Minisforum UM760 Slim review: cutting out the cruft

The Mac Mini, for many and especially since its recent big redesign, is the perfect computer. It has grunt enough to shoulder its way through intensive workloads, while being sufficiently unobtrusive as to fit into any desk setup. And that’s all for a very reasonable price, especially when factoring in an education discount, but for many it has one big, glaring flaw: it doesn’t run Windows.

With Windows might come bugs, but there’s also versatility. Although things have improved since 2020 with the initial launch of Apple Silicon, there’s still MacOS compatibility issues with some more niche programmes that just don’t exist with Microsoft’s offering. Moreover, there’s also devices running Windows, with a similar form factor to the Mini, which offer performance and cost even less – enter the Minisforum UM760 Slim.

Though it doesn’t quite match the size of the new Mac Mini, it has a full-fat powerful x86 processor contained within, an AMD option with a relatively powerful iGPU, 16GB of RAM by default as well as 1TB of storage. That’s all for a starting price of £379, or as low as £339 on offer, which for the price is a lot of computer. It doesn’t come with a screen, speakers, a mouse or a keyboard, but then neither does the Mini.

The question is, for the price, what do you sacrifice? Read on for our full review.

Minisforum UM760 Slim review: Key specifications

Design and build

The raison d’etre of the UM760 Slim is simple, it’s meant to be a competitor to the likes of the Mac Mini, while undercutting it on cost. That has meant a perhaps understandable focus on specifications at the expense of design.

Where the Mac Mini might have blended curves, a specially designed fan and a small form factor, the Slim is built from off-the-shelf components. That means while isn’t ugly by any means, it’s certainly not meant to turn heads.

It’s a small, nondescript black box intended to be mounted behind a monitor and forgotten, not to be the centrepiece of a beautiful workstation. At 132 by 126 by 56mm it’s tiny, and weighing only 598 grams it can easily be stuffed in a bag, should you so wish.

The case is polycarbonate, as might be expected given the price, and I/O is unexpectedly generous for the size. There’s an ethernet jack, an HDMI slot, five USB-A slots (three on the rear, two on the front), a USB-C slot on the rear, and headphone and microphone jacks on the front, as well as a glowing blue power button.

For most people, that will be more than enough to get through their workflow, though an SD card slot would have been nice to see. Given where this is likely to be placed, behind a monitor, many such users will likely be using dongles regardless.

There’s little to nothing in the way of ostentation, and the sides have cooling vents – large for the size but then when space is at a premium, keeping temperatures down is important.

As might be expected, in the box comes a mounting bracket, should you wish to place it behind your monitor and maintain the ultimate clean desk setup.

In all, it’s everything a mini-PC should be from a design perspective. It’s small, easily hidden, robust and has a good selection of ports. One criticism, however, is the lack of USB-C slots, with only one provided. That’s enough to hook up to a dongle, however, it would have been nice to see at least one extra provided.

Features

At £449, the main purpose of the UM760 Slim isn’t to provide a lot of frippery or extraneous features, there’s no RGB or fancy software add-ons; it’s there to be fast and cheap.

That isn’t to say that it isn’t kitted out with some useful extras, for example, there’s a fan billed as ‘silent’ along with three copper heat pipes. And in use, though the unit does get toasty under heavy load, the fan mostly stays quiet. It certainly isn’t the equivalent of those fitted to some laptops where it can sound as though they have a small jet engine contained within.

It can also support up to three displays via its ports, up to one 8K display at 60Hz, or 4K at 120Hz over HDMI 2.1, 4K at 144Hz over Display Port and one 4K display at 240Hz over USB-C, which is more than the Mac Mini, and certainl,y the MacBook Air, can claim.

A USB4 slot is also offered, which allows data transfer at up to 40Gbps, perfect for transferring large files from an external drive. Internally, this is a machine to be upgraded too, supporting up to 96GB of RAM in total, along with 4TB of storage.

Lastly, though it doesn’t need to be said, the default of 16GB of DDR5 RAM for the price is not to be scoffed at. In a price bracket where many come with as little as 4GB of RAM, having 16GB opens up a lot more potential workflows and use cases, taking this little machine from an internet browser to a capable performer.

Benchmark scoring

Performance

And so we arrive at the most important point, performance, on which the UM760’s entire sell rests, that it is both small and able to keep up with intense workloads.

The star of the show is the included Ryzen 5 7640HS processor, a 4nm effort launched in January 2023 which boasts 6 cores and 12 threads, as well as Radeon 760M integrated graphics. It isn’t quite enough to set the world alight, however for under £400, and with 16GB of RAM included, it does make a difference.

Totally subjectively, in everyday use, the machine flew through everything I could throw at it. Whether that was light to medium-intensity games, word processing, web browsing with umpteen tabs open, or Photoshop work, it handled all without breaking a sweat and didn’t get too hot while doing so.

Under load, the fan did whirr into life and was audible, but never distractingly so. The 16GB of RAM included is enough to futureproof the machine for some time, I never ran into memory management issues, during my time with it.

Performance in benchmarks reflects that this is a potent but nonetheless decidedly mid-range processor. Managing 6,192 in Pugetbench Photoshop and 2,637 in Premiere Pro, it’s capable of working reasonably quickly through complex files, working particularly well in photo editing, no doubt in part due to its relatively powerful iGPU.

It won’t trouble or challenge the high-end competition with its performance, but then the point lands again that this is a machine for around £/$350. If you are a professional needing the very best in performance, it isn’t for you, however, if you have a lighter workload and a smaller budget, it’s an attractive package.

Coming back to gaming, this isn’t a machine that will see you beat the big leagues, howeve,r it does manage to put on a decent show, managing frame rates in the mid to high twenties when playing on low settings at 1080p in Cyberpunk 2077. That of course means it isn’t brilliant with more intensive newer titles, but if you are willing to drop quality settings and accept lower frame rates, you’ll be able to play older titles in particular with ease.

Price

The Minisforum UM760 Slim is available now from Amazon and Minisforum directly for prices starting at £379/$319, with lower prices frequently available due to regular discounts.

Who is it for?

If you are a student, or someone with light to moderate workloads looking for an option that will fit into nearly any desk setup while not breaking the bank, the Minisforum UM760 Slim is for you. For those who need portability however, a laptop will be a much better option.

Buy it if…

• You want something unobtrusive which can be hidden
• You have a light to medium workflow
• You want something that isn’t wildly expensive

Don’t buy it if…

• You need a dedicated GPU
• You need portability
• You need the absolute best in performance