Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 review: An astoundingly small mini PC with a Ryzen 7 6800U and USB4
The Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 is another mini PC that sets the bar even higher (or smaller) when it comes to size. Despite its small footprint, it still has good performance to offer. Next to its AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, the PC also has 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Prices for the smallest configuration, which is the one we tested, start from around $499. For $60 more, you can get the Minisforum EM680 with 32 GB RAM and for another $60 on top of that, the larger RAM is accompanied by a 1 TB SSD.
Due to its extremely compact size, the mini PC barely has any direct competitors which can offer the same level of performance. Only the Ace Magician T8Pro is even able to come near to the Minisforum EM680 in terms of size - but its installed SoC is considerably weaker. So, we have put together a mix of competitors consisting of compact devices and ones which offer similar performance levels, in order to better contextualize where the Minisforum EM680 can actually be placed.
You can see a list of all the comparison devices in the following table.
Possible competitors compared
Rating | Date | Model | Weight | Height | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81.8 % v7 (old) | 06 / 2023 | Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 R7 6800U, Radeon 680M | 239 g | 43 mm | |
| 83.7 % v7 (old) | 05 / 2023 | Morefine M600, 6600U R5 6600U, Radeon 660M | 768 g | 40.6 mm | |
| 81.9 % v7 (old) | 05 / 2023 | Minisforum Venus Series NAB6 i7-12650H, UHD Graphics 64EUs | 616 g | 55 mm | |
| 81.7 % v7 (old) | 05 / 2023 | Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT R5 5600H, Vega 7 | 652 g | 48 mm | |
| 79.5 % v7 (old) | 02 / 2023 | Minisforum Mars Series MC560 R5 5600U, Vega 7 | 562 g | 66 mm | |
| 68.2 % v7 (old) | 03 / 2023 | Minipc Union NiPoGi GK3PLUS - N95 N95, UHD Graphics 24EUs (Alder Lake-N) | 381 g | 47 mm | |
| 65.9 % v7 (old) | 01 / 2023 | Minipc Union Ace Magician T8Pro Celeron N5095, UHD Graphics (Jasper Lake 16 EU) | 209 g | 43.5 mm |
The Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 in detail
Case - The Minisforum EM680 takes up only 8 cm²
In comparison, the tiny Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 not only has the smallest foorprint, but its height of just four centimetres is just as impressive. The manufacturer has mostly relied on plastic for the case's construction, but the device is very stable thanks to its compactness. The top and bottom of the case have ventilation slits - two fans guarantee that the system runs smoothly under load while cooling the SoC and SSD. Weighing in at only 239 grams, our test sample is extremely light and only the Ace Magician T8Pro can beat this. The power supply is only ever so slightly smaller than the device itself and weighs 131 grams.
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Connectivity
If you guessed that a small PC means limited connectivity options, then you might have to guess again. In total, it has five USB connections, two of which actually offer USB-4 speeds. This already makes the PC well equipped and thoroughly leaves its competitors in the dust. Furthermore, the device features an HDMI output as well as an audio jack for a headset. It even has an SD card reader, even if it is only capable of reading microSD cards. In total, the Minisforum EM680 can run up to three screens simultaneously - if you use both Thunderbolt ports along with the HDMI connection. Although, in order to do so, your peripheral equipment must also support Power Delivery, as one of the USB-C ports also supplies the EM680 with power.
SD card reader
The Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 is equipped with an SD card reader which only supports microSC cards. Although, with USB 2.0 speeds, it sure won't set any new records. In comparison, the EM680 did worse than all bar one of our comparison devices.
| SD Card Reader | |
| average JPG Copy Test (av. of 3 runs) | |
| Intel Beast Canyon NUC (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Average of class Mini PC (15.1 - 214, n=26, last 2 years) | |
| Intel NUC 12, NUC12SNKi72_Serpent Canyon (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Zotac ZBOX PI336 pico (AV PRO MICROSD V60) | |
| maximum AS SSD Seq Read Test (1GB) | |
| Intel Beast Canyon NUC (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Average of class Mini PC (18.2 - 221, n=26, last 2 years) | |
| Intel NUC 12, NUC12SNKi72_Serpent Canyon (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Zotac ZBOX Magnus EN173070C (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
| Zotac ZBOX PI336 pico (AV PRO MICROSD V60) | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 (AV Pro SD microSD 128 GB V60) | |
Communication
The Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 houses a Wi-Fi 6E module from Realtek. In our practical test, the WLAN module in our test sample delivered average results within the 5 GHz frequency area. After swapping to the new 6 GHz standard, the Wi-Fi module was able to show what it is capable of. We noted better values while sending and receiving data than its competitors could offer. We used an Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 as the test router for these tests.
Maintenance
While it is generally possible to open up the Minisforum EM680, you can only actually swap out the SSD. The bottom of the case can be taken off quite easily after the four screws have been removed. Although, the screws are situated beneath the PC's rubber feet, making them a little hard to find at first. The manufacturer explicitly advises against removing the cooling unit, as this can cause damage to the device. We suspect this is due to the mini PC's use of liquid metal to better dissipate heat.
Performance - An AMD Ryzen 7 6800U in the tiniest of spaces
An AMD Ryzen 7 6800U makes up the solid base of the Minisforum Mercury Series EM680. This means that a solid iGPU is part of this SoC, namely an AMD Radeon 680M. In addition, the PC features fast DDR5 RAM (6,400 MT/s), so the iGPU certainly won't be slowed down at all.
Testing conditions
We used the energy profile "highest performance" for all the performance tests on this device. Deviations from this were only made in the power and volume measurements according to our test criteria.
Processor
The installed AMD Ryzen 7 6800U is a good choice and guarantees solid performance in everyday use. The frugal 8-core processor could be run stably at 28 watts under permanent load. Subsequently, the device delivered good single-core and multi-core performance levels. In our test, the Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 was able to keep up with the Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT and the Morefine M600 6600U. All three had very similar performance ratings, even though the individual tests showed differing devices coming out on top. Compared to the equally small Ace Magician T8Pro, our test sample had nothing to worry about, as the Intel N95 isn't even competition-worthy.
The Minisforum EM680 triumphed in our AIDA64 benchmarks - so well that even secured itself the first place. Its harmonious teamwork shown by the hardware, especially its fast RAM (DDR5-6400), was to thank for these excellent results.
You can find further processor benchmarks 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
The Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 during the Cinebench R15 Multi loop
At this point, the Cinebench R15 continuous loop shows how well the system copes with the built-in cooling. We didn't note any devastating performance losses on the Minisforum Mercury Series EM680. We could only see a slight dip in performance in the first five runs. In direct comparison, the Minisforum EM680 delivered better results after 50 runs than the Minisforum NAB6.
System performance
Working on the Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 is great fun and we have no issues to note in everyday use. Even so, the comparison devices were quicker if you compare their performances directly using the benchmarks. The mini PC achieved average results in the PCMark10 test, and during Crossmark, it actually managed to reach third place. Although, we noted considerably better results in our RAM tests - of course, thanks to the device's fast RAM.
| AIDA64 / Memory Copy | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 | |
| Average AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (47010 - 52159, n=6) | |
| Average of class Mini PC (6481 - 89287, n=117, last 2 years) | |
| Morefine M600, 6600U | |
| Minisforum Venus Series NAB6 | |
| Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT | |
| Minisforum Mars Series MC560 | |
| Minipc Union Ace Magician T8Pro | |
| Minipc Union NiPoGi GK3PLUS - N95 | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Read | |
| Minisforum Venus Series NAB6 | |
| Average of class Mini PC (6914 - 99171, n=117, last 2 years) | |
| Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT | |
| Morefine M600, 6600U | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 | |
| Average AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (39197 - 45084, n=6) | |
| Minisforum Mars Series MC560 | |
| Minipc Union Ace Magician T8Pro | |
| Minipc Union NiPoGi GK3PLUS - N95 | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Write | |
| Average of class Mini PC (6862 - 98583, n=117, last 2 years) | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 | |
| Average AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (48723 - 51117, n=6) | |
| Morefine M600, 6600U | |
| Minisforum Venus Series NAB6 | |
| Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT | |
| Minisforum Mars Series MC560 | |
| Minipc Union Ace Magician T8Pro | |
| Minipc Union NiPoGi GK3PLUS - N95 | |
| AIDA64 / Memory Latency | |
| Minipc Union NiPoGi GK3PLUS - N95 | |
| Average AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (106.3 - 123.1, n=6) | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 | |
| Minisforum Mars Series MC560 | |
| Morefine M600, 6600U | |
| Average of class Mini PC (44.9 - 184.8, n=117, last 2 years) | |
| Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT | |
| Minipc Union Ace Magician T8Pro | |
| Minisforum Venus Series NAB6 | |
* ... smaller is better
DPC latency
LatencyMon already showed slightly increased latencies when opening several tabs in the Edge browser. These didn't increase further during playback of our 4K test video. Even with Prime95, we didn't note any deterioration of the latencies documented at the beginning.
| DPC Latencies / LatencyMon - interrupt to process latency (max), Web, Youtube, Prime95 | |
| Minipc Union Ace Magician T8Pro, Intel Celeron N5095 | |
| Minipc Union NiPoGi GK3PLUS - N95, Intel Processor N95 | |
| Minisforum Mercury Series EM680, AMD Ryzen 7 6800U | |
| Minisforum Mars Series MC560, AMD Ryzen 5 5600U | |
| Morefine M600, 6600U, AMD Ryzen 5 6600U | |
| Minisforum Venus Series UM560 XT, AMD Ryzen 5 5600H | |
| Minisforum Venus Series NAB6, Intel Core i7-12650H | |
* ... smaller is better
Storage devices
The shape and small size of the Minisforum Mercury Series EM680 means a slightly different storage device format. As a result, the mini PC has an M.2 SSD which has a length of 30 millimetres - but it still has a 512-GB capacity and so should be more than sufficient for a start. Different to its RAM, which is securely attached, the SSD can be swapped out. In order to do so, you just have to detach the bottom of the case. At the same time, the manufacturer utilizes the case bottom to cool the SSD. A small fan supposedly secures stable performance. Unfortunately, this doesn't prove to be too easy during longer periods of use, as the documented continuous performance rates show. However, these short performance dips really don't last long and so shouldn't be too big an issue in everyday use.
The Kingston-made SSD uses the PCIe connection perfectly, which our benchmarks confirm. This is enough to secure second place for the Minisforum EM680, directly behind the Minisforum NAB6. Its 4K read rates prevented a better result, although 71.5 MB/s still isn't too shabby.
For further comparisons and benchmarks, take a look at our comparison table.
