Have you ever thought that Nintendo Wii would be a good case for a mini PC? Technology by Matt apparently so – on November 3, a YouTuber uploaded a video of a custom mini PC build that took the original Wii case and repurposed it to add the internals of the Minisforum UM773 Mini PC, which is an AMD-powered platform using a Ryzen 7 7735HS APU and Radeon 680M graphics.
The Radeon 680M iGPU includes 12 RDNA 2 compute units – paired with the 8-core Zen 3+ Ryzen 7 7735HS. This means you can expect performance comparable to the enhanced Steam Deck and its custom Van Gogh APU, which uses 8 RDNA 2 compute units and 4 Zen 2 cores. Some newfangled laptops and mini PCs with Radeon 780M or 890M iGPU processors are even more powerful, but the 680M is quite the challenge – as demonstrated in the original video emulating PlayStation 3 games and even running some newfangled AAA titles at 40-60 FPS.
Those who watch the entire video will be able to see a detailed breakdown of how the final minicomputer was assembled, including how to measure and 3D print the I/O cover and attach the motherboard. The process of disassembling and trimming the original Wii is also shown, and the GameCube controller ports from the dedicated Wii U GameCube Controller Adapter are placed back into the Wii shell, rather than using the original Wii GameCube controller sockets. This was by far the most space-efficient method, and additional 3D printing adequately secured it in the system.
The final version of the Nintendo Wii sleeper looks quite neat and has been benchmarked on several emulators (even on Nintendo Switch, although that console turns out to be not entirely playable on this Mini PC hardware – the emulation load can be quite demanding), Esports titles , such as Evaluationand even AAA games like Borderland 3.
The most demanding tests end up being for Switch emulation and AAA games, where the PC seems to slacken during 1080p tests, often dropping to 40-50 FPS in more demanding titles, which is to be expected on a somewhat dated mini PC. If Tech By Matt had used the state-of-the-art Mini PC, this version of the dormant Wii computer might have turned out appropriate newfangled mini-console – but as it stands, it’s much more powerful than the original Wii or Wii U, so it’s still a solid and well-executed effort.
