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this is the retan alloy 9 Mini PC let's
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see how far we can push
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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it hey there how you doing I'm Tech
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welcome thanks for clicking on the video
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today I'm a big fan of mini PCS I'm a
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big fan of lots of stuff mostly various
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snacks and beverages handhelds too of
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course I'm a PC Gamer at heart I like
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building PCS tinkering with PCS so you'd
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think that the idea of a tiny little
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mini version of a PC that isn't as
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powerful as a big PC or something that
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you can build yourself or Tinker with an
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upgrade isn't something that I'd be into
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but you'd be wrong as usual that's the
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exact reason that I find mini PCS
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fascinating I love the idea that that
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this is an entire computer that you
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don't have to build yourself you don't
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have to Tinker you can buy it on a store
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shelf or Amazon or steal it from your
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neighbor's porch and it just you open it
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up and plug it in and start playing PC
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games until the cops show up because
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your neighbor caught you on their ring
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doorbell hypothetically speaking of
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course and I'm not talking about just
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like easy to run low speec PC games no
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no no you're playing the latest and
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greatest AAA PC games on a device that's
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no bigger than 27 Oreos not nearly as
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delicious though to be fair I've
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reviewed a whole bunch of these things
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and to be honest I get offered so many
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of them that I usually just turn them
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down because most of them are so similar
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and I don't want to have a thousand
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videos they're all the same thing but I
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was genuinely excited when retan reached
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out and offered to send me this because
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this Mini PC was on my radar I had seen
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a few reviews about it including a
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review by my boy robtech basically the
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king of Mini PC channels makes my Mini
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PC videos look like a pile of garbage to
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be honest and he said that this was the
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best PC that he's ever tested so I had
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to say yes to this one and see for
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myself and and I did and that's why it's
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here on my desk definitely not because I
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stole it from my neighbor's porch and
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denied that it was me on their ring
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doorbell and I'm going to try a new
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format for this Mini PC review video to
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mix things up and go back and forth
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between the fun stuff which is the games
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and the boring stuff like the specs and
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the benchmarks and stuff so please after
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the video let me know what you think of
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this new format I'm curious to know if
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you like this or if you prefer I do the
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old way of the boring stuff up front and
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then all the games at the end so with
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that out of the way let's move on to our
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first game test which is Counter Strike
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2 I wanted to test this game first
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because I feel like Esports style games
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are a great fit for Min PCS in general I
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played a decent amount of Cs go but I've
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barely touched CS2 and my skills in
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firstperson Shooters has generally gone
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way downhill in recent years these days
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I do most of my PC gaming from my couch
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or handhelds which which are not ideal
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for Counter Strike to say the least but
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I figured since we're going to be doing
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some PC testing and this is still
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steam's most played game yeah I should
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probably at least be playing it every
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now and then at least when I do PC game
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testing so here I am failing at CS2 I
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got a few kills so that's fine for me
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I'm playing at 1080p with the low preset
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FSR off and I got about 150 FPS on
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average but overall heck yeah this is a
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great experience if you have a high
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refresh rate display and you're into
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Esports style games considering that CS2
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is actually one of the more demanding
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Esports style games you'll have a great
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experience playing this kind of stuff on
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the alloy 9 let's take a little break to
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talk about what we get and the specs in
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the Box we get the PC itself along with
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a bunch of word papers of course and an
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HDMI cord to add to your HDMI cord
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collection the power adapter is a big
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old brick with a barrel Jack connection
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and it's 120 WTS and we also get some
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extra rubber feet to replace yours if
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they get stolen in a Mini PC rubber foot
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robbery this bad boy is powered by the
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ryzen
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97940 HS processor which is a badass
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processor for both productivity and
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gaming as you'll see it has integrated
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Radeon 78m graphics we have 32 gabt of
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dual Channel DD ddr5 sodm Ram clocked at
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5600 Mega things per second we also have
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1 terabyte of nvme internal storage the
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m.2 slot is Gen 4 however the included
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SSD is only gen gen 3 the system is
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Windows 11 Pro and we get Wi-Fi 6E and
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Bluetooth 5.3 moving along to some more
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gaming with Assassin's Creed Mirage I
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really loved Valhalla but Mirage is kind
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of like a throwback to the older style
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of Assassin's Creed games I'm not that
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far in yet only a few hours this isn't a
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huge massive open world Assassin's Creed
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where they try to simulate an entire
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country which is fine by me I was ready
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for a change of pace after the huge open
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worldness of vhal and I hear Mirage is
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shorter too which is what I need right
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now it also feels more stealth focused
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than the newer Assassin's Creed games
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this is actually giving me Assassin's
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Creed Unity Vibes in the actual gameplay
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which is a good thing because Unity was
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awesome this is running at 1080p with
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the medium preset and balanced FSR and I
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actually got 72 FPS on average I should
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have known it would run well I'm playing
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this on my steam deck at medium settings
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and it's actually playing Amazing there
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it's a a perfect kind of game to play on
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the deck too because it's a controller
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Focus game and also it's just one of
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those games that looks way better than
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it should considering how well it runs
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here is hoping that Assassin's Creed
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Shadows works as well as this one does
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real quick let's take a quick tour of
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the alloy 9 it's a square a a square
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shape it's a plastic shell with a dark
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gray color matte texture with a deboss
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retan logo on the top on the front we
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have a power button and two gen 4 USB C
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holes and a headphone microphone speaker
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hole and one of those tiny bios reset
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holes I have my crucial X10 Pro 4 tbte
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SSD Plugged In which is where I store my
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games and those load super quick on this
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thing over USBC Gen 4 plenty of
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ventilation on the sides around back we
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have a hecton of iio there's our power
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plug hole and two HDMI 2.1 holes a 2.5
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gigabit Ethernet hole and four usba a
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holes all USB 3.2 Gen 2 and underneath
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we have more ventilation and some rubber
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feet I didn't record a tear down but if
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you want to see the guts of this thing
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definitely check out Rob Tech's review
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because he dug deeper than I wanted to
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the short version is that it's easy to
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access everything that you can upgrade
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including the SSD and RAM time for our
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next game test and I know you've all
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been super eager to see my progress with
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Elden rck as pathetic as it is well I
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finally got past those bosses The
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Crucible Knight and the Mist begotten
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Warrior and then I talked to some guy
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about getting the redon festival going
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and he said I needed to wait and then I
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was kind of stuck after that I didn't
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know how to progress so I resulted to
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looking up a guide and holy crap this
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game is not forgiving if you lose track
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of what you should be doing and where
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you need to go because even looking up
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the info in a guide is a daunting task I
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eventually puzzled that I needed to get
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to this place on the map uh to get get
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to the next area so this play session
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today is just kind of working my way
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there there was some new stuff to see
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along the way so I kind of took my time
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and I had a few fun fights and stuff
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nothing too epic although this walking
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building was pretty badass anyways I'm
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running at 108 with the medium settings
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except I turned up the shadows and
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anti-aliasing to high and I averaged
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just 41 FPS I was expecting more than
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that to be honest this game is capped at
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60 FPS but I'm not even close to that
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here I could probably get closer if I
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lowered some settings though this is is
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just a weird game in terms of
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performance I can never predict what's
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going to happen with this one sometimes
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it just doesn't run well on certain
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configurations for whatever reason
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definitely not a great game to Benchmark
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Hardware with because of that which is
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why it's a terrible choice to show in
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this video and that that's why I'm
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terrible at my job the system we have on
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here is Windows 11 Pro there is zero
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extra stuff installed no blow Weare no
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viruses no bull crap the system is quick
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and snappy no issues browsing the web or
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using uh websites 4K video playback is
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no problem no drop frames and the BIOS
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actually has a good amount of options
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you can do the normal stuff like
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security settings you can toggle a
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performance mode for the CPU mine was
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set to Performance out of the box but if
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you bump that down to balance you might
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get some quieter fan noises I didn't
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test that though because the fan was
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really quiet even at performance you can
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also dig a bit deeper in here to access
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the ability to overclock the ram that's
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beyond the scope of this video but you
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can Tinker around with that if you want
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and lots of other stuff in there it's a
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it's a good amount of Bio settings for a
00:08:47
Mini PC I think next up on the gameplay
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test is going to be Dragon Age The Veil
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guard which is a game that I'm having
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fun with but I was informed that this is
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a controversial game I I don't know what
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everyone's mad about but I think it has
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something to do with Nev's hat and you
00:09:02
know what I can get behind that hand me
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my Pitchfork this hat is freaking stupid
00:09:07
but but I guess writing off an entire
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game because you don't like an NPC's hat
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maybe that's a little extreme anyways
00:09:14
I'm having fun with this but I don't
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know how I feel about it in the big
00:09:17
picture I'm not loving it so far but I'm
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enjoying it I played all of the Dragon
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Age games and I was excited to see what
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they do with the story after Inquisition
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there is lots to like though good
00:09:27
writing and acting so far I'm enjoying
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the combat I like most of the companions
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especially luconis but I'm only like 8
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hours in we'll see how it shakes out
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once I meet everyone and do more side
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quests and see more of the story I'm
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playing at 1080p with the low preset and
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balanced FSR ended up getting 52 FPS on
00:09:45
average during the heavy action parts
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now this game isn't a lightweight game I
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installed this on my steam deck and it
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was barely playable even at the lowest
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settings even with performance FSR there
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were lots of dips below 30 on the deck
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in busy areas so I was actually happy
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with how well it was doing here now keep
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in mind this is a Mini PC we're talking
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about it's a gaming Mini PC but it's not
00:10:06
a gaming PC but considering it's
00:10:08
handling a brand new AAA game not an
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easy to run AAA game either at 52 FPS
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and it still looks really great you can
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totally play through this game and have
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a great time on this Mini PC or if
00:10:19
you're angry about Dragon Age because of
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Nev's hat maybe you can play something
00:10:23
else I hear good things about milfy City
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final Edition that that would probably
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run well in here I fig figured I
00:10:29
wouldn't be doing my job as a tech wee
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if I didn't do some benchmarks keep in
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mind these are all done on the
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performance profile enabled from the
00:10:36
BIOS starting off with cinebench R23 I
00:10:39
got a single core score of
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1,833 and a multi-core score of
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17,150 which is just Bonkers to me I am
00:10:49
blown away at this level of performance
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we're getting from mini PCS and this is
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like top of the class I was getting like
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1500 multicore on my desktop 5800 X just
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a couple years ago and that processor
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cost almost as much as this entire Mini
00:11:03
PC what a future we live in in 3D Mark
00:11:06
time spy I got an overall score of
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3,421 with a graphics score of
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3,051 and a CPU score of
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10,970 this score is 5% higher than the
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average for this chip so whatever Secret
00:11:20
Sauce reten is cooking with on the alloy
00:11:23
9 it's it's paying off in the numbers
00:11:25
and the SSD Benchmark was fine I got
00:11:28
these results which are good considering
00:11:30
the SSD is Gen 3 but my boy robtech
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tried this PC with a Gen 4 SSD and he
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got much better sequential reads and
00:11:36
writs with that so if SSD performance is
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important to you then it might be worth
00:11:41
considering getting an upgrade there and
00:11:43
the final game that we're going to test
00:11:44
is
00:11:47
Doom Eternal this is 10 native with the
00:11:51
medium settings and I got an average of
00:11:53
97 FPS by the end of this run and I know
00:11:56
Doom Eternal is a bit long in the tooth
00:11:57
at this point it's a bit of an older
00:11:59
game as far as games go and it's not
00:12:01
cutting edge and it's really well
00:12:03
optimized and it runs well on all sorts
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of machines including this one this is
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incredible performance from a Mini PC
00:12:09
but to be honest the real reason that I
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wanted to play this today was that I was
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really really sick of being stuck at
00:12:15
this one part of the game because every
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time I fire this game up to play when
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I'm benchmarking something I usually end
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up dying in this area that I've been
00:12:22
stuck on for ages it's it's in the Doom
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Hunter base and I'm playing on Ultra
00:12:26
nightmare difficulty and I stopped
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playing at this part which is pretty
00:12:29
late in the game and this freaking arena
00:12:32
is filled with so many baddies like the
00:12:34
game is just throwing everything at you
00:12:36
wave after wave I just couldn't get past
00:12:39
it usually because I'm just testing
00:12:40
games for benchmarks and my heart really
00:12:42
isn't in it I'm not really playing them
00:12:44
usually sometimes I'm playing with a
00:12:46
controller but I said no more I'm
00:12:48
getting past this freaking part if it
00:12:50
takes me hours it didn't take me hours
00:12:52
after a few warm- up deaths I finally
00:12:54
got into the flow and I I did it without
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too much difficulty a few hairy areas
00:12:58
where I forgot to go for my glory kills
00:13:00
to top up my health but I managed and I
00:13:02
did it even without resorting to
00:13:04
lowering the difficulty I really wanted
00:13:05
to beat the entire game on Ultra
00:13:07
nightmare so now I'm finally on my way
00:13:09
again all thanks to the alloy 9 Mini PC
00:13:13
thanks buddy I am enamored with this
00:13:16
Mini PC in terms of the performance on
00:13:18
the outside it's not super interesting
00:13:20
it's just kind of plain looking which is
00:13:23
better than being ugly but it's not as
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good as being sexy but once you get the
00:13:27
stuff going on it it's freaking awesome
00:13:29
it but blows away every other Mini PC
00:13:31
that I've tested in the benchmarks it
00:13:33
plays all my games great even
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graphically demanding AAA games it has
00:13:37
all the io I could want great bios
00:13:39
options and great system and this is one
00:13:41
of the quietest and least annoying
00:13:43
sounding mini PCS that I've ever heard
00:13:46
it it's just a delight to have this
00:13:48
thing on my desk to use and play with
00:13:50
and this alloy 9 is by far the most
00:13:53
performant Mini PC that I've tested so
00:13:55
far which is kind of weird because this
00:13:57
isn't crazy expensive even for a Mini PC
00:14:00
it's 589 bucks on Amazon even cheaper if
00:14:03
you go for the 512 gigabyte model which
00:14:06
might be a good choice because you might
00:14:07
want to upgrade that SSD anyways it's
00:14:09
going to be weird now that I've had this
00:14:11
to be able to recommend anything else at
00:14:13
this price at least I'll put a link to
00:14:14
this where you can buy it on Amazon in
00:14:16
the thingamabob below and of course if
00:14:18
you want to spend less there are lots of
00:14:19
good deals to be had at almost any price
00:14:22
point it's just it's such a crazy Market
00:14:24
the Mini PC World if you think there are
00:14:26
too many retro handhelds you should see
00:14:28
what's going on with mini PCS it's nuts
00:14:31
literally a new one every day I don't
00:14:33
intend on reviewing as many mini PCS as
00:14:35
I do handhelds but you can definitely
00:14:37
expect more in the future so please let
00:14:39
me know in the comments what do you
00:14:40
think of this thing but also what would
00:14:42
you like me to show when I test mini PCS
00:14:44
and also what do you think of this new
00:14:46
video format going back and forth
00:14:48
between the games and the specs and
00:14:50
stuff I really like this but I want to
00:14:52
know what you think please let me know
00:14:53
and while you're down there click the
00:14:55
Thumbs Up Button if you like the video
00:14:57
or don't if you didn't that's it for me
00:14:59
I'm Tech be thanks for watching bye-bye
