Minisforum EliteMini B550 Review: Compact Mini PC with an external graphics card

Minisforum is attracting increased attention, both in Germany and around the globe. Their portfolio already includes a wide range of Mini PCs for everyday office use. A compact gaming PC was previously available with the Minisforum EliteMini HX90. That model, however, didn't have a dedicated graphics processor.
Minisforum is pursuing a somewhat different path with the Minisforum EliteMini B550. First and foremost, this model is a very compact Mini PC built on an AM4 platform. This means that the barebone version can be ordered with either an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G or an AMD Ryzen 7 4700G. As part of the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), the Integrated Graphics Processing Unit (iGPU) provides limited graphics performance. To remedy this, a mounting kit can be ordered that provides the Mini PC with an interface to an external graphics card via a PCIe expansion bus. Of course, this means that you must have both the external graphics card and the power supply available. All other requisite cables are supplied.
In principle, this solution works well. At the same time it does have the air of an expedient stopgap measure to boost graphic performance.
As already mentioned, the MinisForum EliteMini B550 is available in a barebone version. You should expect to spend 310 Euro ($319) without the CPU, RAM or SSD. For a fully configured unit (Ryzen 7 5700G, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD) you are looking at 749 Euro ($809). Our test configuration is currently available online for 669 Euro. That includes the Ryzen 7 5700G, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB M.2 SSD and room for three mass storage devices in total. The power supply is also included.
Minisforum EliteMini B550 in Detail
Case
From a purely visual perspective the Minisforum EliteMini B550 fits snuggly into the EliteMini PC family, albeit with a small divergence from the usual color scheme. The Minisforum EliteMini B550 is mostly grey and black; overall, we are impressed with the way it looks. A noticeable blue LED strip lights up at start-up emulating a power-on light. The cooling solution reminds one of other Mini PCs of the Minisforum stable. And why reinvent the wheel anyway. Air is drawn in through the top of the case and discharged through the side walls.
Plastics dominate the materials with a smidgeon of aluminum highlights. The look and feel of the unit is decidedly high quality. The GPU mounting brackets sport quality workmanship even if they also consist of plastic and aluminum. The external graphics card needs to be inserted vertically into its PCIe slot on the Minisforum EliteMini B550 and subsequently screwed into place. The assembly itself is very stable and the process is quickly completed. At just over a kilogram the Minisforum EliteMini B550 feels noticeably light and with its just 15.8cm by 16.6cm base it takes up very little desk space. The 120W power supply adds just another 600 grams to the scales.
Connectivity
The Minisforum EliteMini B550 provides a plethora of external connections. However, one thing that is quite noticeable is that all the important ports are located at the rear of the case. In total there are four USB 3.2 Type A and one Type C port. Monitors are connected to the Mini PC either through HDMI or DisplayPort. Up to three monitors can be simultaneously connected in total. One does, however, need to forego the convenience of possessing a built-in SD card reader.
Communication
A MediaTek RZ608 WLAN module is inside the EliteMini B550. Our test run was not overly convincing. The EliteMini ended up in bottom place when pitted against the competition. On a positive note, however, the unit delivered stable data transfer rates over the WLAN. Furthermore, our test unit also included an RJ45 interface that can deliver transfer rates of up to 2.5 Gbps.
Networking | |
iperf3 receive AXE11000 6GHz | |
Intel Dragon Canyon NUC - RTX 3060 | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Average of class Desktop (430 - 1851, n=10, last 2 years) | |
Average MediaTek RZ608 (430 - 961, n=16) | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50 | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
iperf3 transmit AXE11000 6GHz | |
Intel Dragon Canyon NUC - RTX 3060 | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Average of class Desktop (572 - 1745, n=11, last 2 years) | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50 | |
Average MediaTek RZ608 (572 - 980, n=16) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 |
Performance
Processor
The now familiar APU, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, unites eight Zen 3 cores and AMD's Radeon RX Vega 8 iGPU under a heat spreader. Let’s take a moment to focus on CPU performance of the Minisforum EliteMini B550; performance that can more than just keep pace with ‘large’ desktops. All in all, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G’s performance is good, even if it doesn’t stack up quite as well in some categories as it did in our earlier CPU review of this particular processor. The APU lags behind the average 5700G in our database by about ten percent. Nonetheless, performance is comparable to that of an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X.
The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G measures up well across the board against performance levels of an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX. Zotac's Magnus EN173070C with its Intel Core i7-11800H, a mobile octa-core processor, is well and truly outperformed by the Minisforum.
Further processor benchmark data is available here.
* ... smaller is better
AIDA64: FP32 Ray-Trace | FPU Julia | CPU SHA3 | CPU Queen | FPU SinJulia | FPU Mandel | CPU AES | CPU ZLib | FP64 Ray-Trace | CPU PhotoWorxx
AIDA64 / FP32 Ray-Trace | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (13631 - 15260, n=2) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
Average of class Desktop (416 - 62786, n=36, last 2 years) | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Intel Core i5-12600K |
AIDA64 / FPU Julia | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (86825 - 101689, n=2) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
Average of class Desktop (2401 - 264044, n=36, last 2 years) | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Intel Core i5-12600K |
AIDA64 / CPU SHA3 | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (2953 - 3605, n=2) | |
Intel Core i5-12600K | |
Average of class Desktop (167 - 10362, n=36, last 2 years) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X |
AIDA64 / CPU Queen | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (97720 - 106467, n=2) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Intel Core i5-12600K | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Average of class Desktop (7876 - 205588, n=36, last 2 years) |
AIDA64 / FPU SinJulia | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (12202 - 13297, n=2) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Intel Core i5-12600K | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Average of class Desktop (396 - 32855, n=36, last 2 years) |
AIDA64 / FPU Mandel | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (47597 - 57827, n=2) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
Average of class Desktop (1264 - 138291, n=36, last 2 years) | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Intel Core i5-12600K |
AIDA64 / CPU AES | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (119844 - 141615, n=2) | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Morefine S500+ | |
Average of class Desktop (3691 - 379659, n=36, last 2 years) | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Intel Core i5-12600K |
AIDA64 / CPU ZLib | |
Intel Core i5-12600K | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (774 - 869, n=2) | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Average of class Desktop (60.6 - 2441, n=36, last 2 years) | |
Morefine S500+ | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X |
AIDA64 / FP64 Ray-Trace | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (7184 - 8093, n=2) | |
Average of class Desktop (213 - 33821, n=36, last 2 years) | |
Morefine S500+ | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Intel Core i5-12600K |
AIDA64 / CPU PhotoWorxx | |
Intel Core i5-12600K | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X | |
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C | |
Average of class Desktop (2501 - 52312, n=36, last 2 years) | |
Average AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (14810 - 28231, n=2) | |
Morefine S500+ | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90 | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 - Cinebench R15 multi core benchmark
We have already ascertained that Minisforum’s construction technique delivers an effective solution for cooling components in other test devices. The Minisforum EliteMini B550 delivers true-to-form stable performance under continuous load. Using our Cinebench R15 multicore benchmark there is no noticeable performance degradation, even after multiple iterations.
System Performance & Storage
The basic configuration of the Minisforum EliteMini B550 without an external graphics card manages to outperform both the EliteMini TH50 and the EliteMini HM90. But once we compare it with the Minisforum EliteMini HX things become a little more challenging. With just a few percentage points separating the two, the difference is not really noticeable. However, once a dedicated graphics card is in play, that is no longer the case. Our choice of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 is representative of a card at the upper end of mid-range products of this kind. As such, it provides the Minisforum EliteMini B550 with some serious legs when it comes to graphics performance. The performance improvement of a dedicated graphics card over the iGPU is simply enormous. In spite of this, this pairing still lines up behind the Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C performance-wise.
The mass storage unit installed in our test unit is of the Kingston lineage and provides solid performance. A total of three mass storage units can be installed inside the case. To this end there are two M.2 interfaces as well as a slot for a 2.5-inch storage device.
LuxMark v2.0 64Bit | |
Sala GPUs-only | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Morefine S500+, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum HM90, AMD Ryzen 9 4900H | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | |
Room GPUs-only | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H | |
Morefine S500+, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | |
Minisforum HM90, AMD Ryzen 9 4900H | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G |
DPC Latencies / LatencyMon - interrupt to process latency (max), Web, Youtube, Prime95 | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Morefine S500+, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum HM90, AMD Ryzen 9 4900H | |
Minisforum EliteMini HX90, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | |
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H |
CrossMark | |
Responsiveness | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H | |
Creativity | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H | |
Productivity | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H | |
Overall | |
Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C, Intel Core i7-11800H | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550 + RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini B550, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G | |
Minisforum EliteMini TH50, Intel Core i5-11320H |
* ... smaller is better
Graphics & Gaming Performance
The graphics performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with its AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 is just marginally viable for gaming. As evidenced by Dota 2 Reborn, it’s just older titles that are playable without constraint. It’s not until we introduce the dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 that this compact number cruncher morphs into the true colors of a Mini PC for serious gaming. In this configuration there is sufficient grunt to ensure unimpeded gaming at 1080p. Depending on the game, higher resolutions are also possible. And that’s when it makes sense to have a quick look at our GPU comparison charts.
Performance of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 in conjunction with the Miniforum EliteMini B550 is at about the same level as one of our test systems built on an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X. Differences due to any limitations of the graphics card are barely noticeable at higher resolution levels. The higher IPC of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X versus the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is only apparent at lower resolution levels. We tested the same graphics card in an eGPU case connected via Thunderbolt and found that performance was 25 percent higher than on a Minsiforum EliteMini TH50.
Important Information:
Using the GPU dock on a Minisforum EliteMini B550 requires a separate power supply that delivers power to both the EliteMini B550 as well as the GPU. The included power supply may then no longer be used. A product warning to this effect is displayed on the product.