a small system with grunt The CPU on this tiny machine is disturbingly highly effective, and it might probably crunch via information processing duties that may stall most desktop methods. And, it has loads of further energy for dealing with information assortment, managing exterior storage and demanding community duties.
You want flexibility If all computer systems had been made for a selected goal that by no means modified, it might be simple to specify them. Nonetheless, in the actual world, issues change, and computer systems get repurposed. The NPB7, with its processing energy and complete port choice, supplies plenty of flexibility to utilize this machine in different methods ought to the topology of the calls for change throughout its operational life.
Do not buy it if…
You particularly want graphics energy NUC methods, on the whole, don’t provide nice GPU efficiency. They don’t have discrete graphics playing cards or the ability and thermals to deal with them. The Iris Xe on this machine is okay for watching movies and browsing, nevertheless it’s not for gaming or CAD.
You’ve got modest necessities Spending $700 on this with plenty of reminiscence and storage wouldn’t be a superb funding should you solely want it to surf the Web or chat, as it’s massively overpowered. There are a lot of less expensive options, some made by Minisforum, that may higher swimsuit these jobs and smaller budgets.
Additionally think about
Beelink SER6 Professional 7735HS The present darling of the NUC neighborhood, the SER6 Professional additionally makes use of the newest AMD Ryzen 7000 cell expertise and delivers equally spectacular efficiency. It comes with Essential branded reminiscence however an OEM NVMe drive. Having access to the reminiscence and storage is a bit more convoluted on this machine, however this isn’t something that the majority customers can be doing day by day. Take a look at our Beelink SER6 Professional 7735HS overview
Intel NUC 13 Professional In the event you will need to have Intel-branded gear, then that is the newest official NUC. Constructed across the twelve-core and sixteen-thread CoreT i7-1360P, it is a powerhouse for information processing. As you would possibly anticipate from a flagship NUC, the 13 Professional is fantastically made and designed. However, you pay for that privilege, with the highest specs costing north of $1,000. Take a look at our Intel NUC 13 Professional overview