MINISFORUM UM890 Pro Review

Written by IAN W MORRISON (LINUXIUM)

Mini PC makers have been packing a lot of powerful hardware into small computers in recent years, allowing you to get performance close to what you’d see from a full-size computer from a system that takes up much less space on your desk. But PC makers still have to contend with the age-old issue of heat: specifically, the thermal dissipation of heat generated by internal components including the CPU, memory, and storage. And it can be difficult to get rid of that heat when you’re dealing with a tiny computer that doesn’t have much room for fans and other cooling hardware.

Anyone can build a large PC with loud fans that sound like jet engines. What makes a good mini PC design is not only that it packs decent hardware into a small space, but also that it can run quietly without compromising performance. It also needs an appropriate set of ports and networking options as well as good options for memory and storage. The MINISFORUM UM890 Pro that I’ve tested which truly checks all of those boxes.

It also has a separate fan and a heat sink positioned to keep the PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe drives in the computer’s two M.2 slots cool, as well as a heat sink for the system’s DDR5 memory.

When it comes to I/O features, not only is there a DisplayPort and a HDMI port, but there are also two “full function” USB4 ports with support for data, video, and USB Power Delivery. There is also an OCuLink port which is available by using the included adapter in one of the storage slots.

The MINISFORUM UM890 Pro also has a nice set of networking features including two 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports as well as support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connection.

On the front, from left to right, are the following ports:

• 1 x Pin-hole UEFI/BIOS reset
• 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack
• 1 x USB4 (40 Gbit/s) port
• 2 x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gbit/s) ports
• 1 x illuminated power button

The remaining ports are on the back. From left to right, they are:

• 2 x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gbit/s) ports
• 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 (upper)
• 1 x USB4 (40 Gbit/s) port
• 1 x OCuLink port (upper)
• 1 x HDMI 2.1 port (lower)
• 2 x 2.5 Gb Ethernet port (RTL8125)
• 1 x Power jack