There’s no shortage of mini PCs on the market these days, but most are designed to prioritize compact size over processing power. Chinese PC maker Thunderobot’s new Thor Mix mini gaming PC stands out thanks to its discrete GPU and game console-like design.

Unveiled in China last month, it’s now available in that country for around $750 and up. There’s no word on if or when you’ll be able to find it in other countries.

Here’s a roundup

Thunderobot Thor MIX Mini Gaming PC [/r/MiniPCs]

Thunderobot Thor MIX is a compact desktop computer with a compact 1.7L chassis that measures 260 x 165mm (10.2″ x 6.5″) and a design that’s inspired by game consoles as much as tower PCs. It supports up to Core i9-13900H/NVIDIA RTX 4070 mobile, 32GB LPDDR5 memory and up to a 1TB SSD.

Valve: don’t expect a faster Steam Deck ‘in the next couple of years’ [The Verge]

Valve reaffirms that there are no plans to offer a Steam Deck with a faster processor for the next few years. Instead the goals are is to offer developers a “fixed performance target,” while also keeping power consumption low. In other words, don’t expect a Steam Deck 2 until 2025 or later.

Introducing GNOME 45, “Rīga” [GNOME]

GNOME 45 is out, with a new Activities indicator, faster search, a camera usage indicator, control for keyboard backlighting in quick settings, a light system theme, new wallpapers, a new default image viewer, and more.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE(+): Pictures show new fan edition tablets [WinFuture]

This could be the first look at the Google Pixel 8a, with a new design featuring rounded corners. It’s expected to have the same Google Tensor G3 chip as the upcoming Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

Pixel 8A codename Akita [@yabhishekhd]

First look at Samsung’s upcoming 10.9 inch Galaxy Tab S9 FE and 12.4 inch Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ tablets, courtesy of leaked renders. Expect Exynos 1380 chips, S-Pen support, and up to 8GB/256GB for the smaller model or 12GB/256GB for the larger.

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  1. That Thundero Mini Gaming PC is interesting. There has been an underground movement of getting SFF units (ex-Office PCs) and renovating them into TV Consoles. It’s been happening for years, since the 2005 days until around 2018. It’s died since then.

    There is the MSI Trident line, which looked promising. But nothing truly great.

    Office PCs aren’t great ANYMORE, because both Nvidia and AMD don’t really make any dGPUs that can power them, and the SFF units themselves aren’t suited to either. The Dell OptiPlex 9010 with Intel i7-3770 was the last best one, when paired up with the GTX 750Ti/1050Ti/1650-LP. Basically beating the pants off the XB1, PS4, PRO, XB1X. But newer SFF units (eg 4790/6700/8700/9900) have moved the Pcie connector (only fits the GT 1030), newer cards like A2000X isn’t cheap, and there’s no new Low Profile cards from AMD/Nvidia (they’re all longer and require 8-pin power).

    So what are you left with? There’s miniPCs which are kind of pricey. They themselves aren’t that great and have never been. For instance, the highest-end AMD r9-7840h is decent and capable… but it’s not upgradeable. And matching it for eGPU makes zero sense in terms of clutter, size and price.

    If you are savvy enough, and there is an element of LUCK involved you could MacGyver it. That means buying a very powerful Gaming Laptop, one that is Used and Broken. Then fixing it up and hiding it behind a TV to turn it into something not too different to a MiniPC. With the caveat being it is more affordable and much much more powerful, yet it still is NOT upgradable. But still you can turn that into a TV Console solution.

    The last best option I recall seeing was this particular Custom Build History. It was a Brand New SilverStone rvz02 case, original fans, ASUS x370 Wifi mITX board, EVGA GTX 1080, AMD r7-1700, 1x 16GB DDR4-3200, with Samsung 512GB nVme and 2TB HDD. Everything was done specifically and on-budget back in 2016 I think. It was later (very cheaply) upgraded to +1x 16GB RAM, r7-3700, and 4TB Sata-SSD around 2018. Then final upgrade to a 1TB Samsung nVme, Noctua Fans, r9-5800x3D, and AMD RX 6800xT in 2021. With each step off-selling old components to make the upgrades (from sales) even cheaper. That is a true Console Killer, and something that will last well into 2026. Giving it a great 10-Year lifespan which means it’s cost over time is quite low, and the most competitive thing I’ve seen against the mighty XSX.

    I was hoping a small company would offer a build like that above, but on the new AM5 Platform. A great value PC as a TV Console, but one that has upgradablility in mind. Although Microsoft is pretty incompetent, there are a lot of tools that can make the likes of Windows 10 Pro into something decent and suited for the Big Screen/Living Room experience.

    Reply

  2. And that “fixed performance target” is working so well right now. I bet Gabe is really enjoying Starfield on his underpowered handheld. Or maybe not. Probably he’s too busy counting his dollars. Or spending them. Who knows?

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    1. PlayStation exclusives aren’t available on XBox.
      Nintendo exclusives aren’t available on your PC rig.
      So …
      The goal of the Steam Deck was never to maximize the number of games that could be played. If it was, it would have run Windows. No, the goal of the Steam Deck was to provide the best handheld experience for the PC games that it could play. And it does that. For all the other games, people still have the ability to buy the devices that can play them as before.

      Reply

      1. Actually Nintendo exclusives are available because the Switch is easy to emulate with Ryujinx, but I’m digressing, the thing is that Valve was talking about making the whole Steam library playable (at 800p@30fps) back in 2021. Now we get major AAA titles, very hyped and very popular, like the new Bathesda title and at the lowest setting with upscaling you get 20fps on the Steam Deck. I feel sorry for those who believed Valve’s nonsense and went as far as thinking/saying that it could substitute their desktop.

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        1. Good luck lugging your “Rig” into the car to play while on a road trip or onto the subway heading to school or work. Just because you have no idea what the Steam Deck is for, does not mean the thousands of other people who DO understand how this form-factor is meant to be used and the great convenience it brings for PC gaming, so are greatly enjoying theirs to the fullest.

          Reply

          1. Actually, it’s millions. Millions of other users, not thousands.

            The other commenter is only correct from the standpoint that the Valve SteamDeck 1 was/is horribly delayed. If they had made 5 Million Units ready to ship during November 2019 it would’ve been great. Putting it inline with the current-gen consoles of the slow XB1 to the faster Pro-console like the XB1X. But instead it launched in a real-world sense back in July 2022, which made it a generation behind the XSS let alone the faster PS5 and XSX. And we are only seeing the fruits of that labour now with the new Game Engines (Unreal 5.3) which is really taxing even HEDT.

            So the issue is partly hardware, but it’s mostly about optimisation. Valve is wise to keep the v1.0 for longer to let the industry be accustomed to it. And hopefully when the v2.0 is released they not only have optimisations and market support, but they combine that with truly fast, impressive, custom hardware.

    2. The Steam Deck isn’t underpowered, Starfield is just an underoptimized PoS game made by a hack studio.

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    3. What does the Deck have anything to do with it when my barely 1 year old, non-water cooled Intel i7 desktop with Nvidia eGPU card running all the latest bios and drivers can’t even launch Starfield without crashing, same as a large number of other gamers have reported on forums.

      Reply

  3. Let’s hope M$ don’t gobble up Valve in the meantime…or ever for that matter!

    Reply