https://aoostar.com/blogs/news/brief-introduction-to-the-g-flip-series-machines
This little beast has an 8 core 16 thread AMD Risen 7 H255, which scores better than my i7-12700H Minisforum NPB7 which I use for Proxmox hosting. I also have a Minisforum MS-01 with an i9-13900H which would also be bested in many operations by this much less expensive box, although the MS-01 has 2x SFP+ ports built in which is very useful for me – no need to carry around a 10Gbit adapter – this is also a Proxmox setup.
Having the built in 5″ touch screen, while small, could be useful in some situations. On the Minisforum PCs I have to interact at boot time in order to get Proxmox to load correctly – so I need a screen plugged in regardless. This is after disabling secure boot, and going through the semi-painful method of BIOS update (I wasn’t booting off a Windows partition which makes this more troublesome).
The barebones box is $300 on Amazon right now which is a killer deal. Some builds with the same CPU are twice the cost without a screen, and many having only 1x RJ-45 ethernet which is limiting for my use. The screen is reportedly a true 4k, 1920x1080p – which will make things very small but having resolution is better than not. I can still enlarge whatever is displayed but have more clarity than a lower resolution screen.
2x USB4 ports
1x OcuLink (must power cycle PC if connecting/disconnecting to avoid blowing out the board) – I don’t need this myself
2x USB 3.2 Gen 2
2x USB 2.0
Dual 2.5G multi-Gig ports – nice, not 10G but still very nice.
HDMI
So while the core count is reduced over the i7 and i9 that I have, I normally do not need to fully load up the box – I may be running 1-2x virtual machines at a time. I am curious about swapping the CPU potentially, although there is reportedly a Ryzen 9 that is or was out at one point in time although I haven’t been able to locate one.
Looking forward to setting this up, when I can find time. I’ll tip off some other folks who also carry around compact Proxmox setups, so long as this pans out as I hope it will.