So far so good. Better hardware than Beelink internally.
I only just got this system, but so far it's looking good. I don't use Windows, so first thing I did was open it up and transfer my existing NVMe (a Samsung 970 Evo) from a similar system. As with all things Linux, it just booted right up like nothing changed. With regard to the hardware, when I opened it up, what I saw was good design, and I'll get into that shortly. I'll be comparing this with the Beelink SER 5 Pro 5850u (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09SYR619R), which I'll be returning, as that unit is hot, loud, and poorly designed in my opinion. Maybe my unit was defective, but it was extremely hot, and the fan was loud and emitted a strange whine. But even attempting to re-paste the CPU and replace the fan with a known good one did not help. The SER 5 Pro reaches ridiculous temperatures (60+c) even when just idling or opening a single browser tab, and under even light load it will shoot up well above 90c. At stock settings, the SER 5 Pro 5850u sounds like a jet engine trying to take off probably 80% of the time. ============= To start, right out of the box the Bosgame P4 is quieter than the SER 5 Pro. Much quieter in fact, both when idle and under load. Which is impressive, as this unit has more ventilation openings and a second fan that didn't exist on the Beelink unit, so you'd think it would make more noise. At idle I'm seeing about 40-42c, which is expected, and under max CPU load using mprime it hangs around 60-65c, which is very impressive. This indicates the paste job on the CPU was good, and the cooling solution and case ventilation design is good. The interior starts with a plastic shell for the small bottom fan over the NVMes, and includes what seems to be a thin possibly aluminum (not sure, it's black and blends with the plastic) heatsink near the rear ports. Removing this exposes a thermal pad on the underside that sits over the the NVMMe, and the motherboard, and here it's a treat. The motherboard has two gigabit ethernet ports, and two NVMe slots (that's exciting). By default, the included NVMe was a Kingston OM3PGP41024P-A0, 1TB. Interestingly, this is a 2230 NVMe, and an extender was attached to make it fit the length for the standard 2280 length. That's interesting, and nice, as I might be able to repurpose the original NVMe for use in a Steam Deck since I already have a working 1 TB 2280 length NVMe. The SSD is offset from the wifi, not sitting over it as is common, meaning better heat dissipation for both, and the second NVMe slot means easy storage expansion, and from what I can tell, none of the usual ribbon attached standard 2.5" SSD slot. The included wifi chip is an Intel AX210ngw (compared to Beelink's standard AX200, this chip is wifi 6e and gets slightly faster wifi speeds). Nothing more to speak of here, this is a good chip, I actually bought one independently to replace a bad wifi chip in an older mini-PC and it's rock solid. I'm getting around 425Mbit speed on this, which is around what I'd expect. The chips and solder points on the board just look more robust and well done overall when compared to what I see on the SER 5 Pro, and the case design is better. The top appears to be fully ventilated, as well as including ventilation on the sides, as well as fan holes and slot vents on the underside. Again all, good design. Also, the case is slightly larger on the Bosgame, which likely helps as well. I didn't think to check what sound chip is on the board, but it sounds crisp and clear connected to my Kanto YU passives using a Fosi BT30D. I listened to a few songs in FLAC quality and feel like it actually sounds better and clearer than the chip on the SER5 Pro, but since I'm honestly not sure what chip is in either, that could be placebo effect since I'm just happier with the Bosgame P4 in general. Performance seems good. The P4 is set to 35w (performance) mode out of the box, and that setting is where I tested the temperatures and noise level. Currently I'm running it in 25w (balanced) mode, as it's just a daily use desktop and I prefer the silence over improved performance. And this thing really is that quiet. I've had a few duds from Beelink, and it remains to be seen if I may encounter any QA/QC issues with this Bosgame P4, but so far I'm very happy with it. Everything I've seen indicates thought went into the design and construction of this, and it's performing well in testing and general use.. Read more
