Last Updated on February 7, 2023 by Detective Dev
Maybe in the future with like the steam Deck 5 we'll be able to run Elder ring At 1440p Max settings but for now this Mini PC with steamos3 is really putting The power down [Music] Hey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going To be taking a look at steamos 3 Otherwise known as Steam deck OS running On the all-new menus Forum HX 99g this Is turning out to be my favorite Mini PC Of 2023 so far but we've still got a Little ways to go either way you look at It this is a very powerful unit we've Got a brand new ryzen 6000 CPU and a Dedicated Radeon GPU in a super small Form factor now the way I've got it set Up right now is on the vertical stand That it comes with but this can be set Horizontally if you kind of want to set It underneath your monitor but Personally love the way it looks like This recently on the channel we took a Look at the HX 99g running Windows but Since then I've had a lot of people Asking about Linux gaming performance so That's exactly what we're going to be Testing out in this video and uh for This we're actually going to be using The same operating system that's running On the steam DAC Steam OS 3. now to Install this to the system I've just Replaced the m.2 SSD here we've actually
Got two slots inside of the unit I could Have just added the other one but I've Got a one terabyte m.2 drive here with Hollow ISO installed if you're not Familiar with Hollow ISO this is exactly How we're going to get it up and running Right now because valve hasn't Officially released steamos 3 as an ISO Yet this team is taken upon themselves To kind of take the steam deck recovery Image and rework it so we can install it On different AMD systems I've done a lot Of testing with this personally huge fan Of the work they've done but right now Nvidia cards just aren't supported with Hollow ISO so you really got to rely on A Radeon Apu or Radeon graphics cards And with the hx99g we've actually got a Dedicated Radeon RX 6600m so this has Eight gigabytes of vram and in Windows This thing is a great performer I Consider this little setup here a 1440p High gaming setup or 1080p Ultra and With some older stuff we can go up to 4K With it if you're interested in checking Out the windows performance of the new HX 99g I'll leave a link for that that Video in the description but before we Jump into steam os3 I wanted to give you A quick rundown on the specs here so for The CPU we've got the ryzen 9 6908 Jacks This is based on Zen 3 plus we've got Eight cores 16 threads a base clock of 3.3 gigahertz and a boost up to 4.9 as
For Ram this utilizes sodem ddr5 and With this one we've got 16 gigabytes Running at 4 800 megahertz but this will Support up to 64 gigabytes of RAM we've Got the Radeon RX 660m which is really Going to up that GPU performance Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 two USB 4 ports around Back that utilize 40 gig protocols so we Can actually connect really fast storage Or an external GPU but with this there's Really not much we're going to get out Of the way with adding something a bit More powerful over Thunderbolt given That we have that 6600m already we've Got two m.2 SSD slots inside of the unit So we can add plenty of storage and it Comes with the 280 watt power supply Okay so I've already installed steam os3 To a one terabyte m.2 SSD we'll just go Ahead and boot this up everything's Working with this unit we've got Wi-Fi We've got Bluetooth 2.5 gigabit Ethernet Around back the one issue that I ran Into was uh the 6900 HX does have the Radeon 680m igpu built in I did have to Go into the BIOS and disable the igpu Completely to take full advantage of the 6600m so we're not going to be messing Around with the igpu here all of our Graphics in Steam deck os are going to Be handled by that RX 6600m and I can Tell you right now this thing is an Amazing performer running Linux Okay so obviously we got this up and
Running no issues whatsoever I just Installed it to that m.2 drive and Everything works we've got Wi-Fi we've Got Bluetooth we can open up the Performance menu over here we can enable Variable refresh rate we can also just Set the refresh rate if we want to I'm On a 144 Hertz monitor at least over HDMI so we can go up that high only Thing that we really can't control from Within steamos 3 is the TDP of the CPU And GPU all of that was really designed For the steam decks Apu and we're Working with a lot more power here you Can see that we've got that ryzen 9 6900 HX and this is running it up to 70 watts And for the GPU we've got that Radeon RX 6600m the HX 99g even at full bow is Really quiet I mean it's got one of the Best coolers that I've seen in a Mini PC Dual heatsink dual fan setup and they Don't need to spin up that high to keep The GPU and CPU cool So even with having the PC set up right Here next to the Monitor and if you were Sitting right at the desk you wouldn't Hear the fans and the PC at all even Gaming at 1440p now with steamos 3 in Order to get those higher resolutions we Will need to go into each game and we Can actually set the resolution or the Highest resolution that we can achieve And with most of this stuff I'm gonna go To 1440p but keep in mind there are more
Optimized and older games that this will Run at 4K Ultra settings you just kind Of got to do some testing and tuning First up we've got cyberpunk 2077 1440p High settings and we're actually not That far off from the windows Performance we're lack at about four or Five frames but not much at all so I was Actually expecting to get a little less Out of it with those same settings that I was using in Windows given that we're Using proton here with Linux But with it set up like this we can get An average of around 73 FPS in steamos 3. not bad at all at 1440p Next on the list Spider-Man Miles Morales 1440p very high settings we can Average around 77 FPS and you'll see it Jump up much higher when we're you know Above the buildings that's kind of Normal and to tell you the truth we are Lacking quite a bit of frames here when You compare to the windows version with These same settings we're down about 15 But since the HX 99g is putting out so Much power it's not something we really Have to worry about with this system Here if we were working with the lower End system that kind of struggled to hit That 60 FPS Mark then that would be a Very significant hit on performance but Again we've got more than enough power To run this over 60. 1440p very high Settings
Moving over to Elden ring 1440p maximum Settings we can run this at 60. now I Did see a couple dips down to 58 and I Really wish the developers would do a Little more optimizations with this game When it comes to Linux I do have a Feeling that lower end systems could run This much better you know I've run into A lot of issues with this game working With lower end gpus and CPUs and Linux But uh I mean the way it is right now You can definitely Max this out at 1440 On the hx99g Sonic Frontiers is when I always like to Come back to on Linux because when it Was first released a lot of people ran Into a lot of issues running this with Proton but uh it seems the developers Have done a lot of updates and initially Going into this game I went straight up To 4K unfortunately we don't have enough Optimizations here with the game yet to Run this at 4k on a system like this in Linux now in Windows it will run at 64k Maxed out but with this I did have to Drop it down to 1440p Horizon zero Dawn I've beat this on Playstation 5. I really wish I could get My PlayStation save over here I probably Just need to go ahead and download one Or play through the game but we're right There at the beginning 1440p High Settings we can run this really well in A system like this in Linux I've
Actually had pretty decent luck just on The steam Deck with this game at about 35 FPS Project cars 2 no it's an older one but I wanted to see if we could kind of Max This out at 4K and yeah not a problem we Can get an average of around 80 FPS here Very high settings 4K and always come Back to this one because it is my Favorite project cars game especially For the rallycross I've always enjoyed This a lot more than project cars 3 and I do think that this should be steam Deck verified even on the steam deck at 800p with a low medium mix you can get a Really good frame rate out of this Doom Eternal I wish every game ran this Well on uh you know Linux or even Windows they've just done a really great Job with the engine here 4K Ultra High Mix I did have to drop Shadows down to High because I was getting a major dip There it took me a little while to Figure out it was the Shadows causing The issue but we can get well over 60 FPS at 4k on the system in Steam OS 3. And finally God of War 1440p High Settings with FSR set to balance so I Have noticed kind of a big degradation In performance when you compare this to Windows on the same system so I did have To enable that FSR and set it right to Balance there at high settings you can Run this game at Ultra 1440p on this
System but then we have to take FSR to Performance to get it up there over 60. But with it set up like this we can get An average of around 79 FPS So obviously the minutes Forum HX 99g Can handle steamos 3 and you know They've definitely packed enough power In this so if you wanted to go with Linux or Windows it's really going to Work out very well for gaming and work Not to mention I do think that this is One of the best looking mini PCS on the Market right now and uh with this we do Get some real carbon fiber plus the Whole unit itself is made of a carbon Fiber reinforced plastic the cooling System that they have here is very Efficient and quiet we've got dual fans Here for the large heat sink inside of The unit and they work independently of Each other so you know one of them is Going to be controlling the temperatures On the GPU one of them is going to be Controlling the temperatures on the CPU So they don't have to run it full blast All the time they also use liquid metal On the CPU and we've got a big seven Pipe heatsink on this unit But that's gonna wrap it up for this one Really appreciate you watching if you're Interested in learning more about the HX 99g I'll leave some links to Menace Forum in the description and if you want To check out the windows performance
Link to that video is down below but I'd Also like to know in the comments below What you think about this Mini PC in General I mean do you like the way it Looks is it putting out enough Performance in steam or Windows is this Something you'd be interested in at the Right price let us know down below and Like always thanks for watching
