Beelink GTR7 mini-PC Review: A Complete AMD Phoenix Package at 65W
by Ganesh T S on August 24, 2023 8:00 AM ESTGPU Performance: Synthetic Benchmarks
AMD's Phoenix SoCs include an integrated GPU with a microarchitectural update over the one in the Rembrandt-R SoCs. The new RDNA3 microarchitecture is present in the Ryzen 7 7840HS in the form of the Radeon 780M. With 12 CUs and 768 shader units clocked at 2.7 GHz, AMD claims that the GPU should be capable of playing virtually any modern game at Full HD resolutions.
For full-blown desktop systems or mini-PCs targeting the gaming market, we look at gaming workloads. However, for general-purpose mini-PC models like the GEEKOM AS 6, we restrict ourselves to a series of canned benchmarks from Kishonti and Futuremark / UL. Prior to that, a look at the capabilities of the GPU via GPU-Z is warranted.
(From L to R: Default BIOS Settings, UMA Buffer Size set to 16G, UMA Buffer Size set to Auto)
Rembrandt-R's Radeon 680M had already achieved an industry-first by integrating hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and the Radeon 780M in Phoenix builds upon that. There are some improvements in the media engine too (such as AV1 encode support), but those are not revealed in the GPU-Z screenshot. The remaining subsections below look into the performance aspects.
GFXBench
The DirectX 12-based GFXBench tests from Kishonti are cross-platform, and available all the way down to smartphones. As such, they are not very taxing for discrete GPUs and modern integrated GPUs. We processed the offscreen versions of the 'Aztec Ruins' benchmark.
At 1080p, the souped-up ASRock Industrial Raptor Lake-P NUC has a slight edge of around 3% in the frame rate, but the AMD-based systems take back the crown at 1440p. The GTR7 has a 7% edge over the GEEKOM AS 6, which by itself has a 6% edge over the top RPL-P system.
UL 3DMark
Four different workload sets were processed in 3DMark - Fire Strike, Time Spy, Night Raid, and Wild Life.
3DMark Fire Strike
The Fire Strike benchmark has three workloads. The base version is meant for high-performance gaming PCs. It uses DirectX 11 (feature level 11) to render frames at 1920 x 1080. The Extreme version targets 1440p gaming requirements, while the Ultra version targets 4K gaming system, and renders at 3840 x 2160. The graph below presents the overall score for the Fire Strike Extreme and Fire Strike Ultra benchmark across all the systems that are being compared.
| UL 3DMark - Fire Strike Workloads | |||
Rembrandt-R already had an edge over RPL-P in these workloads, and Phoenix only cements this position further. The GTR7 shows a 25 - 30% improvement over the GEEKOM AS 6 behind it - a result of the microarchitectural improvements as well as higher power budget.
3DMark Time Spy
The Time Spy workload has two levels with different complexities. Both use DirectX 12 (feature level 11). However, the plain version targets high-performance gaming PCs with a 2560 x 1440 render resolution, while the Extreme version renders at 3840 x 2160 resolution. The graphs below present both numbers for all the systems that are being compared in this review.
| UL 3DMark - Time Spy Workloads | |||
The observations made in Fire Strike workloads hold true for Time Spy also. The advantage for GTR7 over the 42W Ryzen 7 7735U in the ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-7735U is around 25%.
3DMark Wild Life
The Wild Life workload was initially introduced as a cross-platform GPU benchmark in 2020. It renders at a 2560 x 1440 resolution using Vulkan 1.1 APIs on Windows. It is a relatively short-running test, reflective of mobile GPU usage. In mid-2021, UL released the Wild Life Extreme workload that was a more demanding version that renders at 3840 x 2160 and runs for a much longer duration reflective of typical desktop gaming usage.
| UL 3DMark - Wild Life Workloads | |||
3D Mark Wild Life was one of the GPU workloads where RPL-P's iGPU had performed better than the Radeon 680M in the Rembrandt-R systems. The GTR7's Radeon 780M wrests the crown from the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1360P/D5, showing a 7% increase in performance at 1440p and 17% increase at 2160p. This is doubtless due to the improved microarchitecture and higher power budget.
3DMark Night Raid
The Night Raid workload is a DirectX 12 benchmark test. It is less demanding than Time Spy, and is optimized for integrated graphics. The graph below presents the overall score in this workload for different system configurations.
The GTR7 is comfortable on top when systems with iGPUs are considered, with a 20% advantage over the GEEKOM AS 6 (which has a 20% advantage over the best that RPL-P has to offer).
3DMark Port Royal
UL introduced the Port Royal ray-tracing benchmark as a DLC for 3DMark in early 2019. The scores serve as an indicator of how the system handles ray-tracing effects in real-time.
The GTR7 has a 30%+ advantage over the GEEKOM AS 6, thanks to improvements in the ray tracing engine, as well as faster iGPU clocks.
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Gm2502 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Games, productivity or anything else the VAST majority of the world does when they don't have to run on a proprietary, non-upgradable glorified mobile phone. This Miniforum is superior in EVERY metric mate, so take your fan boy rubbish elsewhere.darkswordsman17 - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
"Glorified mobile phone" despite this not being in a phone, and the reason the AMD chip isn't is because its literally incapable of being put in such a form factor due to the power and thermal limits still exceeding what a phone could deal with. And the M2 chip is still competitive enough that its not ridiculous to compare them.There's definitely flaws (and plenty of legitimate criticisms of Apple/Apple product), but anyone acting like there aren't flaws with the PC side is just delusional. Acting like you can't do anything more than run a few proprietary apps on Apple stuff is so ridiculously nonsensical at this point that you really need to look in the mirror. Yes, lemurbutton is ridiculously nonsensical, but going the total opposite direction is just as pointless and biased.
Heck, is no one going to call out the proprietary power connector on this? That alone stopped me from considering this over its competition, and is just absurd in this market space.
Further, Apple could make the Mini even smaller (there is a YouTube where someone does exactly that, I think it ended up roughly 3/5 the size, maybe even smaller) with no real performance loss. That'd put it roughly 1/4 the size of this box. Try putting Phoenix in such and the M2 would probably outperform it.
Gm2502 - Saturday, August 26, 2023 - link
Roflol, so ARM architecture isn't synonymous with mobile technologies? Literally accounts for over 95% of ARM sales, so my statement about it being a glorified mobile phone isn't far off. The M2 Chip is not even close to be competitive, with cpu performance difference from Tomshardware - "The Ryzen 7 7840U was anywhere from 15-71% faster than the M2" and The Ryzen 7 7840U was anywhere from 35 - 180% faster than the M2" in graphics testing. So again, if it wasn't for the stupid propietry OS optimised for the iPhone reject chip, it wouldnt even be a comparison.As for size, again your lying about a mac mini being 1/4 the size. M2 Mini - 197mm x 197mm x 36mm, this GTR7 box is 168mmx120mmx49mm, so cut the crap there. This thing is roughly the same size as the Mac Mini. You complain about design choices, well you literally have hundreds of designs for tens of companies to choose from, each with different hardware (like use a DIN plug is a big deal, but fanboyz have to clutch at straws), all of which can be upgraded and user repaired. Want more RAM or storage on a M2, go buy a new PC.
Want freedom of choice to run any application and game, go windows. If you go apple, pray it works if its not on the very specific optimised for MacOS list, and good thing most games don't run in it becuase the god awful IGPU of the M2 won't be able to produce much more then a slide show, unless I look to double or quadruple the price and look at M2 Pro or ultra equiped M2 machine, which will be roughly 5-10 x the price is this machine...
So again, calling you and your "facts" as fanboyism not grrounded in any reality. Especially stuoid when you comment on a single PC manafacturer design choices knowing full well that PC allows choice across multiple manafacturers while Apple if wholly proprietary. Stupid argument across the board.
Samus - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
You can upgrade it to Windows 10 and it'll be solid.mode_13h - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
The M2 has 4x P-cores and 4x E-cores. Is that really faster than 8x dual-threaded Zen 4 cores?> has AI inference
Phoenix features AMD's new "Ryzen AI" accelerator. I don't know how they compare, but if you're running Windows or Linux, you'll probably find AMD's solution better supported than Apple's.
I think that's the key. If you *want* to run MacOS, then you'll do better with the M2 mini. If you'd rather run Linux or Windows, then it's really no contest. Recent benchmarks of the M2 running Linux have shown that its Linux support has a long ways to go, before it's remotely competitive.
https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-zen4-mobi...
dontlistentome - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Have you any concept of how bored we are of these comments about Macs?Qasar - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
keep in mind lemurbutton is paid by apple to post how great their products are, while posting no proof or anything.you wouldnt want him to get punished by his apple overlords, would you???
bji - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
Do you have proof of that or are you just talking out of your ass?Qasar - Thursday, August 24, 2023 - link
have you seen his other posts ? nothing but pro apple, amd and intel suck and cant compete with m1/m2/m3/ etc on any levelhe mostly talks out of his ass when it comes to apple
PeachNCream - Friday, August 25, 2023 - link
Not a paid shill, I would think, but someone just having fun with the bags of hammers that read Anandtech that fall for trolling every. single. time.Wouldn't you keep that up if you didn't need to change tactics and could "outsmart" your audience while gaining imaginary internet attention to feel good about yourself?