The Beelink SER10 Max might look like a standard Mac Mini-style mini PC, but this unit is fairly unique when compared to many of its other Mini PC compatriots – it comes dual-booted with both Windows 11 and Ubuntu, the latter of which also comes with OpenClaw and a lightweight local AI model pre-installed on the drive. Sporting AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, a light refresh that boosts performance over its predecessor by 100Hz and AI TOPS to 55 over 50, is the curious configuration a simple party trick, or is the $1,649 mini PC doing something actually useful?

Outfitted in a vibrant red, the PC comes ready to dual-boot between Windows 11 and Ubuntu with the additional boon of OpenClaw having been pre-installed on the system alongside a local AI model – Qwen 3.5-9B-Q4_K_M – on the Ubuntu install, meaning that setting the SER10 Max up for AI usage should be fairly straightforward. It’s important to note here that, despite the branding and usefulness of the setup, the HX 470 is hamstrung by a maximum memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, a far cry from the Strix Halo’s 256 GB/s, meaning that local AI performance will be somewhat limited.

Design of the Beelink SER10 Max

Beelink has taken a few notes from Apple’s playbook for the design of the SER10 Max. While the underside and rear of the chassis are both made from plastic, the rest of the shell is made from high-quality machined aluminum. Our unit comes in with a red anodized aluminum finish, which looks fantastic, though it might not be to everyone’s taste. The red finish is specifically for units that come with the “OpenClaw” feature pre-installed. For everyone else, there’s a silver finish, which makes the unit look even more Mac Mini-inspired.

One thing to note about the SER10 Maxis is that, unlike some other mini PC’s, the power supply is external, meaning that you’ll have to find a place for the power brick to live. Luckily, the unit we were shipped came with a fairly long cable. It’s a tight, well-made package sporting vapor chamber cooling and a single active fan that never gets too loud while under heavy loads, which is a rarity when dealing with PCs in this form factor.

Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Beelink SER10 Max

There’s some easy-access ports on the front, though I would have liked to have seen more Type-C ports over Type-A. The USB4 functionality might also come in handy for anyone looking to run an eGPU dock. On the back, 10Gbps Ethernet could make it a handy machine for running locally connected workstations for AI development (though on this machine, it's probably better for fast networking). There’s nothing special to write home about here, though the additional feature of auto-power on via LAN is incredibly welcome, cementing the way that this PC is specifically positioned as a satellite compute unit.

The SER10 Max can be quite easily opened up, once you get past the adhesives. There are four rubber feet at the bottom of the chassis, which are unfortunately glued to the heads of the four screws. These are quite strongly bonded, and when I removed one of the small rubber stoppers, it flew off my desk, and into oblivion, never to be found again. Once you’ve taken your handy spudger or guitar pick, all it takes is removing four Phillips head screws, and a tug of a rubber tag at the bottom of the unit to remove the plastic bottom panel. There, you’ll be met with a dust filter, which takes another two screws to access the components within.

Our unit came with two populated dual-channel DDR5 SODIMM slots, in addition to two NVMe drives (one for each slot, housing each OS), which are underneath a heatsink, which is partially taped to another part of the chassis. You can easily remove the two screws holding the SSD heatsinks in place and lift it up, revealing two populated M.2 2280 slots, each housing a Crucial 1TB drive. Beneath the one on the right is an additional M.2 2230 slot, which is shielded, housing the Intel AX200 Bluetooth and Wi Fi module. These core components are all very easily accessible, meaning that if you wanted to upgrade your storage or if anything goes wrong with your connectivity at some point, it’s all user-replaceable, which isn’t a given with this segment of small PCs.

Productivity Performance on the Beelink SER10 Max

The SER10 Max’s performance across productivity workloads squarely put it in the middle of the pack for our currently tested suite of mini PC benchmarks. That’s no bad thing – the system can handle everyday office and demanding CPU tasks thanks to its 12-core / 24-thread configuration, which shines in multi-threaded workloads. In everyday use, I was not wanting for any more power than what was already on offer here.

Kicking things off with single-threaded results, we see that the Beelink SER10 Max sits slightly ahead of the HX370-based Arctic Senza AI 370, though it loses out to the MSI Cubi AI+ 3MG NUC, the latter of which uses an Intel Core Ultra 386H. Both HX470 systems in our benchmarks were slightly edged out by the GMKtec EVO-T2, a Core Ultra X7 358H-based system. In Geekbench 6’s single-threaded results, we see that the system fares slightly better than our overall geomean ranking, leading at the top of the pack by a slim margin. Multi-threaded workloads also tell a similar story, with the Beelink SER10 Max sitting second in our list of benchmarks against other systems, but not far behind the Arctic Senza AI 370, which, in all fairness, is only a single point ahead.

In real-world tasks, such as video editing for Tom’s Hardware’s ‘Quick Takes’ using Capcut, I found that the Beelink SER10 Max performed admirably, loading and rendering video, cutting and rendering at a solid speed, so I wasn’t waiting around for effects to be rendered within the timeline. In the videos I edited on the Beelink SER10 Max, I didn’t feel as though I was waiting around for anything to be rendered, effects to be applied, nor was I wishing that I was editing on a more powerful system. However, editing using a “light” video editor like CapCut, against something more powerful like creating effects using After Effects and Premiere, are very different things. Throughout operation, we only heard the Beelink SER10 Max crank its single fan up to full tilt once, during a synthetic workload. Otherwise, the system was remarkably quiet throughout our testing.

Gaming and Graphics on the Beelink SER10 Max

The Beelink SER10 Max is equipped with AMD’s RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 890M GPU, which features 16 CUs at speeds of up to 3.1 GHz. This isn’t going to suddenly be able to run every game perfectly, as the device out of the box is configured to dedicate only 4GB of its memory pool to VRAM. Given that we have a lot of memory in the system, those looking to game may wish to extend that RAM pool further for peace of mind that they won’t run out of VRAM throughout. All of our tests were run with the 4GB VRAM pool, as was configured out of the box, meaning that you’ll likely find some performance gains should you tweak it to be slightly higher.

In Cyberpunk 2077’s “Steam Deck” configuration at 1080p, the SER10 Max offers playable performance at 1% lows of 42 FPS and an average of 51 FPS, respectively. On Cyberpunk 2077’s High setting with all upscalers turned off, we see 1% lows of 25 FPS and an average of 30 FPS. In Cyberpunk, the Beelink SER10 Max is trailed only by the Arctic Senza AI 370, which has a faster memory pool, and the GMKTec Evo T2’s Arc B390, which also has faster memory.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the same pattern is echoed; faster memory is just as important for serving frames as the silicon within, though the Beelink SER10 Max achieves an average of 52 FPS and 1% low of 40 FPS. This isn’t going to become a AAA games machine, nor should you expect it to perform that way. Synthetic benchmarks confirm what our real-world testing tells us – the newer Gorgon Point silicon doesn’t make up for slower memory when compared to the Arctic Senza AI 370’s 32GB of soldered LPDDR5X-8000.

However, in smaller and simpler titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong, the SER10 Max managed to reach an average of 100 FPS at 4K with V-Sync off, Particle Effects set to Normal, and Blur Quality set to High. This is about as expected for a 2D game of this type, and aside from the odd hiccup when transitioning between areas, it ran extremely well. In Stardew Valley while tending to my crops, the SER10 Max at 4K maintained a steady 60 FPS throughout.

While those two are markedly lighter titles, I also played co-op climbing hit Peak on the system, where running things at a native 4K resolution came up against the reality of its default 4GB VRAM configuration with render scaling set to native, where the game struggled to reach a baseline of 30 FPS, with the rest of the game set to High. Punching all the settings, including render scaling to Medium, I managed to get things running at a steady average of around 70 FPS. So long as you keep your expectations in check regarding performance in heavier 3D titles, the SER10 Max is a performant “indie” machine. Just don’t expect to light the world on fire with all the latest bells and whistles, or run expect to run the newest titles at native 4K resolutions.

Dual Booting on the Beelink SER10 Max

Dual booting between Ubuntu and Windows 11 is one of this unit’s flagship features, isn’t quite as straightforward as you might be led to believe. Instead of being met with an option between the two upon booting the unit to switch between OS’s, you must instead switch the boot drives within the BIOS to get to your preferred OS. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but there are some more caveats to the feature that potential buyers should know about.

Ubuntu and Windows 11, even while running on different NVMe drives, don’t play well together unless you’ve set up Windows first. In particular, the networking chip wasn’t recognized by Ubuntu until I had booted up Windows 11, set up the device, and restarted the system to boot into Windows again, then switched to Ubuntu. No amount of driver installations or re-installations on Ubuntu managed to solve the issue on our end. That was the only real problem that we encountered when testing the Ubuntu installation on our review unit.

Secondly, the OpenClaw installation is remarkably simple to set up, with Beelink itself offering a setup guide for new users (like me) who had never used OpenClaw before. A well-documented setup guide, and 10 minutes later, I had my own local LLM running on the system, and communicating to me via Telegram on my phone. It’s worth mentioning that Beelink also offers a pre-installed LLM for OpenClaw usage on the device, in this case, Qwen 3.5-9B-Q4_K_M.

When querying the model in the llama.cpp front-end, we found that the model ran at 11.4 TPS, which is quite slow. A 1,350-token query took around two minutes in total to generate, which is a fairly slow speed for those looking for light, fast responses. Getting OpenClaw to learn new skills is a crucial part of having a model running on your phone. Without it, the model will just occasionally lie to you. That’s not the PC’s fault, but a byproduct of running a 9B model locally. During the setup of OpenClaw, you can also install other LLMs that fit into the system’s memory, such as Google’s Gemma 4 model or other lightweight LLMs. However, given that this system cannot quite manage to fit larger, more complex LLMs locally, you also have the option to use an API key for your provider of choice, which removes some of the load and opens the door to running more agents concurrently on the system.

The reality is that for Local AI and AI development, you’d be more suited to spending more on an AMD Strix Halo or Nvidia DGX Spark-based system, as those offer much more performant architectures and higher memory bandwidth for running larger, heavier local models. However, for those looking to simply dip their feet into the Local AI waters, the SER10 Max is capable of running some of those tasks, but you’ll be looking to upgrade your hardware sooner rather than later if this is the main reason behind your purchase.

Software and Warranty on the Beelink SER10

The SER10 Max comes with a delightfully lightweight and bloat-free Windows 11 installation, shipped with Windows 11 Pro 24H2, meaning that once you get the unit, you’ll likely want to upgrade it to 25H2 if yours hasn't already. Oddly enough, it took a few attempts to successfully install it, after several rounds of failed updates. Soon after, we were up and running with no issues, but Beelink should really update its Windows installation image to 25H2 to smooth onboarding for new users. Over on the Ubuntu side, you’re simply looking at having all the files for OpenClaw pre-installed. This is a pretty refreshing take, as the system is not filled with bloatware. Once you’ve installed all of your drivers on the system, then things are fairly nimble and lightweight.

Beelink offers a three-year warranty on its website, which covers manufacturing defects or if the product does not work as advertised. While you can go straight to Beelink’s website and purchase the system, many models of the SER10 Max are also available via Amazon.

Beelink SER10 Max Configurations

Beelink offers the SER10 Max in a multitude of flavors and configurations. The base model offers Windows 11 Pro, in 32GB/1TB and 64GB/1TB flavors with a silver anodized aluminum finish, priced at $1.299 and $1,599, respectively. The “OpenClaw” models ship with Ubuntu and come in the red colorway and can be specced slightly higher. The 32GB / 1TB will cost you $40 more than the Windows 11-based equivalent, while the 64GB / 1TB OpenClaw config retains pricing parity to its Windows 11-based brethren.

The OpenClaw configurations also ship with more DDR5-5600 RAM and 2TB of storage. The configuration we reviewed, the 64GB / 2TB OpenClaw model, will set you back $1,799, and is the only model that ships dual-booted. You can also equip yourself with a 96GB / 2TB variant, which tops out at $2,199.

Shopping around for other Gorgon Point Mini PC’s of this type, Geekcom’s A9 Max is $100 more expensive for the base model, whereas the MINISFORUM AI X1 Pro-470 in a 64GB/1TB variant costs $1,639, whereas Beelink’s SER10 model with the same RAM and storage capacities is slightly cheaper at $1,599.

Bottom Line

The Beelink SER10 Max’s appeal is curious. On one hand, you have a well-performing desktop PC that can churn through most productivity and performance tasks with ease, and is even well-suited for some light gaming. For the past week and change, it’s even acted as a suitable replacement for my desktop gaming PC in a pinch, and I’ve not been left wanting on the performance front in my day-to-day usage. The biggest weakness of the SER10 Max is in its fairly limited memory bandwidth, capped at 89.6 GB/s. We’ve seen this limitation crop up in some gaming workloads, where previous-generation silicon with faster RAM beat the SER10 Max’s HX470 out. We’ve also seen the unit butt up against this limitation when serving tokens for local AI models, as the system must communicate between the model weights stored in the RAM and push them through the APU for every single token generated.

Where the confusion comes is in the OpenClaw-based branding of the unit, as a result. The Ubuntu dual-boot is handy, but far from a difficult task to perform for someone familiar with the platform. For prospective AI developers, there is merit in being able to run a smaller model locally at lower token speeds, while also leveraging a more powerful cloud model. But you would need to take a hybrid approach. Don’t expect to suddenly abandon your Claude subscription for a model that this the SER10 Max can run – you’ll only set yourself up for disappointment. This makes the OpenClaw branding come across more like a marketing gimmick, rather than an actual day-in-day-out use case, unless you’re dedicated enough to set up a hybrid local and cloud AI setup, where you’re passing off smaller tasks to a slower locally-run model.

This makes the particular configuration that we’ve reviewed niche in its overall utility for AI enthusiasts. You have to go in understanding all of the limitations of the hardware before even considering purchasing it. For some, the configuration on offer here will suit just fine; for others, particularly those interested in running powerful local AI models – you should instead look toward systems with faster memory bandwidth, higher memory capacities, and speeds. Luckily, it’s not a dedicated AI box, and the SER10 Max is a quiet, performant desktop computer that’ll suit most everyday tasks incredibly well.

When I had a kid, I found myself taking a lot more photos. When a baby lies on its back considering a ceiling fan for half an hour, you can suddenly find yourself with dozens of cute shots. And it doesn't stop when they grow up.

At a certain point, this bounty of photos weighed on me. I would look at my photo library on my phone or computer and worry about what would happen if something went wrong. It was time for a backup methodology more advanced than plugging in an external drive a few times a month.

At first, I thought about a NAS, which seemed like the obvious solution. But as I researched (and saw how expensive HDDs are these days), I opted for a mini PC. I was lucky enough to score a Mac Mini with M4, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage on Apple's refurbished store a few weeks before the company raised its prices. The best time to buy it would have been at $399 on sale at MicroCenter. The second best time was when I did it.

An M4 Mac Mini is overkill for my project. M1 would've done the job. Any number of older Intel- or AMD-based mini PCs would've been sufficient, and most homelabbers rely on Linux or even Windows for a reason. The M4 will future-proof this machine. It is, though, admittedly funny to me that one of the most powerful computers in my home is running headless in a closet.

But the Mac has other benefits. For one, my home has a lot of Apple products in it. While I'm equally comfortable with Windows and macOS, my wife is exclusively in Apple's ecosystem. So when I realized I would want this system to back up her photos and documents too, making that easy was important. I'm able to access it from either my MacBook Pro or my custom-built PC over VNC or SSH on the command line. There are a few other benefits of using macOS if you have other Apple devices in your home.

My overkill hardware

The M4 Mac Mini is far more than this project needs. But on the plus side, it should see support for a long time. And frankly, getting one during the shortage was just kind of a thrill.

The 256GB of storage is being used exclusively for the operating system and any applications. All of my actual data is on a series of external drives, most of which I already had lying around. That includes a 4TB PCIe NVMe SSD and 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD in enclosures (the former with Thunderbolt 3). But I also wanted a spinning hard drive for longer-term storage. For that, I opted for a Seagate FireCuda Vault X, which isn't the cheapest option, but can connect over USB-C bus power without the need for external power.

All of this is hidden on the top shelf of a closet. This isn't the ideal space, but it's the only one that will work. I live in an apartment, and that closet is where the sole Ethernet connection comes in. I already had my router and modem there. I've hooked up the Mac Mini to the router, connecting it to my home network.

The Mac Mini runs non-stop. That's good, because the power button is on the bottom, and I'd hate to have to pick it up every time I want to shut it off. (Also, I need a step-stool to reach that shelf.)

Backups and redundancy

The SSDs and HDD are all connected to the Mac Mini via the system's USB-C ports. The Thunderbolt enclosure and the HDD are attached to Thunderbolt 4 ports on the rear (the latter to ensure it gets the wattage it needs), while the 2TB SSD in the USB-C enclosure is connected to a 10GB/s USB-C port on the front.I've put too much thought into each drive's purpose.

The main drive is the 4TB USB-C drive, which has two volumes on it (unlike partitions, which macOS also allows, volumes are more flexible with free space). My main volume is for extra copies of important documents, my Apple Photo library, and also for backups of photos I keep outside of Apple's library (I have a tendency to clean house every few years). If I create any files I want to back up on my Windows PC, this is where I go to back them up on site. And lastly, I have a folder just to store files that aren't critical but that I might want to access from any machine. Why keep them on my laptop when I have terabytes of storage to play with?

But the second volume, which is just a small portion of the drive, is also for excess data I don't want to keep on the internal drive. At the moment, that's largely dedicated to macOS content caching (see below).

My 2TB SSD is for Time Machine backups. I can use macOS's built-in backup tool over the network to back up my laptop without plugging anything in.

The HDD is a redundancy play. That's currently split in half — one volume as an alternate Time Machine destination (letting me switch between the SSD and HDD), and the other volume is a copy of my important documents and photo library, which is cloned each night using Carbon Copy Cloner.

This is all in my home, of course, so if my computers and Mac Mini were in the same fire, much of my data would still be lost. Without an offsite backup, I would be in violation of the 3-2-1 backup rule (three backups on two storage devices, with one of them offsite). I keep many of my most important photos and files elsewhere in the cloud, in a mix of iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox. It's not a great system, and could use improvement, but it's better than nothing. If HDD prices were to go down, perhaps I could replace the Vault with another one and swap them once a month, keeping the other at a family member's home.

Running headless

I could put a monitor on the top shelf of my closet, but I've opted for a better model: running the Mac Mini headless.

Mostly, this meant setting up the Mini (with a monitor, naturally), to prepare it before booting it up. For me, this included removing a lot of the iCloud syncing it would normally do (I only want it downloading my original, full-sized photos from iCloud, but it doesn't need to get texts), preventing automatic sleeping, allowing for file and screen sharing on the network, and making security decisions that allow me to access the system and files remotely and securely while also deciding how often I want to have to take the thing down from the closet to log back in with a password.

From another Mac, it's very easy to use virtual network computing (VNC) via the built-in screen-sharing utility. From Windows, I can still use a program like RealVNC to access the desktop. I also reduced motion and graphics, set a solid color background, and made other tweaks in an attempt to reduce the amount of data or lag I might see over a remote connection.

There's also the option for SSH. I'm still working to be a bit more proficient at the command line, but you can do that either in macOS in the Terminal or Windows in the Command Prompt or PowerShell.

I've also seen that some people swear by running the Mac Mini headless by using an HDMI dummy plug to force high resolutions when remoting in. But using Mac Screen sharing, I haven't particularly had a problem.

Managing on the go

Typically, I'm more than OK with having what amounts to a backup server accessible locally. But what if I need a file that I'm storing on the server and I'm not at home?

For that, I've created a Tailscale network consisting of my laptop, the Mac Mini, and my iPhone. This gives each device a semi-permanent address I can access it through, as long as both are on the network.

That makes it easy enough from a laptop. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't have the super-easy Screen Sharing tool that macOS does. So on mobile, I have the RealVNC mobile app, which can access the Mac Mini either through the local address or Tailscale. Using a virtual desktop on a phone's touch screen isn't ideal, but it's not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

Mac benefits and drawbacks

Let's be clear: macOS is not designed for servers (macOS Server was discontinued in 2022). I am very aware that home networking purists would much rather use their preferred Linux distribution, or even Windows. And that's OK!

But if you have Apple devices in your own home, there are some benefits to having a Mac in your homelab.

My favorite of these is content caching, which can keep copies of macOS or iOS updates, App Store updates, or data stored in iCloud in the cache, so that they can be sent to other devices on a local network more quickly.

For those who are using macOS, it's nice to be able to use Time Machine, and mount other drives in the Finder the way you would with a Thunderbolt or USB-C drive and just have it on the desktop.

And yes, for management, the aforementioned Screen Sharing app is pretty solid, and it’s one less piece of software you need to worry about.

Additionally, the machine is whisper-quiet, rarely uses more than 3% of the CPU (and often less), and is efficient enough that I've noticed no substantial change to my electric bill.

The only real drawback for my use case is that while the M4 SoC will keep this project future-proof for a bit, adding RAM is impossible. I opted for the 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD model for budgetary reasons, but it's possible that, depending on what else I want to do with it, that could eventually hamper me down the line. It's especially the case if I ever want to get more into local AI.

However, once I get more advanced, there are some applications that would run more easily if I had gone for a Linux device. Instead, I'll need Docker or VMs.

What I need next

A project like this one is never truly finished. I have the Mac; I have it backing up my stuff (It ends up that after all this, I'm still working on getting my wife to back up her end). There's much more that I want to do down the line. Perfect, however, is the enemy of getting started at all.

One good item for this project would be a small uninterruptible power supply in the case of a power outage. Another would be a dock. A number of third-party companies make docks specifically for the Mac Mini that can fit an SSD, which might be a good way of organizing my cable mess. But if I ever switch computers, that dock will likely end up being less friendly for cable management.

There's also a whole bunch more I want to do with the Mac Mini. I don't have a ton of Smart Home equipment in my apartment, but what I do have is a mix of older Alexa-focused stuff. If I wanted to control that with Apple Home, I could try hosting Home Bridge. Or if I want to move to a more private system, I could install Home Assistant on the Mac Mini using a virtual machine.

I could also toy with PiHole, though again, I would have to use Docker or a Virtual Machine. That would let me block ads across my network (while whitelisting the ones I want to support, of course).

Further down my list are a Plex or Jellyfin server. I don't own that much physical media, but being able to access what I do have virtually could lead me to consider it among my subscription options. I could also use one of these to offload my MP3 collection from my laptop.

But for now, the file server and backups have given me some peace of mind. My photo library certainly isn't getting any smaller. I just hope storage prices fall before I need another drive.

Intel’s codename "Panther Lake" Core Ultra Series 3 mobile processors were designed for laptops, but now we are starting to see them trickle over into mini PCs. That includes the recently launched MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG (starting from $569, $1,999 as tested). This particular design is pleasingly compact and low-key in a traditional NUC manner, but can this matte black panther roar?

Design of the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Simply put, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG is a very compact roughly 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.5-inch design with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H chip inside.

The Core Ultra 9 386H delivers 16 cores and threads of processing power (6P + 8E + 2LPE) running at up to 4.9 GHz. MSI is also selling models with the Ultra 7 355, and Ultra 5 322 processors.

The Cubi’s shell is sturdy and pleasant enough in a matte black finish, made from recycled plastics. Inside, the motherboard is held firm inside what looks like a folded sheet aluminum frame.

Another welcome feature is the external power switch. This is a small power button puck on a slim connector that is 18 inches (45 cm) long. There’s a dedicated port for this on the left side of the Cubi, and the end of the puck is mounts with a little double-sided foam tape..

The power button dongle is a nice touch for those who might mount the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG somewhere out of view, like behind a monitor or under a desk. Those who keep the Cubi in reach can benefit from the fact that the power button on the unit has an embedded fingerprint reader. I found the biometric unlocking here to be hit and miss, however, and it often didn’t recognize my thumb.

MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

MSI has implemented a couple of physical convenience features in the build, starting with the three-step toolless access system.

All you have to do to pop the metal bottom off is turn a slotted screw, push a metal latch, and pull a ring. The trouble is I did need a tool to turn the first slotted screw, I fear my fingernail would have split if I hadn't grabbed a screwdriver. The force of pulling a tiny ring attached to the latch was also slightly concerning.

Beyond the Core Ultra 9 386H processor, our sample came loaded with 32GB of DDR5 (2x 16GB DDR5-5600 SODIMMs made by Samsung) and a removable 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2280 DRAM-less SSD from Phison. With these inserted, the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG was fully populated. \The Wi-Fi card is also removable from its M.2 2230 slot.

On the front of the unit, there are three ports: USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 2.0 ports, and a 10 GBps USB-C port. On the back, there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two HDMI 2.1 ports (one with MSI PowerLink, which turns the PC on with a monitor), and a pair of 2.5G Ethernet jacks. Finally, on the side of the system, there's a Kensington lock slot.

I feel that the MSI is slightly stingy with ports here. Most notably, there is not even a single USB Type-A port in the rear. So I had to use a USB-C dongle to keep my wired keyboard connected at the back for the tidiest possible setup.

It is good to see various USB ports on the front, however. And I appreciate that this small device allows up to four displays at once (2x HDMI, 2x USB-C DP-Alt).

For wireless networking, there is Wi-Fi 7 on board and Bluetooth 5.4 is also built-in.

There is no 3.5mm audio jack here, which would have been welcome on the front. You'll need Bluetooth, or to use audio out through HDMI or USB Type-C ports.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

The MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG was built to be an office workhorse, so there won’t be many complaints about performance. It comes wielding Intel’s latest silicon, with 16 cores to take CPU-demanding tasks and multitasking in its stride. And the system does its job while sipping very low amounts of power, and rather quietly.

In Cinebench 2026, Maxon’s current-gen CPU rendering benchmark, the little MSI Cubi comes last in the rankings of our recent crop of mini PCs. Though low in comparison to its peers, its score isn’t disastrous here, as this is testing the kind of CPU muscle that won’t be called upon by a typical home or office user of a mini PC like this.

Similarly, in CPU-heavy benchmarks like Blender and Handbrake, the MSI Cubi lags behind the crowd. Even against the GMKtec EVO-T2, which also uses Panther Lake silicon and has fewer P-cores, the MSI still lags here. We are certain this is due to MSI’s default configuration maxing out at around 55W. The GMKtec machine was seen pulling over 70W at the wall.

On a more positive note, during our demanding tests, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG stayed admirably cool and quiet. This feat was clearly aided by the chosen lower power limits and use of Intel’s newest energy-sipping mobile silicon in this form factor.

Gaming and Graphics on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Unlike some mini PCs, this one isn't squarely targeted at gamers. Still, with a mere quartet of Xe3 cores pushing the 3D visuals along, this compact and quiet mini PC can do some gaming.

I fired up Forza Horizon 5 for a bit of racing down in Mexico. I liked the High and 1080p settings, and the game managed 45-40 frames per second. The frame rate felt like it dropped precipitously every few minutes as I was driving around, though. This indicates that the game's suggested Low or even Medium settings would be a better choice for consistency.

Our benchmarks included a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs, some with dGPUs. Last and definitely not least, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections.

Next up, some real gaming courtesy of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the little MSI Cubi can - and can't - play this game.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider performed quite nicely on the Intel Graphics (four Xe3 cores) fed by the dual-channel DDR5-5600 memory configuration we had. Using the High settings at 1080p makes for pleasing visuals, and I would argue the 37 FPS average was perfectly adequate for this solo-play atmospheric adventure.

Cyberpunk achieved a similarly playable frame rate using the Steam Deck preset at 1080p. On a big screen this is a little bit blurry / smeary. Moving up to the High preset at 1080p (with upscaling and frame gen turned off) dropped the frame rate below the magic 30 FPS, though, and below most folks' tolerance. If you had no other avenue to enjoy this demanding title, there could still be a spot in between these settings that would work for you.

In comparison to the other devices we have recently tested, the MSI NUC sat near the bottom of the pile. It only undercut the Geekom A9 Max 2026, which should have benefited from a great performing Radeon 890M iGPU but was kneecapped due to its single-channel memory configuration. This system is really made for work, and while you can technically play on it, you'll want something stronger for a good experience.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

According to system tools like HWiNFO, the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor inside this MSI Cubi has a TDP of 25W, with PL1 30W and PL2 65W. During testing, I measured total system power consumption with a plug-in power meter, as well as reading CPU temperature using a Windows tool.

In an idling state on the desktop, the system pulled around 17W consistently. At the same time, the CPU temperature would stick around 40 degrees Celsius.

During prolonged stress testing of the MSI Cubi, the highest consistent wattage consumed was around 55W. It seemed to stabilize at approximately the 75 degrees Celsius level.

I would characterize this as a quiet mini PC. Its MSI Frozr AI Pro fans were more or less unnoticeable in idle and light loads. My meter showed 30.8dB, and the meter doesn't measure below 30, so there's a possibility it may be even quieter. Meanwhile, the 37.3dB at max fans wasn't horrible, and it takes effort to tease this much noise out of the MSI.

Software and Warranty on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

MSI’s latest NUC comes with MSI Center pre-installed. This is a suite of controls and extras wrapped up in a tabbed Windows interface. The main tab is packed with system monitoring information, but this new version of the tool offers to leverage AI to “automatically recognize various user scenarios, triggering appropriate adjustments in performance, sound effects, display mode,” and more. Elsewhere, MSI’s NUC was pleasingly free of bloat and third-party clutter, including a wonderful lack of short-lived free trials. Businesses really don't want to deal with that.

MSI sells the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with a 1-year warranty as standard, but opting for a pre-built configuration with Windows 11 Pro on Amazon will also boost your warranty to 3 years of advanced tier coverage.

Configurations of the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Nosing around online retailers in the U.S. today didn’t uncover the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with the exact configuration, as tested. We got in touch with MSI about the 32GB RAM model, as tested, and were informed that it was only available business-to-business and its MSRP was $1,999 but that depends on factors such as order size.

On Amazon we saw a barebones version with the same Core Ultra 9 386H for $809. Upgrading to 16GB of RAM (single-SODIMM, single-channel) and a 1TB SSD, with Windows 11 pre-installed skyrockets the price to $1,661 (with Win 11 Home) and $1,767 (with Win 11 Pro), respectively.

MSI is also marketing Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG mini PCs with Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 355 and Ultra 5 Processor 322 configurations. You can find these on Amazon, both in 16GB/1TB/ configurations for $1,549 and $1,079, respectively.

Bottom Line

Though the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG is clearly aimed at businesses with its productivity focus . Its understated looks and quiet operation may attract those who want a small-form-factor productivity PC at home, especially if they intend on putting together a minimum-fuss multi-monitor setup.

If the MSI’s quiet, efficient, and compact form isn’t a killer combination for you, and you are open to less established brands, we have recently tested several other mini PCs from companies like Arctic, Beelink, GMKtec, and Geekom.

These less established brands definitely offer better value with more potent processors, and more generous memory/storage configurations, at better or similar pricing to the MSI. In the MSI’s favor, I’d say it quietly satisfies its target market more than adequately, and sprinkles attractive bonuses like fingerprint security, the remote power button, MSI Power Link, the touted ‘tool-less’ component access, and 3-years of advanced warranty coverage when you choose a Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with Win 11 Pro.

Correction, July 30:, 2026 This review originally said the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG includes vPro remote management. It does not. We regret the error.

AMD introduced its mid-cycle Ryzen AI 400 chips for laptops at the beginning of the year. Predictably, mini PC makers have decided to update their Ryzen AI 300 designs from last year with the newest generation processors. While the gains from the new silicon might be politely described as incremental, Geekom here has also taken the opportunity to upgrade the cooling system.

The firm also decided to go with a single 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM configuration here. Considering the ongoing RAM shortages, it says it decided to do so to allow for less wasteful upgrades down the line. However, AMD iGPUs like the Radeon 890M here, are heavily impacted by the reduced bandwidth of using single-channel system RAM.

Nevertheless, the 32GB/2TB device configuration supplied looks like a relatively generous offering in the current climate.

Design of the Geekom A9 Max 2026

Geekom basically sticks to the classic 5x5-inch NUC design with its anodized silvery metal Mini PC. If you’ve seen a Geekom A-series Mini PC before, it will be immediately familiar, and it offers appealing, though derivative (NUC x Mac Mini), stylishness.

The A9 Max 2026’s dimensions are officially listed as 135 x 132 x 46.9mm (5.3 x 5.2 x 1.9-inches). Geekom’s spec didn’t mention the weight of the device, but it tipped our scales at 705g (~1 pound and nine ounces). These weights and measurements don’t include the external PSU or VESA mounting bracket supplied. Other bits in the box include a region-appropriate cloverleaf plug and cable for the PSU, screws for that mounting bracket, and an HDMI cable.

We’ve already mentioned the metal shell of this Mini PC, which has a UV coating to make it more durable. Geekom says that there is also an inner metal frame, and removing the black plastic bottom reveals a metal bottom layer. It suggests its selection of construction materials and techniques makes the A9 Max “extremely sturdy [and] it can withstand up to 200Kg of pressure.”

You power up the Geekom A9 Max with its front-mounted power button. It’s a simple button, which lights up to indicate power. There’s no built-in biometric sensor, and no Copilot button, either.

Geekom A9 Max 2026 Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

Starting from the front, Geekom has chosen to put four USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) on the front panel, one of which is configured for fast charging any connected smart devices. To the right of these is a 3.5mm audio jack, and then there’s the flush and slightly convex power button.

Turn the unit clockwise, and you see the Kensington slot as the sole user port interrupting the neatly perforated metal vista. The rear is black plastic with sizable vents at the top. Below the vents are a DC barrel jack, twin HDMI ports, twin 2.5G Ethernet ports, twin USB4 ports (with DP-Alt support), another USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) port, and a USB 2.0 port. The other perforated side of the device features the SD 4.0 card reader slot.

There’s nothing else on the top of the Mini PC but the Geekom logo. On the bottom, there are VESA mounting screws and four rubber feet, which have to be removed to access the inside.

Once you pry the sticky feet off, there are four crosshead screws to remove. Then I used a guitar plectrum to flip the bottom off. The bottom comes away without any attached wiring. However, you can’t do much yet, as four more screws need to be removed so the metal shielding layer on the bottom can be removed. Rather than untaping all the antenna wires, which partly fix the inner metal underside to the rest of the inner components, I managed to open it up like a door.

With eight screws removed, I had access to the SSD and RAM slots. The Geekom A9 Max has two M.2 SSD slots. The 2280 slot was populated with a Kingston branded 2TB drive with a thermal pad on top. You can just about see that underneath it is the M.2 Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 card. To the side of this 2280 SSD is another slot, which it is claimed is usable for drives in the 2230 form factor. I noted a thermal pad was already stuck on the metal shell, which would run the length of a 2230 drive if installed and the unit screwed back together, that’s nice attention to detail.

More user-configuration options provided by this tiny motherboard were provided by the pair of SODIMM slots. Geekom had fitted a single Micron 32GB DDR5-5600 module, so one slot was left free. The decision to sell this device in a single-channel configuration was “mainly to provide better long-term upgrade flexibility,” I was told in an email. “Since the A9 Max only has two memory slots, a factory-installed 2×16GB setup would require users to replace both modules when upgrading to 64GB or 128GB in the future. With a single 32GB module, users can simply add another 32GB stick later to achieve 64GB dual-channel memory more easily and cost-effectively.”

I’d agree more with this idea if the Mini PC had 16GB of RAM in total, but I fear it will be a long time before buyers of machines of this type will be able to justify purchasing another 32GB SODIMM – to unleash rather than constrain the Radeon 890M. More on that later.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, with its Zen 5 CPU architecture and 24 threads running at up to 5.2 GHz, won’t be holding anyone back in office productivity, general computing, and similar day-to-day tasks. It also has a great reputation for efficiency, inheriting the mantle of its predecessor, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, which gathered many design wins for AMD. Here, the CPU is fed by an ample 32GB of system RAM, and the 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD storage equipped is pretty fast too, with read/write transfer speeds of up to 6,139 MB/s and 5,499 MB/s, respectively, according to CrystalDiskMark.

Single-Threaded

Multi-Threaded

In Cinebench 2026, the A9 Max 2026 scored 4,667 points in the multi-core test. That's very similar to the Beelink SER10 MAX with the exact same processor. No surprise. However, the Beelink has dual-channel RAM, which doesn't make a lot of difference in this kind of CPU-heavy rendering workload, as you can see. In the HandBrake video encoding test we see a similar story, with the Geekom middle of the pack, outpacing the Intel competition, but a smidgen behind its AMD brethren.

During our demanding tests, the Geekom A9 Max 2026 stayed admirably cool, but its peak noise level might make you want to move it to a less prominent area of the desk, or use the VESA mounting option to hide it behind your monitor.

Gaming and Graphics on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

In its marketing materials, Geekom pitches the new A9 Max as a computer for all niches, mentioning its CPU and AI compute power, as well as indeed gaming and being able to “conquer AAA titles with ease” thanks to the “Radeon 890M integrated graphics, clocked at a high frequency of 3.1GHz.” So, without further ado, let’s run through our standard set of synthetic 3D engine and gaming tests.

Before beginning the games benchmarking proper, I felt like firing up the old-but-gold Far Cry 5 for a bit of mayhem in Montana. After trying a few preset settings, I settled on 1080p Medium. The High preset was just a bit too slow, and Low settings seemed barely any faster. With Medium settings chosen as the sweet spot for this configuration, I adventured through the attractive wilderness and enjoyed eliminating a few crazy cult members. The average FPS of just above 30 FPS, with a minimum of 26 FPS (according to the built-in benchmark) was enough to enjoy the single-player game without being too distracted by performance issues. I am accustomed to 1440p gaming in this title with a higher quality level and a better frame rate. But it wasn’t insufferable on the A9 Max configuration we tested.

Our benchmarks included a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs. Last and definitely not least, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections.

3DMark Solar Bay tests seem like the best fit for this iGPU, with frame rates smooth enough that it doesn't hurt your eyes to watch. Sadly for the Geekom, it placed last in the pack in this test, even behind the office productivity targeted MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG.

Next up, built-in real game benchmarks courtesy of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the little A9 Max 2026 can - and can't - play this game. High settings in this game resulted in a grating 17 FPS. Using the Steam Deck preset resulted in a far more playable 29 FPS.

Moving over to Shadow of the Tomb Raider (SOTTR), and the A9 Max 2026 as configured managed just a 26 FPS average. If you have no other avenues to enjoy this game, you’ll have to nudge settings lower to get above a consistent 30 FPS. Opting for 720p visuals could also help, if you were willing to do so.

We had a similarly disappointing gaming experience during the Minisforum X1 AI Pro 470 review, which also combined this exact AMD Zen 5 mobile processor with a single 32GB stick of DDR5-5600. Check the details of that article to learn exactly the difference reconfiguring the DDR5 to dual-channel can make (spoiler: equipping dual-channel memory made a very big difference in our 3D gaming performance tests). In our newest mini PC tests, the Beelink SER10 MAX comes with the same AMD  Ryzen AI 9 HX 470  processor but is kitted out with dual-channel RAM and can hit a far smoother 54 FPS in the SOTTR High preset.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Geekom A9 Max 2026

This little computer was pleasingly thrifty when it came to power use. Measured at the wall, I observed a mere 7W of power was being pulled by the system when idling in Windows 11. Under the heaviest loads I could muster, the system power consumption rose to about 79W. System tools showed that the idle / stress CPU temperatures were around 34C and 79C, respectively. Perhaps Geekom could quiet the IceBlast 3.0 fans, then? Or, if you buy this, you’d have latitude to slow the fan profiles in the BIOS.

Geekom’s A9 Max 2026 was quiet at idle, with my readings showing it made about 29 to 30dB noise. The loudest it got was around 41dB, when I was trying to stress the system by running CPU and GPU benchmark tests simultaneously.

Geekom boasts about its new IceBlast 3.0 system here. I found that it works well enough as shipped, but it isn’t the quietest under load and may benefit from user tweaks. There’s no software for these kinds of adjustments, though, so it is a BIOS tweak / reboot process you’ll have to work through.

Software and Warranty on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

Geekom ships the A9 Max 2026 with no custom software at all. It's just clean Windows 11 Pro, as supplied. Also, we note that the marketing material boasts the system fully supports both Windows 11 and Linux. At the time of writing, there is only one fully populated option for would-be buyers of the A9 Max 2026 - identical to our test unit - so you can’t potentially save money by going barebone / Linux.

A 3-year warranty is provided with the A9 Max 2026.

Configurations of the Geekom A9 Max 2026

At the time of writing, there is only one configuration of the Geekom A9 Max 2026 is available, and that is precisely the one tested with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, 32GB / 2TB, and Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. Amazon currently has this machine on a 'limited time deal' with 10% off reducing the price from $1,599 to a more reasonable $1,439.

On some stores, you may still be able to find last year's model, with an HX 370.

Bottom Line

Geekom’s A9 Max 2026 is a handsome, durable, and performant all-arounder. However, we will say again that its Radeon 890M iGPU is seriously hamstrung by the single-channel RAM configuration it is sold with. This lack of bandwidth becomes painfully obvious when 3D gaming.

Pondering the A9 Max 2026’s pricing more carefully suggests that mini PC desktops like this are no longer the bargains they used to be. The very modest uplift provided by AMD’s AI 400 Gorgon Point chips doesn’t really make a strong case for the 2026 refresh models.

This updated 2026 release competes with Geekom’s own older editions, as mentioned in the above Configurations section. However, the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 which we reviewed in March seems to offer more expandability (3x M.2 SSD slots, OCuLink), a fingerprint reader, Copilot button, and is a little quieter under load. You can still grab that Minisforum Mini PC with a similar build but slightly larger footprint for $759 barebones, or 32GB/2TB + Windows 11 Pro for $1,399.

If you want to dabble in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider with pleasing graphic details and reasonably smooth 30FPS+ frame rates, please budget to add a matching 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM to the retail configuration, or wait and see if there’s a barebones model arriving. A cheaper barebones model would allow buyers to source their own dual-channel memory kit (we’d go for at least a pair of DDR6-5600 16GB modules), and M.2 SSD - and don’t forget an OS.

Arctic's latest under-the-desk Senza PC design is using an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mobile processor. Sure, the upgrade has also allowed Arctic to shove ‘AI’ in the product name, but this is a very appealing design with great build quality, good performance, a reasonable selection of ports, and silent operation as the cherry on top.

Design of the Arctic Senza AI 370

This definitely isn’t the smallest mini PC around. Its dimensions could probably fit more like three mini PCs in a row. The largest part of this device measures 21.10 (L) × 7.09 (W) × 1.97 (H) inches. In addition to the sizable main unit, there’s also a 120W external PSU and a front panel dongle with some handy ports and an LED-illuminated power button.

The central section of the main unit is where all the performance components are located. Its ‘wings’ are basically passive cooling radiators with heatpipes spreading out from the center, perforating a multitude of fins on either side.

The Senza, its front panel dongle, and PSU are designed to mount discreetly under your desk. After confirming that everything worked post-unpacking, I dutifully followed the instructions and used the printed template to mount the PC and front panel neatly beneath my oak desk. My desk is so heavy I had to work on it as if I were working under a car, lying on my back, but it slotted into place the first time thanks to the accuracy of the template and my deft use of an awl. All the fittings (screws, fabric fasteners, braces, and straps) are provided in the box with the Senza AI 370.

Arctic Senza AI 370 specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

On the PC back panel, there is a decent selection of ports. The mix includes a USB4 Type-C port, two USB 2.0 Type-A, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports. Dedicated video out options are provided with HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 2.0 - but the rear USB4 port can also handle video out, too. Two 3.5mm jacks are also there for audio in and out. Wired networking support is provided with a 2.5G LAN port.

The rear is also where you plug in the supplied 120W PSU via a barrel jack. Lastly, there’s an unusual looking dedicated dual USB-C (two Type-C ports positioned at right angles to one another), which mates with the front panel I/O dongle cable supplying USB4 data and power.

The use of a front panel I/O dongle is a great idea, and it makes thepower button easy to reach. I would have liked to see more ports, here, personally.

As I am always plugging various peripherals into my PCs, I decided to connect the under-desk USB4 port on the main body of the Arctic Senza AI 370 to an above-desk dock. Specifically, I used StarTech’s driverless 208UE USB4 dock to give easy access to a host of fast connectivity options.

Inside the Senza AI 370, there is quite a lot of empty space but limited expandability. It’s easy enough to get in and see the guts of the device, with just four Phillips screws holding the metal panel in place. Under the panel there are no RAM slots, but you can see the soldered Micron DDR5-8000 chips surrounding the AMD processor. Before you buy, ensure 32GB of RAM will be enough for you for the foreseeable future.

I also found an Arctic heatsink atop an M.2 2280 slot. The sample device came with 1TB of fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage installed. System tools revealed it to be a Chinese YMTC PC411 SSD.

We also spied an M.2 2230 slot populated with a Mediatek Wi-Fi 7 (2x2 MIMO) + Bluetooth 5.3 card. You could swap that out for repair or upgrade purposes one day, if required. There are no further internal expansion ports.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Arctic Senza AI 370

The Arctic Senza AI 370 doesn’t break a sweat with day-to-day productivity tasks, browsing, and similarly light workloads. AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a very capable chip with its Zen 5 CPU architecture featuring 12 cores and 24 threads, the integrated Radeon 890M graphics, and a power-efficient NPU for on-device AI.

Despite relying on an older AMD processor, the Arctic Senza AI 370 shows it can match and even beat the two Ryzen 9 AI HX 470 mini PCs that have also recently been subjected to our newest suite of tests. Let’s single out Cinebench 2026 multicore scores first. Here the Senza clearly leads the pack of newer AMD Ryzen and Intel Core Ultra mini PCs, at almost 7% faster than the second-placed Beelink SER 10 Max. In the Blender Monster render test, the Senza’s HX 470 rivals actually do win by a tiny amount, but the difference is small enough to be within the margin of error.

Another productivity test, targeting video encoding performance this time, shows that the Arctic won’t be usurped by its newer generation challengers. The Senza AI 370 proudly leads the Handbrake table, and a victory is a victory, but the actual difference is so small it is essentially a draw between the three AMD mini PCs.

I think the Arctic’s good performance in these productivity tests can be put down to the system’s significantly better memory bandwidth.

Gaming and Graphics on the Arctic Senza AI 370

The Senza AI 370’s APU should make it a decent enough performer in games, at least if you're realistic with the settings. Its Radeon 890M iGPU comes with 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs, and it is accompanied by fast dual-channel DDR5-8000 in Arctic’s silent machine.

Before moving onto our standard synthetic and iconic PC gaming tests, I decided to run around in one of my favorite 3D gaming titles, Ubisoft’s The Division 2. I enjoyed taking down a Bloodhound and its high-tech escort troops, and liberating an enemy control point. The action was fluid enough, without experiencing any stutters or other low-performance tells. I played in FHD using the High preset, and later saw using the built-in benchmark tool that the Arctic Senza AI 370 achieved an average of 53 FPS across a diverse set of game scenarios.

Next up, our benchmarks include a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs, some with dGPUs. Last and definitely not least, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections.

In 3DMark Solar Bay, which uses an engine / resolution most appropriate to the graphical firepower of most of this crop of iGPU-only mini PCs, the Senza AI 370 easily beats the newer-gen Ryzen competition. However, it is clearly outclassed by the Intel Arc B390 iGPU in the GMKtec EVO-T2.

Moving on to more real games, let’s check the data provided by the multi-scene benchmarks built into Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the silent Senza can perform.

A pattern seems to be established in the synthetics above, which continues into our real gaming tests. Specifically, the passively cooled Arctic Senza AI 370 is the best choice for iGPU gaming if you don’t want to spend far more cash on the potent Panther Lake GMKtec EVO-T2. The Arctic consistently outclasses both the newer HX 470 processor-based challengers, though we see the Beelink SER10 Max with dual-channel RAM do much better than the Geekom A9 Max 2026, constrained by a single stick of DDR5-5600.

On Cyberpunk 2077, the Steam Deck and 1080p preset felt noticeably more fluid than the High 1080p option. If I were to persevere with this demanding title on the Senza AI 370, I’d perhaps try some form of upscaling to see if I could maintain the High quality setting but with an improved FPS.

It's worth repeating, the silent Senza seems to outclass the newer AMD challengers across gaming tests thanks to its superior memory subsystem based on its soldered 32GB LPDDR5X‑8000 dual‑channel RAM.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Arctic Senza AI 370

When I left the Senza AI 370 to idle, my power meter measured wattages at or below 10W from the wall for the whole system. When the system was pushed with simultaneous CPU and GPU benchmarks running, power draw seemed to peak at a little under 92W.

System tools showed that during light activities like browsing the web and typing reports like this one, the CPU temperature stayed around 30 degrees C. Playing The Division 2 for 30 or 40 minutes, the reported CPU temperature seemed to stay between 60 C and 70 C. It didn’t constantly creep upwards; it would sometimes go towards that upper bound, and sometimes fall again. However, running a workload like Cinebench R23 multicore the temperatures seemed to creep inexorably upwards, with the highest measurement I saw at 96 C.

Between tasks, the reported CPU temperature would fall very rapidly. I saw it dive from 75 C to 45 C in under 10 seconds after one of the recent benchmarks I completed. That’s pretty impressive given that there’s no fan.

In my testing before installing it under the desk, oddly enough, I could actually hear a sound when the YMTC PC411 SSD was being accessed. I'm unsure what it was, but I did notice it.

Software and Warranty on the Arctic Senza AI 370

Arctic’s Senza AI 370 ships with a clean copy of Windows 11 Pro installed. That's it. There were no bundled utilities, dashboards, or custom monitoring and tuning software. Arctic sells the Senza AI 370 with a two-year warranty.

Configurations of the Arctic Senza AI 370

Arctic sells just a single Senza AI 370 configuration: the one we tested with a AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370,32GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory and a 1TB SSD. Windows 11 Pro is included, but Arctic says that the machine is Linux compatible.

Those in Europe can head directly to the official company website and snag a Senza AI 370 for the MSRP of €1,199.99. Meanwhile, UK buyers can grab a device from Arctic’s official Amazon web store for £910.49. Compared with many of the other mini PC prices we are seeing, that seems very reasonable for a fully populated mini PC with fast memory and storage plus unique silent / passive appeal. Those German and UK prices include VAT at 19% and 20%, respectively.

I asked Arctic about the availability of the Senza AI 370 in the U.S. and was told that no official distributor had been set up for this device. The company is seeding the device to U.S. media, however, to gauge interest in devices like this.

Bottom Line

If you want a mini PC that you can't see or hear, the Arctic Senza AI 370 is for you. Many will be attracted by mini PCs for their minimal physical footprint, but Combine that with its silence, well-behaved thermals, plus solid performance, and there's really not much to complain about.

Concerning performance, Arctic’s choice of soldered 32GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory and a fast SSD gave this device equal or better application and gamingi performance compared to its newer-gen Ryzen 9 AI 470 HX equipped mini PC rivals we have tested recently. It is noticeably cheaper, too, but sadly not easy to grab if you live stateside right now.

Late last week, we reported on a brand-new Steam Machine getting bricked during an update, and refusing to budge from a state freshly dubbed the ‘Red Line of Death’ (RLOD). The issue stirred fear in tech enthusiasts' hearts, still scarred by the notorious Red Ring of Death (RROD) from the Xbox 360 era. But we have some good news today, as Valve’s official account on Reddit has responded to provide step-by-step instructions to get any affected Steam Machine up and running again by clearing the CMOS.

Thankfully, the pronouncement of death was definitely premature in this unresponsive Steam Machine case, and easily fixed. It wasn’t dead, it was resting, or probably pining for the fjords. It just needed to have its CMOS setting thoroughly cleared, that's all.

SteamHWFeedback directly answered the distress call of OP me_hill on Reddit. A five-step recipe to recover Steam Machines with RLOD was provided to the beleaguered gamer. However, me_hill’s own flailing machine-reset procedure had already done the trick – inspired by numerous user comments on the thread.

It is good to have an official solution to the initially scary RLOD, though. For the sake of exactitude, we have pasted Valve’s official RLOD fixing steps below, verbatim.

If you're encountering this issue, please try the following:

• Unplug the Machine, then press the power button a few times. This ensures any stored energy in the PSU gets discharged. You may see the power indicator LED blip a moment.
• Plug the Machine back in. Note if your power LED glows (breathing pattern) white or not. If yes, please submit a Steam Support ticket and tag me, or send me a chat request with the ID.
• Hold the power button down for ~6s. You should see the power indicator LED (dot) flash momentarily. Release the power button when you do.
• The power indicator LED will start to cycle some color codes. These are designed to allow you to select various options for recovery/troubleshooting purposes. When the LED turns green, short-press the power button. This should perform a full "CMOS reset."
• On the next boot, you should see the RGB bar as blue - it may take a bit longer to boot due to a memory re-training.

There’d only been two public pleas by Steam Machine users about RLOD so far, as far as we can see. Perhaps several more users resolved these issues themselves, without any social media interaction, so it is difficult to know the scale of similar experiences. Nevertheless, we are relieved to learn that these symptoms are easily fixed and users can get back up and running on their coveted new gaming hardware pretty quickly – with the benefit of an officially sanctioned cure direct from Valve.

Mini PC specialist GMKtec recently launched the EVO-X3, heralding it as a “next-gen AI workstation,” with early access registration beginning tomorrow (Monday, June 22). The firm also took to social media this weekend to show that the successor to the GMKtec EVO-X2, which we reviewed in February, had earned AMD CEO Lisa Su’s signature of approval. This is not entirely surprising, as so did the X2. So, let’s take a closer look at the new GMKtec EVO-X3.

Actually, the tech specs of the EVO-X3 aren’t very different from its predecessor. We can say with certainty that its design has been thoroughly revamped, though. Look at the difference between the generations. This is a good thing, as most of our reviewers ‘Cons’ regarding the EVO-X2 were drawn from its design and build. Specifically we grumbled about the cheap-feeling case, tricky internal access, and fan noise. A smart redesign would have addressed all these points, but we’d have to get some hands-on time with the new revision to be sure it delivers more than a cosmetic change.

The new GMKtec EVO-X3 is again built around the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 'Strix Halo' processor. Interestingly, a switch to the Ryzen AI Max+ 495 'Gorgon Halo' must have been deemed counterproductive. Many tech enthusiasts were underwhelmed by the AMD Ryzen AI 400 series refresh, too. We also know there are two launch configurations, both with 128GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM, but one having a 2TB SSD, the other 4TB. The machine is advertised as featuring two M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 slots for up to 8TB of SSD storage.

As hinted above, the big change between generations appears to be in the build. GMKtec now boasts of the “silent triple fan thermal system” which makes the whole unit somewhat like a triple fan graphics card in a steel wrapper. GMKtec says that “The system is engineered to balance performance, efficiency, and thermal stability, making it suitable for continuous professional workloads across AI and creative scenarios.”

For ports, we note the EVO-X3 packs in an OCuLink connector, USB4 for data, power delivery and video out, and HDMI 2.1 video out. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 are also on board. There are also a few USB-A ports, an Ethernet jack, and a headset jack.

Prices up, a lot

The GMKtec EVO-X2 launched at $1,499 as tested with 64GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Today, EVO-X2 machines with this configuration are currently being sold for $1,999 on Amazon.com. However, the GMKtec EVO-X3 entry price is far steeper, admittedly with more RAM and storage. It is advertising the 128GB RAM and 2TB SSD version at $3,600, and the 128GB RAM plus 4TB storage version at $3,849. Both of those are said to be pre-launch discounted prices. Signing up for the early access registration can get you an additional $20 off those marked-down prices.

GMKtec told us that the pre-launch is live tomorrow, with purchased units being sent out from July 6.

AMD's Ryzen AI Halo Developer Platform is finally here, with preorders for the powerful $3,999 mini PC now live in the U.S. through Micro Center. The company’s new developer platform is effectively an answer to Nvidia's DGX Spark, as both systems are designed as compact AI workstations capable of running large language models locally. First unveiled at CES 2026, the developer kit is available in two variants that feature identical hardware but ship with different operating systems- Linux or Windows 11 Pro.

Notably, the DGX Spark was originally introduced at the same $3,999 price point last year. However, Nvidia recently increased the price to $4,699 due to the ongoing global supply constraints affecting LPDDR5X memory and NAND flash. Apart from pricing, the Ryzen AI Halo Developer Platform offers native Windows support, whereas the DGX Spark is limited to Linux-based environments. This gives users greater flexibility, including the option to dual-boot and use both operating systems.

The Ryzen AI Halo dev kit is powered by the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, featuring 16 cores and 32 threads, with a base clock speed of 3 GHz and a max boost clock speed of 5.1 GHz. It also features 128GB of unified LPDDR5X-8000 memory, 16MB of L2 cache, and 64MB of L3 cache, onboard RDNA 3.5 Radeon 8060S graphics with 40 compute units, and a dedicated NPU capable of 50 TOPS.

The mini-PC measures 149 x 149 x 43.18 mm, has an aluminum chassis, and includes a 2TB M.2 SSD, while wireless connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. As for I/O, it is strikingly similar to what Nvidia offers, including a 10 GbE LAN, four USB-C ports (one for power input), and an HDMI 2.1b port. Unfortunately, there is no NVLink, which, in Nvidia’s case, allows two DGK Spark machines to pair. To cool the Strix Halo chip inside AMD, it uses a unique cooling solution that includes a baseplate, direct-touch flat heatpipes, an aluminum channel heatsink, and two lateral airflow blower-style fans.

If you are a developer or simply interested in experimenting with local LLMs, Micro Center is currently accepting preorders for the Ryzen AI Halo Developer Platform, with local pickup available on July 10. Those looking for alternatives can also consider the Corsair AI Workstation 300, a slightly larger AI-focused system based on the same Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor. It is also currently listed at a lower starting price of $2,699 for the 1TB storage model and $3,399 for the 4TB model.

Following the announcement of Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra ahead of Computex, the company is announcing another device with the RTX Spark system on a chip at its developer conference, Build, in San Francisco.

That new PC is the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box. With the company pushing Windows as a platform for agentic AI with Nvidia's new processor, the Surface-branded mini PC is set to run sustained workloads with a 100W thermal envelope — more than you can get in a laptop.

Microsoft says that includes "long-running training jobs, agentic AI pipelines and local model fine-tuning."

The PC has an aluminum chassis with 1,000 air vents in a grid, which looks a bit like the flat top of the Xbox Series X. The system features two USB Type-C ports, HDMI, USB-A, Ethernet, and a headphone jack.

Nvidia states that the RTX Spark can deliver up to one petaflop of AI compute with 128GB of unified memory and can run models with up to 120 billion parameters locally.

The system will come set up for developers, with Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot, and other applications preinstalled. Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2) with support for Nvidia's CUDA technology will also come out of the box, along with PowerShell7.

Microsoft hasn't announced a price for the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, but says it will be available this year at microsoft.com in the United States. While you can't make a pre-order, you can sign up to learn more on the device's web page.

Passive PCs are great for those who like to keep background noise to a minimum in their work environments. Traditionally, passive designs have leaned towards the adoption of ‘quiet’ visual designs, too. But that doesn’t have to be the case, as the new Kubb Mini range demonstrates (h/t Fanless Tech). These compact 3-inch cubes are priced at $500 (€430) and come in some rather vivid red, orange, green, and blue options - as well as staid old black or white.

Well, you can make up your own mind about the compact design and visual appeal of the Kubb Minis. But also please see how minuscule these devices are, given the context of the human hand PR shot (in the gallery below).

Beneath the colorful aluminum exterior

Passive cooling of these PCs isn’t the trickiest, as the CPU options have rather low TDPs. For example, the Intel Twin Lake N150 with 4C/4T and a top speed of 3.6 GHz has just a 6W processor base power. The Core i3 N300 CPU with 8C/8T and a top speed of 3.8 GHz has a slightly higher TDP at 7W. Both CPUs are fabbed at Intel 7 and have 6MB of Intel Smart Cache on board. Neither should be a challenge to a small passive cooling setup.

The $500 (€430) configuration of the Kubb Mini comes with the weaker N150 processor, but it isn’t barebones. The processor is supported by 16GB LPDDR5-4800 RAM, a 256GB NVMe SSD, and Windows 11 Pro comes pre-installed. Opting for the Core i3 N300 CPU, with all else remaining equal, adds $105 (€90) to the checkout price. Neither config can add more than 16GB of RAM, but 512GB and 1TB storage options can be had for more of your hard-earned cash.

You don’t get oodles of connectivity, which isn’t a big surprise. What you do get is: Realtek RTL8111H 1 GbE, Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + Bluetooth 5.2, 2 × USB 3.2, 2 × HDMI 2.0, 1 × USB 3.2, and 1 × audio 3.5mm. It looks like there is a barrel jack for the 12 V DC power adapter around the back, but the device can also be powered by one of its precious USB-C ports.

Kubb envisions users buying this 3-inch (8cm) square PC for “office tasks, management, accounting or web browsing.” It also heralds the Mini as a great, silent, thin client that uses significantly less power than a traditional desktop PC. Perhaps more appealing to our audience, Kubb reckons the Mini would also be a good choice for “entertainment and retrogaming for the whole family,” plugged into the living room TV while not becoming an eyesore.

Kubb also makes more powerful (larger) fanless designs and its stables, dominated by cube-like solutions, feature wood- and leather-cased PCs, too.

Corsair launched its AI Workstation 300 in the summer of 2025 with AMD's Strix Halo silicon on board to appeal to local LLM enthusiasts looking for a powerful yet compact mini-PC. At the time of our review in February, prices for the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 variant had already risen to around $3,000 from a launch price of around $2,299, and we already criticized its subpar value proposition compared to rivals like the DGX Spark and its GB10 brethren.

Now, all configs of the AI Workstation 300 have gotten even more expensive. The top-of-the-line variant equipped with a Ryzen AI Max 395+ APU, 128 GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM, and 4 TB of storage has been bumped up to $3,399.99. Keep in mind that this is the only AI Max 395+ config available on the site, too, since the 1 TB SSD option is out of stock, and you can't down-spec the memory.

If the 1TB model was available, however, it would cost $2,699 now, up $700 from its $1,999 launch price. Finally, the Ryzen AI Max 385 config with 64 GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD has gone from $1,599.99 to $1,699.99, constituting just a $100 hike.

Cumulatively, those make for $1,100, a $700, and $100 price hikes across the board, but in the grand scheme of Strix Halo systems, these prices are pretty much the going rate.

For instance, another popular Ryzen AI Max+ 395 model, the Beelink GTR9 Pro, is going for $2,999 right now, and it comes with only a single 2 TB SSD. Adding another high-end 2TB PCIe 4.0 drive would cost you at least $350 right now, by which point you'd already be in the Corsair model's territory.

We reviewed the ever-popular GMKtec Evo X2 a couple of months ago as well, which is currently priced at $2,349 on Amazon for the same chip and a 2 TB SSD, but only 96 GB of RAM instead of 128 GB. If you want that much memory, you'll have to shell out $3,299, but you only get 2 TB of storage instead of 4 TB on the Corsair. Heck, even the Framework Desktop would be slightly more expensive when configured the same way.

Regardless of the context, Corsair's price changes came without an announcement, so we don't actually have an official reason for the price increase, but it's pretty easy to connect the dots. The ongoing component shortage caused by the AI boom is a likely root cause, and it's been made worse by escalating geopolitical tensions blocking off critical trade routes.

RAM and storage are extremely costly at the moment, even for vendors buying in bulk, so that added cost is going to get passed down to the customer. Recently, Ayaneo even had to halt orders for its upcoming Next 2 handheld featuring Strix Halo chips because the company simply could not get the parts at a reasonable price. But hey, if you're chasing tokens amid AI boom that started all this, maybe it doesn't matter how much pricier your Strix Halo machine gets.

Mini PCs have gained a following over recent years by bringing the best mobile silicon to the desktop. The mix of processing power, the compact chassis, power efficiency, and portability hits a PC sweet spot for many folks. Here we are looking at Hong Kong-based Minisforum’s update to its well-regarded AI X1 Pro 370 from last year – the new Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470. As given away by the name, this model packs one of the latest AMD Gorgon Point mobile processors.

Specifically, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 is installed in this machine, and the mini PC’s relative charms rely on the enhancements delivered by the AMD Ryzen AI 400 series. Sadly, the latest AMD mobile processors offer merely incremental uplifts, leaving enthusiasts underwhelmed. The CPU boost goes 100 MHz higher, and the NPU performance has been lifted from 50 to 55 TOPS in the latest silicon. Nevertheless, we thought it would be worthwhile to gauge the appeal of the new Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470, and check out the top-end AI 400 series laptop chip in a mini PC.

Design of the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470

The Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 looks and feels well-made, hewn from premium materials, with nicely tactile buttons, and is reassuringly dense. An obvious comparison is against an Apple Mac Mini M4, but at 7.68 inches square and 1.87 inches tall, the Minisforum would be visibly larger than the Apple (5 x 5 x 2 inches), set side by side.

If getting something Mac Mini-sized with an x86 chip is crucial, Minisforum offers the AI X1 (non-Pro) models, which almost exactly match the Mac’s dimensions. These non-Pro models from Minisforum are a bit cheaper, but they have fewer expansion options, ports, and a less potent cooling system.

One of the design features I appreciate about the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 is that it has flexible positioning and mounting options straight from the box. It ships with both a metal VESA mount bracket and fixings, as well as a matching vertical stand. The larger ‘Pro’ models (our test model) also benefit from integrating a 135W PSU, so you only need a common figure-of-8 power lead (supplied) to the wall.

The Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 has a decent selection of modern ports, mostly front and back. It is good to see OCuLink and 2x USB4 among them, and some will appreciate the dual 2.5G LAN ports at the back. I would have wished for more USB-A ports at the back and a rear audio jack, too.

Other design features of note, which might make this stand out from a raft of rivals, are Minisforum’s integration of a Copilot button on the front of the chassis, its responsive Windows Hello-friendly fingerprint sensor on the top of the chassis, and the inclusion of stereo speakers and dual-array microphones under the hood.

Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Connectivity of the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470

While the AI X1 Pro 470 has a wide selection of ports, I’d like more. Having 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10Gbps) ports, a USB4 Type-C (40 Gbps, supports Alt DisplayPort 2.0 & 15W PD out), and a 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack on the front, alongside the power and Copilot buttons, is a good start. To the left side, there is a full-sized SD card slot, with a Kensington Lock on the right.

Round the back there are numerous of ports, including another USB4 Type-C (40 Gbps, supports 100W PD-in to power the PC, Alt DisplayPort 2.0, and 15W PD out), another USB Type-A (but USB 2.0), plus an OCuLink Port, HDMI 2.1 FRL, DisplayPort 2.0, 2x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45), and an AC inlet (next to a reset / clear CMOS hole).

That sounds like a lot of variety, but just a single slow USB-A around the back is poor. It means I’ll be using a USB-C dock/dongle at the back, so the front system ports can remain ‘clean’ and available for handy occasional peripheral plugging. On the other hand, this little PC can connect up to four 4K screens simultaneously, straight from the box.

Wireless connectivity is decent. A MediaTek MT7925 Wi-FI 7 Card fitted to the motherboard also provides Bluetooth 5.4 with BLE support.

Upgradability of the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470

Before even opening up this device, it is pleasing to see that both OCuLink and USB4 are available for fast docking and eGPU connectivity. Inside, there’s quite a bit of room for upgrades, too – especially for a mini PC.

Minisforum provides three M.2 storage slots. With my 32GB/1TB config, one of the slots already has a 1TB drive installed, specifically a Kingston PCIe Gen4 NVMe drive with HMB caching and QLC NAND. Adequate but nothing fancy, it managed peak read and write speeds of almost 5.7 GB/s and 5.0 GB/s, respectively, in ATTO Disk Benchmark. According to the specs, this mini PC can fit three such drives, maxing out at 12TB total capacity (3x 4TB). Extra fittings and thermal pads are supplied in the box.

This ‘AI mini PC’ can pack up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM, using two SODIMM slots. You can buy it barebones direct from Minisforum or Amazon. We received a 32GB/1TB model for testing. These Ryzen AI 300 and 400 chips can be sensitive to memory bandwidth, especially for tasks that lean on the iGPU, so it was unfortunate that the 32GB here was a single DDR5-5600 module. In a ‘normal’ market, we think Minisforum would have supplied 2x 32GB, or a 2x 16GB option, but this 32GB was supplied with a single SODIMM, which seems to be a by-product of the RAMpocalypse.

Adding or changing RAM or storage requires removing five screws from the bottom of the device (1 short, 4 long), followed by 7 further internal screws marked with triangles. Then lift the PSU with the secondary cooling fan gently, as there are three wired connections to the motherboard. You don’t need to detach these cables; there’s enough clearance to lean this assembly to the side, get in, and reach the RAM and SSD slots.

Productivity and AI Performance on the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470

We tested the Minisforum AI X1 Pro system, and its AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor, using the supplied RAM/Storage configuration with Windows 11 pre-installed and the default ‘Balanced’ profile selected in the BIOS. VRAM was set at 8GB in the BIOS.

Taken in isolation, the results look pretty good. However, as I had an Asus Zephyrus G16 with 32GB quad-channel DDR5-7500 RAM at hand (my personal desktop replacement portable), I thought it would be interesting to check the difference between the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (Asus laptop, PL1 65W, PL2 70W) and Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 (Minisforum mini PC, PL1 60W, PL2 65W).

Due to the aforementioned mini PC RAM configuration, the older-gen, thermally-constrained Asus laptop trounced the new-gen Minisforum challenger. Disappointing. I wanted to see if the Minisforum could fight back if I upgraded it to dual-channel. Luckily, I could source a matching DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM, so I’ve also tabulated those results. Spoiler: the RAM upgrade makes a huge difference, convincingly putting the Gorgon Point processor in the mini PC into pole position most of the time.

Above, you have two popular synthetic CPU benchmarks that concentrate on CPU performance. Then the Procyon AI tests I did looked at AI image generation using the onboard NPU. These results equate to a series of 500x500 pixel AI-generated images being produced from a prompt in Stable Diffusion Lite every 10 or 11s. Last but not least, Handbrake was used to convert a reference 4K/60 HDR nature video to 1080p/30.

Gaming Performance on the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470

What we said about the single-vs-dual channel memory above applies even more in 3D gaming workloads that need to squeeze the best out of the Radeon 890M iGPU. Most readers will know about the theoretical benefits of improved memory bandwidth for Radeon iGPU graphics performance, but seeing, feeling, and measuring it is something else. We can thank the AI industry for opening our eyes to this and moving an extra matching memory module far beyond an impulse purchase.

As I was thinking this Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 would be a good candidate for a living room TV connected media box and 'Steam Machine,' I tested Cyberpunk 2077 using the ‘Steam Deck’ preset at 1080p. The system did pretty well after it was upgraded to dual-channel RAM.

Overall, the gaming frame rates of 50-60fps on the dual-channel RAM-equipped X1 Pro 470 point to it being a pretty decent entertainment box for the living room scenario that I was thinking about. With all these tests done at medium settings (except CP2077), there are still plenty of settings that can be adjusted to achieve an average 60fps at 1080p, if you insist on that.

Bottom Line

During even the most demanding tests, the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 stayed pleasingly quiet and cool. Running through the benchmarks and stress tests, I didn’t see any processor temperatures rising above the low 70s (Celsius). Moreover, the weighty dual-fan cooling seems to do its job pretty quietly inside the slick metal alloy shell. These are definite advantages over my Zephyrus with Ryzen Ai 9 HX 370.

An unobtrusive fan profile is important to me for long-term use of any PC as a daily driver. I think this system could make the grade, with its idle noise level of 28dBA and highest reading of 32dBA from approximately arms-length away (positioned beside my monitor on the desk).

I’ve enjoyed testing the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470. It looks good, feels well built, offers flexible mounting and positioning options, and runs cool and quiet. Being able to check it out in dual-channel memory mode also raised my opinion of the device. A decent USB4 dock attached to the rear provides the ports I need, while keeping it tidy, too.

Given the small changes delivered by AMD’s latest mobile chips, bargain hunters might be more interested in the AI X1 Pro 370 from last year, which is still available at $735 barebones, or $1,184 for the 32GB/1TB config. Also, if the AI X1 Pro 470 with 32GB/1TB config we received ($1,379.00 on Amazon) isn’t your little dream machine, the barebones model with HX 470 is just $779. To that, you'd need to add a dual-channel DDR5 SO-DIMM kit, an M.2 SSD, and Windows (or Linux).

Arctic has just released a new mini-PC aimed at enthusiasts looking for a clean, minimalist, and silent setup, without compromising on performance. The "Senza AI 370" is the latest in the company's existing Senza lineup that has shipped with the Ryzen 5000 series so far, but it's now been upgraded to AMD's Strix Point. Specifically, it features the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 flagship APU and a neat trick up its sleeve.

Or should we say "below its sleeve"? Because this mini-PC mounts under your desk, completely out of sight, cable management isn't an issue either. Arctic calls it an "Under Desk PC," and it's designed to clear your workspace. You could put it on top of your desk, but that would defeat its entire purpose. You really want to make sure you get the most out of it because it costs 1200 Euros, or almost $1,400.

For that money, you're getting a top-end chip, the Ryzen AI 370, which has 12 cores and 24 threads that can boost up to 5.1 GHz. It launched almost two years ago, but it was the Red Team's premier laptop offering until Gorgon Point did so a few months ago. It's based on AMD's Zen 5 architecture, featuring 4 standard Zen 5 cores and 8 Zen 5c efficiency cores — both are split off into their own CCX.

Testing has shown that this hybrid core config doesn't suit either performance or efficiency, since any tasks requiring more cores spill over to the Zen 5c CCX, and there's a large latency penalty for cross-CCX communication. But that's mostly a concern for mobile devices (since this is a mobile chip), a wall-powered mini-PC circumvents these issues and gives you solid performance regardless.

The Senza AI 370 looks like an AIO radiator for the most part, down to the two tubes poking out of it that terminate in a front panel hub. This detachable box mounts near the edge of your desk, where you can easily interact with it, as it includes a power button, a couple of USB ports, and a headphone jack. The actual PC is meant to go farther back, toward the rear of your table, where it almost disappears.

The port selection on the PC itself is very strong: you get 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, USB4, HDMI 2.1, and more, plus Wi-Fi 7 for wireless connectivity. Owing to its design, the entire body is essentially a giant heatsink, with the actual PCB only in the middle, occupying about 30% of the chassis. Eight heatpipes run through this heatsink, cooling the APU without any fans, which allows it to be completely silent.

Despite nonexistent noise levels, Arctic is claiming great thermals — 50 degrees Celsius under a gaming load, while a "competitor mini PC" reached 67 degrees Celsius. The company also says the Senza reaches 98 FPS in Counter-Strike 2 (at 1080p High), while a similarly equipped mini PC only reaches 86 FPS. This is possible due to the higher-spec RAM configuration on the Senza.

It features 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory, while many other devices use standard DDR5 at slower speeds. The Ryzen AI 370 also has a Radeon 890M iGPU, which is fairly performant for integrated graphics. It's no Strix Halo, but it will get the job done in lightweight games, and can produce decent results in AAA titles with upscaling. It's got 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units and can boost up to 2.9 GHz.

To round out the device, other specs include a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, support for up to 8K external monitors, pre-installed Windows 11, and, of course, Microsoft Copilot+ branding for AI workloads. You can buy the Senza AI 370 right away from Arctic's website, and while it does cost 1,200 Euros, we noticed that a 170 Euros payback is automatically applied, bringing the price down to 1,029 Euros ($1,192). That's still quite a lot for this performance tier.

Nvidia has announced a price increase for its DGX Spark AI mini-PC powered by the GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip. As per Nvidia’s official developer forums, the company is raising the price due to the constrained memory supplies worldwide. The MSRP has now been revised from $3,999 to $4,699, a substantial increase of $700. Nvidia also notes that while the new pricing is already reflected on Nvidia.com, other sales channels may take longer to update.

First showcased at CES 2025 as Project Digits, Nvidia started selling the DGX Spark in October 2025 after facing a delay in May. An AI supercomputer that can easily fit on your desk, the DGX Spark is highly portable, measuring just 5.9” by 5.9” by 2”, and is ideal for AI developers, researchers, and data scientists. According to Nvidia, it has been custom-tailored to the needs of local AI inference and development and can run inferences on many of today's popular AI models.

The GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip powering the DGX Spark has been made in collaboration with MediaTek, featuring 10 Arm Cortex-X925 and 10 Cortex-A725 CPU cores and a Blackwell GPU capable of delivering up to 1 petaFLOP of AI inferencing performance. There's also 128GB of LPDDR5X coherent unified memory that can be shared between the CPU and GPU, as well as a 4TB NVMe SSD for storage. The device itself features a USB-C power input, three USB-C 20Gbps ports with DisplayPort alt mode support, an HDMI 2.1a port, a 10Gb Ethernet port, and two QSFP ports for the onboard ConnectX 7 NIC running at up to 200 Gbps.

With the ability to support up to 200-billion-parameter models locally (assuming FP4 quantization), one can even connect two of these units using the built-in Nvidia ConnectX 7 NIC to gain double the performance. The DGX Spark runs on Nvidia’s DGX OS, which is based on Ubuntu and supports the CUDA software stack, which has become crucial for AI development. Nvidia has also roped in a range of software partners to ensure that their tools work well with DGX Spark, including Anaconda, Cadence, ComfyUI, Docker, Google, Hugging Face, JetBrains, LM Studio, Meta, Microsoft, Ollama, and Roboflow.

If you're interested in the DGX Spark, several OEM partners, including Dell, Asus, MSI, and HP, also offer similarly designed systems built around comparable hardware, delivering similar levels of performance. In fact, the Asus Ascent GX10 is a solid alternative to the DGX Spark as it is cheaper at $3,266.53, with the only difference being a smaller 1TB SSD.

Nvidia confirmed the updated pricing for the DGX Spark took effect this week, but that existing orders will be honored at the pricing at the time of ordering. No hardware changes have been made to the device as part of the increase.

NZXT has today announced the introduction of its new potent H2 Mini PC, with both AMD and Intel configurations for compact desktop gaming. Alongside the new H2 Mini PC (U.S. only), it has also released the new H2 Flow Mini-ITX Case and the compact C850 SFX power supply for builders who want to put together their own compact PC.

• H2 Flow Mini-ITX Case $149.99 / €149.99 EMEA / $149.99 APAC / £129.99 UK
• C850 SFX Power Supply $199.99 AMER / €159.99 EMEA / $159.99 APAC / £139.99 UK
• H2 Mini PC (US Only) $3,499 (Intel and AMD)

As noted, NZXT is offering gamers the choice of a pre-built machine or a DIY option thanks to its new H2 Flow case. To begin with, the PC first, the H2 Mini can be specced with either an AMD 9800X3D or an Intel 285K CPU, seated in either a Gigabyte B850I Aorus Pro or a Gigabyte Z890I Aorus Ultra motherboard, respectively. Gigabyte also supplies the RTX 5080 GPU. There's 32GB of RAM, a 2TB M.2 SSD, Kraken Elite 240 AIO, and Windows 11 Home OS. Strangely, the new C850 SFX PSU doesn't seem to feature in the pre-built, which is powered by a Lian Li SP 850W PSU instead.

H2 Flow Mini-ITX Case

If DIY is more your speed, the new H2 Flow is a vertical Mini-ITX case. Like all of NZXT's Flow models, this case is all about airflow. The case is a 20.7L unit, measuring 435mm in height, 181mm in width, and 263mm in depth, according to early retail listings. The case can support AIO coolers of up to 280mm, as well as graphics cards of up to 331mm. All sides of the case feature mesh panels, which can be removed without tools, and there's some built-in velcro for cable management. When you buy the case, you also get a PCIe 5.0 riser cable for your GPU, and two pre-installed F120W 3-pin fans.

C850 SFX Power Supply

NZXT's new C850 SFX power supply is ATX 3.10certified, with an 80 Plus Gold rating and a 92 mm fluid dynamic bearing fan, which includes a Zero RPM mode for silent operation. It comes with a 600W 12V-2x6 connector for hefty graphics cards, and is fully modular in its design. NZXT says safety protections ensure it is shielded from overcurrent, overvoltage, and overheating, and that its 100% Japanese capacitors are rated at temperatures of up to 105 degrees C. The PSU is backed by a 10-year warranty.

Available now

As mentioned, all three new items including the Mini PC are available now for the following prices:

• H2 Flow Mini-ITX Case $149.99 / €149.99 EMEA / $149.99 APAC / £129.99 UK
• C850 SFX Power Supply $199.99 AMER / €159.99 EMEA / $159.99 APAC / £139.99 UK
• H2 Mini PC (US Only) $3499 (Intel and AMD)

IoT specialist M5Stack has released an alluring, translucent, RGB-infused, tetrahederal mini-PC dubbed the AI Pyramid Computing Box. Despite its curb-appeal, and great connectivity, computing enthusiasts should be clear that this cute little computer is designed for local-AI and edge deployment. M5Stack’s octa‑core Cortex‑A55 and NPU-powered box of tricks isn’t really a contender to replace your x86 productivity and gaming workhorse.

So, we’ve established the purpose of the AI Pyramid, let’s look closer at the compelling specs for edge-AI purposes. This delightful device is based around an Axera AX8850 SoC, which integrates an octa-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor, a 24 TOPS INT8 NPU, and 8K H.264/H.265 hardware encode/decode engines.

With the 4GB model ($199) there is 2GB available to the system and 2GB reserved for the NPU and video engines. M5Stack’s AI Pyramid Pro 8GB model ups the split to 4GB/4GB. Even the higher-spec model would be stingy for a desktop Linux OS, which is one of the major reasons we said this isn’t going to find favor as a general purpose mini-PC.

M5Stack reckons that the true sweet spot deployments of its AI Pyramid will include: AI PC & Edge Intelligent Terminals; Smart Interactive Devices such as Home Assistant, AIGC, voice cloning, meeting transcription; AI Vision Gateways; Local AI Smart Photo Album (Immich); and AI-Powered Intelligent Security (Frigate).

For hardware clarity, we’ve tabulated the full, extensive specs list of the AI Pyramid Computing Box, below.

Additionally, the M5Stack AI Pyramid comes with some nice frills such as the headlining RGB lighting (consisting of 48 LEDs in four segments), a small 32×128 pixels OLED status display, quad-microphones, a built-in speaker, is cooled by a single thermal sensing active fan, and has two user-configurable buttons.

M5Stack's compact translucent device comes in at an almost impulse-buy price (in 4GB and 8GB versions). Maybe that’s why it has completely sold out so quickly. Hopefully, we will see restocks soon, without any RAMpocalypse-style inflation changing those sticker prices for the worse.

Minisforum let me go hands-on with its CES 2026 Innovation Award-winning Mini Workstation, so to get a grasp of what the diminutive new Minisforum MS-02 Ultra could offer, I decided to see if it could replace my aging but capable desktop PC.

This is a true David vs Goliath battle, at least in terms of physical presence. The sub-5-liter MS-02 Ultra battles with my much larger desktop system packed into a 55-liter Fractal Define S PC case. However, the result of the clash wasn’t as clear-cut as I expected, making me wonder what kind of PC I should be using daily in 2026.

Before we get into a specifications table, where you can see exactly how these two systems compare feature-by-feature, it is important to highlight the physical differences. The MS-02 Ultra is an incredible 11 times smaller than my Define S-desktop system. Obviously, such a small size means there are sacrifices to be made in terms of expandability, configurability, thermals, and noise. But those limitations are counterweighted by the benefits of the device being much physically smaller. Dare I say, the Minisforum is kind of portable, and even cute, which is not something I could say about the Define S PC.

The table below makes clear the specs of the Minisforum MS-02 Ultra workstation against those of the system it will have to battle on my desk.

CPU and GPU showdown

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX should be much more capable than the i5-14400F that I bought at Amazon for $115 last year. It tempts with the advantages of its modern Intel architecture, higher clock boost, and easily outguns my Raptor Lake Refresh chip on core count. Moreover, the new platform brings quite a lot of modern niceties. Particularly welcome, from my perspective, are the trio of really fast USB4 (including 2x USB4 v2) ports, all with DisplayPort capabilities.

A distinct advantage I expected in moving to the MS-02 Ultra was from the increased core count using Intel’s more modern architecture. Indeed, CPU-heavy benchmarks would show the new chip could convincingly eclipse the old mid-range Core i5-14400F in both single- and multicore workloads, given sufficient power supply and cooling capacity. But, we'll see how that translates to ‘Mark’s world’ of computing in the benchmarks section, below.

I’ll stress again that a brief check of the specs, ahead of any actual comparison testing, may suggest the little Minisforum would win hands-down in CPU-focused processing tasks, but the best consumer-grade GPU I could get to fit inside its sub-5-liter chassis would be crushed by the triple-fan behemoth in my ATX desktop. Indeed, that is sort of what happened. There are nuances, though, especially as I don’t really play any AAA or eSports PC games that launched in the 2020s, or dabble in local AI.

The MS-02 Ultra runs using the integrated graphics on the Core Ultra 9 285HX by. default. However, there’s a PCIe5.0 x16 slot, and incredibly, there’s room to install a two-slot low profile (LP) graphics card. This, plus the spare 8-pin connector from the built-in 350W PSU, allowed me to install a Gigabyte RTX 5060 OC LP GPU.

Nvidia’s RTX 5060 seemed to be the best graphics card choice for me, as a generalist/hobbyist PC user, though I’ve seen other early adopters of the MS-02 Ultra install cards like the Intel Arc Pro B50 (16GB), Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 Blackwell SFF (24GB), and the RTX 4000 SFF Ada (20GB). These offer far more VRAM but can cost a lot more, too. But thanks to this mini workstation allowing for GPU upgrades, perhaps the RTX 6060 or RTX 7060 will arrive one day with more than 8GB of VRAM on board, and in a low-profile form factor. Or maybe AMD will make a performant LP form factor card in the meantime.

More on specs

I chose my Fractal Define S-housed desktop's motherboard as it was one of the few B760 chipset boards with a USB-C 20 Gbps port as standard at the price point. So, getting three times more USB-C ports, with two of them supporting up to 80 Gbps as standard, on the compact MS-02 Ultra was a welcome platform boost. I’m sure there is potential here for some very useful docking or even eGPU use-cases.

I have a pair of Crucial X10 Pro 4TB devices for keeping games, TV, and movie libraries portable. My testing confirmed the USB4 v2 ports on the front work at full USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20 Gbps) speeds with the X10 Pro. Some USB4 controllers surprisingly don’t support Gen 2x2 and would fall back to 10 Gbps mode. My X10 Pros run about a third of the speed of the built-in M.2 SSD provided by Minisforum, but I feel they are good for external, highly portable units.

An extra two 25 GbE network ports and two of the available M.2 SSD slots are provided by a pre-installed low-profile card in the MS-02 Ultra’s PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. However, I chose to replace that with a cheap USB Type-A 3.0 card with four ports, as I really like to have lots of USB ports. My old desktop used a USB adaptor for Wi-Fi 6 and didn’t have Bluetooth. The MS-02 has built-in Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7 and BT 5.4 card.

There are three PCIe slots in the MS-02 Ultra, but adding the GPU takes up the room where two single-slot add-in-cards would otherwise fit. That compares poorly with my Define S desktop, which has five slots. With a bulky GPU fitted in that ATX system, it was still possible to add another three single-slot PCIe cards. Again, I have one installed in there, bristling with extra USB ports.

Preparing for my personal benchmark battle

The most demanding things thrown at my PC are video editing and games like The Division 2 and Far Cry 5. The Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark is just there for an added reference point, (I bought it, but I’ve not actually got around to playing it yet.) The same goes for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I also like playing in Borderlands GOTY Enhanced Edition, Command & Conquer Generals, and Amiga Forever – but those are so old and lightweight they weren’t worth testing for this performance comparison.

Most of the time, my computer will be used for little more than multiscreen word processing and browsing, communicating with work colleagues, and a touch of ancient Photoshop and Illustrator dabbling. These help me prepare artwork for here on Tom’s Hardware, some YouTube stuff, as well as laser cutting and engraving. Also, Photoshop has recently been replaced by the Affinity suite.

So, without further ado, let’s get into those benchmarks, which unashamedly revolve around my personal general-purpose computer use, with a few gaming classics thrown in. I’ve also included a ‘tweener’ system, where my large desktop was fitted with the incongruously tiny RTX 5060 LP card.

Minisforum MS-02 Ultra productivity performance

The comparison table above doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises. The MS-02 Ultra with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285HX does exceedingly well in CPU-intensive tests, particularly those that take advantage of the abundance of available threads. We see the 285HX is a star performer in Cinebench R23, with single-thread scores similar to desktop processors like the Core i9-14900K and Ryzen 9 9950X. For multicore, you are also good to compare with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and i9‑14900F, but the unlocked i9‑14900K starts to pull ahead convincingly.

I also think the 7-Zip (de)compression benchmark shows the MS-02 mini workstation in a good light. Handbrake 4K transcoding wasn’t much better compared with my old 14400F, though. Meanwhile, PassMark Performance Test, a mix of CPU, graphics, memory, and disk tests, showed some worthwhile performance benefits from the Minisforum – when the RTX 5060 was installed.

Minisforum MS-02 Ultra gaming performance

It is almost moot to highlight that the Define S desktop with Radeon RX 9070 would dominate in 3D games and 3D benchmarks. Nevertheless, there were some interesting results showing that the Ultra 9 285HX / RTX 5060 didn’t always beat the i5-14400F / RTX 5060 due to titles simply being ‘GPU-limited.’ An interesting outlier was the crazy-town USA-set Far Cry 5, where Ubisoft’s Dunia Engine 2 (a modified CryEngine) seemed to prefer the desktop Raptor Lake Refresh under the hood. All the games were tested in 1440p, with no upscaling or frame-gen tech applied.

Minisforum MS-02 Ultra power consumption and noise

Now we move into an area of both strength and weakness for the Minisforum MS-02 Ultra. In my benchmarks table, above, I also included power and noise readings. Starting with the good news, the MS-02 requires less power while idling and doing light tasks – like writing this. It also uses about 120W less when gaming, and all the titles I enjoy play smoothly enough on the RTX 5060 system at high to ultra settings at 1440p without the use of any scaling or frame gen tech.

Some bad news for the mini workstation is that it is more audible when idling and under load, in my experience. Initially, I measured both systems from about arm’s length distance. My Define S desktop uses large Noctua fans and sits under the desk, and in the comparison results, you see that even using the tiny RTX 5060 didn’t increase the noticeable system noise – it is hard to be 100% confident about the 1dBA difference observed.

Having the MS-02 Ultra at arm's length from my seated position, but on the desk top, the noise level was quite high at 48 dBA under load, as per the above chart. However, sitting it under the desk, where the big DIY desktop PC was previously located, reduced the max noise level to 41 dBA. But it's a far smaller system, and when positioned in the space vacated by the Define S, the Minisforum front panel moves beyond arm's reach under the desk. It is necessary to bend quite low from the chair to reach the power button and front I/O, which isn't convenient. That's why I decided to keep it on the desk.

I also note that the Minisforum BIOS has various fan modes (quiet, balanced, and performance) and manual tweaking of the trio of system fans. I ran it at ‘Balanced,’ so there’s probably some tuning that could be done for better noise performance.

Bottom line

In some many ways, the Minisforum MS-02 Ultra held its own against my old home-built Goliath.. The pint-sized challenger does everything I need, and some more. There are clear advantages to be had in CPU-heavy workloads. In GPU-heavy tasks and gaming, there’s clearly enough juice for my particular needs today. If you think about the future, then unlike many other mini PCs, this one can get upgraded with a faster next-generation low-profile graphics card (and other compact PCIe cards) if and when they arrive at an affordable price.

I’ll continue to work on configuring the fans, with an eye on processor and memory temperatures, as the louder fans are the one aspect of the MS-02 Ultra that pokes me in the ribs. It may also be repositioned further back on the desk or under it to scale back its audible presence. The fan noise isn’t high-pitched, and I sometimes forget it, but less is more.

We must also talk about the price of the Minisforum MS-02 Ultra mini workstation. As of the this writing, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX model with 2x 25 GbE PCIe SFP+ NIC, 32GB DDR5, plus a 1TB M.2 PCIe4x4 SSD, and Windows 11 Pro is priced at $1,583.90 from Amazon.com. You can also go barebone (no RAM, SSD, or OS) for $1,229.90 using a $300 discount coupon on the page, which could be a great option if you have a spare DDR5 SO-DIMM, M.2 SSD, and can source your own OS. As with all PCs at this time, prices are very volatile.

The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5060 OC LP 8G I bought to go in this system's PCIe ​5.0 x16 slot is currently $359 at Newegg. This was a necessary extra to indulge in the type and quality of gaming fun that I am used to.

Thus, for the Minisforum MS-02 Ultra 32GB/1TB with RTX 5060 LP graphics card installed, as tested, today's total price would be $1,942.90. Things have gotten a little pricier since I began my tests in early January, but that's the way the PC market is going.

We could talk about the comparison between the MS-02 Ultra build/cost and a desktop, with the latter offering much better value and expandability or upgradeability. However, getting something this performant yet compact, with this level of I/O spec and expandability, is going to be impossible with off-the-shelf parts. In this way, and especially for those with a use for the 2x 25 GbE PCIe SFP+ NIC, this mini workstation is a uniquely attractive package.

Mid-tower desktops provide the best performance for the money, but mini PCs have carved a niche by offering surprising muscle in far smaller, more efficient packages. GMKtec’s Evo X2 AI Mini PC ($1,499 as tested) is an excellent example, pairing AMD’s “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max+ 395 mobile processor with 64GB or 128GB of memory to provide ample headroom for multitasking and AI development. Its Radeon 8060S integrated graphics even make 1080p gaming surprisingly viable.

For what’s here, it’s arguably a better value than the Framework Desktop, though it remains quite expensive relative to the performance you can get from our best gaming PCs – especially if you don’t truly need 64GB of RAM.

Design of the GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC

The Evo X2 isn’t a style-first or even a style-second machine. Its two-tone black and silver chassis gives it some contrast, but the overall aesthetic feels dated, as if it could have debuted a decade ago. The green power button doesn’t help, leaning more towards budget gadget aesthetic than premium mini-desktop looks.

Although the chassis looks like it could rest horizontally, the ventilation perforations along one side force a vertical‑only orientation. There’s also no VESA mounting support, so it must live on your desk. Fortunately, its 3.03 x 7.6 x 7.32‑inch footprint is small enough that placement shouldn’t be an issue. It’s more compact than the Framework Desktop (3.8 x 8.9 x 8.1 inches), but GMKtec’s reliance on a hefty external 230‑watt power brick undermines some of the space savings.

Build quality is respectable. The lower half of the chassis is sturdy aluminum while the upper shell is plastic but doesn’t feel flimsy. Inside, the CPU fan includes RGB lighting, though it isn’t controllable through Windows Dynamic Lighting or any bundled software. Instead, lighting is managed through a physical “fan mode” button that cycles through static colors and a handful of simple effects like breathing and color‑shift. The other button on the chassis, P-mode, switches between three performance modes. The default seems to be high performance, with the other two designed to reduce fan noise at the expense of performance. An icon briefly pops up in the middle of your screen when the performance mode is changed, displaying a symbol: a dial for high-performance and variations of a flower for the other two – and fades away after a couple seconds.

GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC

GMKtec includes an impressive variety of ports, starting on the front panel with a USB4 (USB-C) port, two USB-A 3.2 Gen2 ports, a 3.5 mm audio jack, and a full-size SD card reader.

The rear shelf features DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 video output, USB4, USB-A 3.2 Gen2, two USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5 mm audio jack, and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet. All told, the system natively supports four monitors.

For wireless, the system supports the latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 standards courtesy of a MediaTek MT7925 networking card. The wireless antennas are built into the case, so there are no external protrusions.

Upgrading the Evo X2 AI Mini PC is tricky. With the CPU/GPU and RAM soldered, only the two M.2 drives can be upgraded. Accessing these requires peeling off the rubber feet and removing the Philips-head screws underneath. This allows the smaller top half of the chassis to come free, revealing the two M.2 slots.

Removing the rubber feet is difficult since they’re secured with adhesive. I used a plastic toothpick to get under them, then slowly pulled them free with my fingers. The adhesive becomes much less effective once the feet are taken off, though it remained sticky enough for the one time I reapplied them.

Gaming and Graphics on the GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC

Our Evo X2 review unit features a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, Radeon 8060S graphics, and 64GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory. Though integrated, the Radeon chip is more than powerful enough for 1080p gaming.

For my game testing, I used Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order at 1920 x 1080 with Epic visual quality settings. I saw 90-110 frames per second in most instances, with occasional dips into the 70 FPS range for complex scenes, and spikes over 120 FPS in cutscenes. The game always seemed fluid.

For comparison, we’re using the Framework Desktop, which features the same hardware. We are testing at a 1920 x 1080 resolution since modern 4K gaming still isn’t practical on integrated graphics.

These mini-PCs are evenly matched for the most part, with the edge going to the Evo X2 in Shadow of the Tomb Raider (91 versus 87 FPS), Cyberpunk 2077 (28 versus 22 FPS), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (62 versus 57 FPS). The pair was within one FPS in Far Cry 6, but the Evo X2 produced far lower numbers in Borderlands 3 (78 versus 103 FPS), which may have been an anomaly.

Our tests are run at demanding settings, particularly in Cyberpunk; reducing the settings a notch or two can yield much higher FPS. We would expect any modern game to be playable on the Evo X2 at a 1920 x 1080 resolution.

To stress test gaming PCs, we run the Metro Exodus benchmark 15 times sequentially at RTX settings to simulate half an hour of gaming. During the test, the Evo X2 averaged 57 FPS across all runs with less than 1 FPS variation between tests, indicating stable thermal performance. The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 ran at an average temperature of 61 C.

Fan noise proved louder than expected on this mini PC, with the fans becoming audible across my living room while running our CPU benchmarks. However, during gaming, the fans were much more controlled since the CPU was not being fully stressed.

Productivity Performance on the GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC

We tested the Evo X2 featuring AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, 64GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD. Despite being a mobile chip, the 395 has no trouble powering through demanding workloads, from heavy multitasking to AI‑accelerated tasks.

Unified memory sets Strix Halo apart. Because the GPU draws from system RAM, the 64GB model can allocate up to 32GB for graphics, while the 128GB configuration can expose a massive 96GB to the GPU. That’s an extraordinary amount of GPU-addressable memory for any PC, let alone one this compact.

The Evo X2 and the Framework Desktop produced almost indistinguishable results in our Handbrake and Geekbench CPU tests, an unsurprising result considering both use the same CPU. The Evo X2 disappointed in our 25GB file transfer test, though; we’d forgive that on a barebones PC where you supply your own drive, but the Evo X2 arrives fully equipped.

Software and Warranty

Almost nothing is installed on the Evo X2 beyond an “AIPC” app, which requires a login but doesn’t provide a way to create one. I did so by going to GMKtec’s online store and registering there. It took several minutes to receive a verification code, which went to my spam folder.

The app isn’t specific to the Evo X2 AI Mini PC – there are no device-specific settings. Instead, you get a DeepSeekV3 prompt and the ability to add other large language models. It seems like it could be useful for local AI development and adds value since everything is local, protecting your privacy. GMKtec has a blog post explaining which models are compatible with the Evo X2. Buyers intending to use larger parameter models should carefully note that some models don’t work with just 64GB of RAM, requiring the 128GB Evo X2.

GMKtec includes a one-year warranty.

GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC Configurations

All GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PCs feature the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor with integrated Radeon 8060S graphics. MicroCenter offered our review model with 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD for $1,499, with a 128GB/2TB model for $2,299. Amazon has our review model listed at $1,699.99, but it is listed as "temporarily out of stock" as of this writing.

GMKtec also sells the system directly, starting with our review model for $1,499, a 96GB/2TB model for $1,799.99, and a 128GB/2TB system for $2,199.

GMKtec undercuts the Framework Desktop on price, which starts at $1,639 with the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and 64GB of RAM, but before adding storage, an OS, and its required add-ons to get it up and running.

Bottom Line

GMKtec’s Evo X2 is an appealing mini‑PC for anyone who wants strong CPU performance, abundant GPU‑addressable memory, and respectable 1080p gaming in a small footprint. While it's not as compact as the Framework Desktop because of its external power brick, it’s still dramatically smaller than a mid‑tower and easily fits on a desk. We also noted its excellent connectivity, Wi-Fi 7, and ability to drive four displays.

Its value hinges on your workload. The 128GB configuration delivers a massive 96GB of GPU‑addressable memory, making it a standout option for local AI development at a price far below traditional workstations (assuming you're willing to use AMD's software), and considerably cheaper than the Framework Desktop.

For pure gaming, though, it's not as appealing – a mid‑tower will deliver far better performance per dollar. But for creators, tinkerers, and anyone who can exploit its memory and AI capabilities, the Evo X2 is one of the strongest deals in the mini‑PC space.

Editor's Note, February 4: This review was originally published with the wrong gaming charts. This has been rectified. We regret the error.

The fruits of the AI gold rush thus far have frequently been safeguarded in proprietary frontier models running in massive, remote, interconnected data centers. But as more and more open models with state-of-the-art capabilities are distilled into sizes that can fit into the VRAM of a single GPU, a burgeoning community of local AI enthusiasts has been exploring what’s possible outside the walled gardens of Anthropic, OpenAI, and the like.

Today's hardware hasn’t entirely caught up to the rapid shift in resources that AI trailblazers demand, though. Thin and light x86-powered "AI PCs” largely constitute familiar x86 CPUs with lightweight GPUs and some type of NPU bolted on to accelerate machine learning features like background blur and replacement. These systems rarely come with more than 32GB of RAM, and their relatively anemic integrated GPUs aren’t going to churn through inference at the rates enthusiasts and developers expect.

Gaming GPUs bring much more raw compute power to the table, but they still aren't well-suited to running more demanding local models, especially large language models. Even the RTX 5090 "only" has 32GB of memory on board, and it’s trivial to exhaust that pool with cutting-edge LLMs. Getting the model into RAM is just part of the problem, too. As conversations lengthen and context lengths grow, the pressure on VRAM only increases.

If you want to get more VRAM on a discrete GPU to hold larger AI models, or more of them at once, you're looking at professional products like an $8500+ RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell and its 96GB of GDDR7 (or two, or three, or four). And that’s not even counting the cost of the exotic host system you’ll need for such a setup. (Can I interest you in a Tinybox for $60K?)

The hunger for RAM extends to other common AI development tasks, like fine-tuning an already trained AI model for better performance on domain-specific data or quantizing an existing model to reduce its resource footprint for less powerful systems.

In the face of this endless hunger for RAM, systems with large pools of unified memory have become attractive platforms for those looking to explore the frontiers of local AI. Apple paved the way with its M-series SoCs, which in their latest and greatest forms pair as much as 512GB of LPDDR5 and copious memory bandwidth with powerful GPUs.

And AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (aka Strix Halo) platform has found a niche as a somewhat affordable way to get 128GB of RAM alongside a relatively powerful GPU for local LLM tinkering.

But none of those systems natively support Nvidia’s CUDA, which remains the dominant software platform for AI development the world over. Enter the DGX Spark, first announced all the way back at CES 2025, which brings the combo of a high-performance Arm CPU and a Blackwell GPU to desktops for the first time alongside full support for the CUDA ecosystem.

The centerpiece of the DGX Spark is Nvidia’s GB10 SoC, which combines a MediaTek-produced Arm CPU complex joined together with a Blackwell GPU on one package. Both of these chiplets are fabricated on a TSMC 3nm-class node, and they’re joined together by Nvidia’s coherent, high-bandwidth NVLink C2C interconnect. Those chips share a coherent 128GB pool of LPDDR5X memory that offers a tantalizing canvas for pretty much any common AI workload you can think of.

Ports, external stuff, operating system and software

The Spark itself is a pretty straightforward mini PC. It measures just 5.9” by 5.9” by 2” (150mm by 150mm by 50.5mm) for a volume of just 1.1 liters.

The Founders Edition version we’re reviewing today has a spiffy gold finish with a metal foam front and back panel for ventilation. The “rack handles” at the front of the device conceal air intakes, but the top and sides are otherwise featureless.

Flip the Spark over, and you see another air intake along the bottom edge, as well as a removable rubber foot that conceals the wireless networking antennas and allows for access to the user-replaceable M.2 2242 SSD. Our unit came with a 4TB drive.

Around back, you get a power button, one USB-C power input, three USB-C 20Gbps ports with DisplayPort alt mode support, an HDMI 2.1a port, a 10Gb Ethernet port, and two QSFP ports for the onboard ConnectX 7 NIC running at up to 200 Gbps. That exotic NIC lets you cluster a pair of Sparks together for experimentation with Nvidia’s NCCL distributed computing libraries.

If the Founders Edition Spark isn’t to your liking, Nvidia has made the GB10 platform available to its system partners with a bit of wiggle room for customization. Dell, Acer, Asus, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, and MSI have all created GB10 boxes of their own with small variations in power, cooling, storage, cosmetics, and remote management options. Those options are likely of most interest to corporate and institutional IT departments that already have preferred vendors and support contracts.

Nvidia makes it easy to integrate the Spark into your existing workflow in a number of ways. The preinstalled DGX OS is a lightly Nvidia-flavored version of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. You can use it as a regular PC with keyboard, mouse, and monitor connected, or you can set it up headless and use the free Nvidia Sync app to SSH into the system from your Windows PC or Mac. Using tools like Tailscale, you can conceivably connect to your Spark from anywhere in the world.

The included Nvidia Sync utility for Windows and macOS is handy, and it’s easy to set up. For just one example, I was able to leave ComfyUI running on the Spark and created a custom port forwarding rule that let me turn any PC in my house into a generative AI workstation with a single click. You can also set up Ollama for a private web chat interface or Cursor for AI-assisted coding in the same way.

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Let's take a look at the layout of the GB10 SoC before diving into its performance. Here's the logical topology of the chip, visualized with the lstopo utility:

Despite its branding, the Grace CPU on GB10 isn’t exactly like its data center counterparts. The Mediatek-designed CPU complex has 10 high-performance Arm Cortex-X925 cores and another 10 area-efficient Cortex-A725 cores. These are all off-the-shelf Arm designs, not Neoverse cores like you’ll find in an actual GB200 server.

Those 20 cores are spread across two clusters of 10, further subdivided into groups of five A725s and five X925s. Each X925 core has 2MB of L2 cache, and each A725 has 512KB. One cluster has 16MB of shared L3 cache, while the other has 8MB.

Meanwhile, the GB10 GPU has 6144 Blackwell CUDA cores, so it looks like the desktop RTX 5070 if you squint. But the similarities pretty much end there. Unlike the 672 GB/s of exclusive bandwidth afforded by the RTX 5070’s 12GB of GDDR7, the DGX Spark’s 128GB of LPDDR5X offers just 273 GB/s of raw memory bandwidth to the entire SoC.

The GB10 GPU also has much less L2 cache than the desktop RTX 5070, at 24 MB vs 48 MB for the desktop card, but that reduction is potentially balanced out by a 16MB L4 or side cache on GB10 that is meant to smooth out memory accesses across the chip.

Thanks to that relatively modest memory bandwidth figure, this system isn’t going to set any records for tokens generated per second on an LLM, but the world of AI applications thus far isn’t just about straight-line chatbot throughput.

At the frontiers of local AI, just being able to fit a model or group of models into VRAM is the difference between exploring their capabilities and getting nowhere at all. And content creation workflows like image and video generation are much more compute-intensive than they are bandwidth-hungry.

You’ll often hear Nvidia tout a 1 PFLOP raw compute figure for GB10, but as explained by the Blackwell architectural whitepaper, that claim only holds with NVFP4 workloads that can exploit sparsity, which is a pretty narrow use case. Take sparsity out of the picture, and peak NVFP4 compute is cut in half, to about 500 TFLOPS. As floating-point and tensor accumulate precision goes up from there, theoretical performance only goes down. Suffice it to say that the 1 PFLOP figure is mostly marketing.

All told, if we look at compute, memory bandwidth, and memory capacity as a triangle, the DGX Spark compromises on memory bandwidth while delivering enough computing power and memory capacity to serve as a jack-of-all-trades AI development sandbox.

All this goes to emphasize that this SoC is targeted at AI workloads first and foremost. You can game on it with the right Linux tools, but that’s not its primary objective. Let's see how it performs for some common local AI workflows.

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Gauging AI performance, especially for LLMs, is a broad discipline with a dizzying number of permutations thanks to the vast range of models, model runners, and possible workloads available.

We can’t possibly cover every one of those permutations in this article, but after much research and experimentation, we are at least confident that we’re able to provide some useful perspective on what the Spark can do.

For comparison purposes, we've benchmarked both the DGX Spark and a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 platform in the form of Corsair's AI Workstation 300 mini-PC.

We’ll start with LLM inference performance, since that’s where most enthusiasts dipping their toes into local AI are focused nowadays. We chose llama.cpp as our inference platform since it’s broadly compatible across platforms and offers a well-documented and tunable benchmarking interface.

Other model runners, like vLLM, SGLang, and Nvidia’s own Triton inference server, have their own pros and cons and their own performance characteristics, but we’re not benchmarking them against each other today.

We bench two phases of LLM interaction: prompt processing or prefill for input, and token generation for output.

We’ll start off our benchmarks using Meta’s llama-3.1-8B, a dense LLM (i.e., one for which all parameters are activated per token) whose behavior is well-understood in the current AI landscape.

We extended our dense model testing using Google’s Gemma 3 12B and 27B.

We’ll also look at performance with OpenAI’s gpt-oss 120b and Qwen3-30B-A3B models, which use mixture-of-experts (MoE) architectures that are closer to the state of the art in LLM research.

MoE models can have massive parameter counts, but only a portion of those parameters are activated for any given token. That allows MoEs to balance both capability and performance, although they can still require large amounts of memory. GPT-OSS 120b, for example, requires about 60 GB of RAM.

Speaking generally, the Spark’s higher raw compute horsepower makes it much faster for prompt processing than Strix Halo, meaning that your time to first token will generally be lower on the Spark, especially as context lengths grow. (For reference, a context length of 32,768 tokens is about 25,000 words.)

Once the tokens start rolling, the Spark is generally faster at churning them out than Strix Halo, too—especially at long context lengths.

The closest results between the platforms come from the dense Gemma 3 27B model, where both GB10 and Strix Halo seem to struggle with the sheer number of active parameters per token. But on every other test, the Spark holds the lead, and at every context depth.

LLMs are just one usage for AI compute, of course. Nvidia also positions the Spark as a companion accelerator for creative users who primarily work on laptops or Macs but need to offload tasks like image generation to a more powerful or versatile GPU without upgrading their entire system or migrating to an unfamiliar platform.

We tested the latest Flux.2 Klein 9B image generation workflow in ComfyUI using the same random seed as a base. After the first load for the workflow, the Spark generated iterations on our desired image in just over 60 seconds, while the Strix Halo platform took a whopping four times as long.

If iteration on generative imagery matters to you, the Spark can do the job with practically any image model thanks to its generous VRAM pool. Discrete GPUs can be much faster still, but you have to match the amount of available VRAM to your workload. And have you tried to buy anything more powerful than an RTX 5070 recently?

The brand-new LTX-2 video generation model also worked flawlessly on the Spark via ComfyUI as soon as I was able to load it up. After the first load, I was able to generate iterations on short 720p videos locally in just over three minutes.

Even with the latest ROCm 7.1.1 stack, however, trying to run the same LTX-2 workflow on our Strix Halo system resulted in HIP errors that would hang ComfyUI or crash the entire GNOME desktop environment.

That experience emphasizes a major advantage of the Spark as of this writing: stuff just works. If you need to try a particular workflow, you can generally rest assured that the Spark will run it on day one.

AMD has repeatedly and publicly committed to making ROCm a better AI platform from the desktop to the data center, but that improvement will take time, and the company clearly has its work cut out for it in this department.

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The Spark comes with a hefty 240 W USB-C power supply. Nvidia officially budgets 140 W of this for the GB10 SoC itself and leaves the rest for the ConnectX 7 NIC and other peripheral devices when they’re active.

The Spark idles at about 35 W as a headless system, and at about 40 W with a 4K 160Hz panel connected. This strikes us as a bit high given GB10’s Arm DNA and Nvidia’s mobile power management chops, but given that the typical enthusiast desktop pulls 75 W to 100 W at idle nowadays, it’s downright frugal by comparison.

We saw typical power usage of about 160 W at the wall under a primarily GPU-driven load, which suggests that overall system performance will be reduced somewhat if the CPU, GPU, and ConnectX NIC are all under heavy load at the same time.

In any case, instantaneous power draw isn’t useful for understanding efficiency by itself. Fast chips with high power draw can get a job done quickly, resulting in low overall task energy, while slow chips can consume lots of power over time to get the job done slowly.

To test token generation efficiency, we once again turned to llama.cpp. This time, we set up the test to generate 4096 output tokens from GPT-OSS 120b and logged cumulative power usage from both systems over the course of the benchmark. That lets us calculate the number of joules consumed to produce each token.

With an empty context buffer, both platforms expend about as much power to generate 4096 tokens from GPT-OSS 20B using llama.cpp. The Spark holds a small advantage here, but it’s not significant.

At the extremes of the context sizes we tested, however, Strix Halo takes twice as much time to generate the same amount of output, and so it expends twice as many joules per token as the Spark does to finish the job.

Our Strix Halo system only consumes about 112 W under an LLM inference load, so neither it nor the Spark are going to inflate your power bill or trip breakers when you put them to work. But we think it’s important to challenge the widely held notion that Strix Halo and GB10 are essentially “the same” when the reality is that GB10 is a faster and more efficient platform once you test anything that isn’t zero-context-depth LLM token generation.

The Spark remains quiet while delivering its solid performance. Under an extended image generation load, the loudest noise level we could measure from the Spark was 37.5 dBA at 18” from the system. (For reference, our testing environment has a noise floor of 33 dBA.)

The Spark isn’t silent under load, but it has a relatively neutral noise signature with only a hint of the high-pitched whine typical of small axial fans. It won’t disturb you or others around you when it’s hard at work.

The outer shell of the Spark does get quite hot under stress. A large amount of the heat is concentrated in the rightmost corner of the case, which appears to be the home of a big inductor in the power-delivery subsystem.

That corner of the Spark does get too hot to comfortably touch under load, but since this is a desktop system, it’s not likely that you should need to touch it under full load anyway.

We want to know whether the GB10 SoC itself is adequately cooled, of course. We don’t have the same wealth of system monitoring options on Linux that we do on Windows, but a glance at the nvtop utility suggests the GB10 GPU doesn’t exceed 82 °C under sustained load.

That’s quite a bit higher than the relatively chilly temps we usually see with quad-slot graphics cards that occupy more volume than the Spark itself, but for a compact system of this class, it’s well within acceptable limits.

nvtop also shows typical GPU clock speeds of about 2450 MHz, or about 10% lower than the RTX 5070 Founders Edition desktop card can sustain. All in all, for the types of workloads this system is built for, its achieved performance, thermals, noise levels, and efficiency are commendable.

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Nvidia’s DGX Spark is a bit tough to judge at first. It isn’t meant to replace your existing PC or Mac, although it certainly could if you’re a Linux native. It's not built to be a gaming system, although it can certainly do it as a party trick.

Instead, the Spark is best understood as an AI development toolbox, a Swiss Army knife for developers, institutions, and curious local AI enthusiasts who want a stable, dependable platform to build and explore with.

The Spark’s 128GB of RAM and the solid performance afforded by its Blackwell GPU across a wide range of workloads mean that you can work without getting stopped cold by resource limitations most of the time, and for a jack-of-all-trades development sandbox, that’s mission accomplished.

Beyond the hardware, time is money in a field that’s moving this fast, and Nvidia’s thorough documentation and software support are incredibly valuable if you want to get local AI workloads up and running without spending hours digging through Reddit threads or GitHub pages to figure stuff out.

The Spark feels like a fully turn-key, professional-grade platform, and businesses and institutions that are trying to get their heads around what AI applications can do for their employees or students with minimal fuss should take notice.

The Spark is also interesting purely as a milestone in personal computing. It’s the first “real” PC built entirely under Nvidia’s direction. Here’s a fast, efficient SoC on a cutting-edge 3nm process, boasting a 20-core Arm CPU paired with a powerful Blackwell GPU using the NVLink C2C interconnect, and it all just works. There’s not a drop of AMD or Intel tech in this platform, and maybe that should keep some folks up at night.

The $4,000 price tag of the Founders Edition Spark we tested might seem high on its face, but given its performance and versatility, it’s plenty competitive with other products in the market right now.

If you just want a powerful local token generator with lots of RAM for the biggest models, the comparison for the DGX Spark is probably a system like Apple’s Mac Studio.

The Studio’s much higher memory bandwidth (546 GB/s vs the Spark's 273 GB/s) should result in higher tokens-per-second throughput from LLMs if that’s your sole point of interest.

You can configure an M4 Max-powered Studio with comparable amounts of RAM and storage, along with a 40-core GPU, for about $700 more than the Spark as of this writing. But the Mac Studio doesn't support CUDA, and that will be a deal-breaker for some.

AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395, aka Strix Halo, platform might look comparable to the DGX Spark on paper thanks to its powerful Radeon 8060S GPU and RAM pools ranging up to 128GB. Its x86 CPU makes it great for Windows gaming in addition to AI and Linux tasks. It’s developed a reputation as the local AI enthusiast’s scrappy platform of choice.

In our experience, though, AMD’s ROCm framework still isn’t as mature or stable as CUDA despite recent improvements (at least under Linux), and the Radeon 8060S has about half the raw GPU horsepower as the Spark. Our testing revealed that its performance at long LLM context lengths and for generative workflows falls well short of GB10’s.

If you need to tinker with large AI models or agentic workflows for the lowest possible cost, Strix Halo used to be a relatively inexpensive way of getting into the game, but prices for these systems have risen sharply amid the current AI crunch. You can still configure a wide range of Ryzen AI Max+ 395 boxes with 128GB of RAM and 4TB of storage for about $3,000 from vendors like Corsair, Framework, Minisforum , and GMKtec as of this writing.

But Asus’ Ascent GX10 version of the Nvidia GB10 platform also sells for as little as $3,000 with a 1TB SSD right now, and after our testing, we’d take the Ascent GX10 any day for a general-purpose local AI system. You can drop your own 4TB M.2 2230 SSD into the GX10 and keep about $700 in your pocket versus the Founders Edition Spark we tested.

AMD is going all in on Strix Halo for local AI this year, even going so far as to create its own Ryzen AI Halo mini-PC design that’s essentially a carbon copy of the DGX Spark. But hardware is only one part of the package, and from our experience, the Spark delivers the whole enchilada right now.

As local AI workflows continue to evolve rapidly, we think the DGX Spark (and the GB10 ecosystem more broadly) is the platform you’ll want to fully explore everything that’s possible from the whirlwind of new models and applications that will surely come down the pipe as we get further into 2026.

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A Chinese device maker is teasing a new mini PC inside a chassis that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Acemagic’s blog and social media share images and a handful of specs for this AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 machine, which it has dubbed the Retro X5. The maker characterizes this mini PC as “an all-in-one solution created to simplify classic gaming,” which makes us wonder if it will come with Batocera Linux, SteamOS, or another non-Windows OS/UI.

We don’t know a lot about the hardware inside the Acemagic Retro X5 as yet. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 inside is a capable processor, though. It features a 4x Zen 5 performance cores and 8x Zen 5c efficiency cores for a total of 12 cores and 24 threads, running at up to 5.1GHz. Onboard is a decent iGPU in the shape of the Radeon 890M (RDNA 3+). This packs in 16 CUs and runs at up to 2.9 GHz. There’s an XDNA 2 NPU with 50 TOPS, too.

If we are thinking about PC gaming with this processor, it should easily overshadow the Steam Deck. However, you will be targeting higher resolutions on a desktop. Also, as a mini PC, the HX 370 should run without the thermal constraints typically experienced in handheld or laptop designs. Thus, the Retro X5 might push this processor to the upper part of the processor’s configurable 15-54W TDP range.

From the few images of the new mini PC we can see a USB-C, 2x Type-A, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a power button up front. We also know that the “Retro X5 supports expandable memory and storage, multiple display outputs, and high-speed connectivity,” as it says so on the blog. Hopefully, that means at least: twin SODIMM slots, twin M.2 SSD slots, HDMI, USB-C monitor connectivity, USB4 or USB5, OCuLink, and Ethernet, multiple extra ports along the back, and built-in Wi-Fi / BT.

RetroPlay Box

It looks like Acemagic will try and differentiate its latest mini PC with some kind of launcher, dubbed RetroPlay Box, which you can see represented by swirling tiles in the Tweet embedded above. It could be an app that is pre-installed on Windows 11 – the least adventurous option.

There’s also the chance that Acemagic might go with a Linux-based OS to host its RetroPlay Box. It may save money on a Windows license by choosing SteamOS or Batocera Linux, for example. We shall have to wait and see.

Surfing the retro-wave

Acemagic is riding on the coattails of Ayaneo (and Nintendo) with its “inspired by iconic gaming consoles” design here. But, perhaps its timing, surfing the wave of retro-enthusiasm precipitated by Windows 11 disillusion, the rise of SteamOS, and yet another PC AAA gaming hardware cost crunch, will help it achieve better success.

The Acemagic Retro X5 is “coming soon,” according to the firm’s social media postings.

China-based Mini PC manufacturer Minisforum has just globally launched the MS-R1, the company's first foray into the ARM market, with a compact yet powerful device. Building on the interest in Nvidia's DGX Spark, the ongoing AI boom has made desktop-class ARM systems a hot topic, and Minisforum's MS-R1 differentiates itself by including support for dedicated GPUs and a UEFI.

The MS-R1 is based on Cixin's P1 SoC, using a rebranded variant of it called the CD8180. It's a 12-core SoC, packing 8x Cortex-A720 and 4x Cortex‑A520 cores, alongside an Immortalis-G720 MC10 integrated GPU. It features up to 64 GB of error-correcting LPPDR5 RAM, running at 5500 MT/s. Minisforum is quoting up to 45 TOPS of AI compute, with 28.8 coming from the NPU.

All that power doesn't require a lot of space, as the MS-R1 is only 1.7-liters in size and should run quietly thanks to its 28W max TDP. The 12-core SoC can boost up to 2.6 GHz, but looks to be fairlyweak, even compared to a last-gen Snapdragon X Elite. For connectivity, you get Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E, plus the IO is packed, with a bunch of fast USB ports, dual 10Gbps Ethernet, and HDMI out.

Despite touting UEFI boot support — which should enable even beginners to run mainstream operating systems like Linux easily — Minisforum does not mention Windows on ARM, so we assume it's not supported. The company says this is a "major breakthrough" for ARM computing, allowing both complex setups and everyday environments to be booted into with just a USB drive.

Again, the MS-R1 has a dedicated PCIe x16 slot for discrete GPUs, making it one of the first and only compact ARM-based solutions to have that capability. Discrete GPUs can massively accelerate AI inference and training, and pair nicely with the ARM cores to offer an efficient yet powerful computer for AI, for much less than a DGX Spark.

Speaking of, Minisforum is asking $503 for the base unit with 32 GB RAM, which does not include any storage. The top-end model with 64 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD is $695.90, and you do get an expandable (up to 8 TB) M.2 slot. It looks like the NAND and DRAM shortage has already hit Minisforum as well. These are early-bird discounted prices that will go up after the initial batch sells out (which it already has) showing just how much in demand desktop-class ARM is at the moment.

Orico, a Chinese tech company specializing in storage solutions, has entered the mini PC market with its Omini line of desktop PCs. According to IT Home [Machine Translated], the company is launching two new models — the Omini Plus and the Omini Pro. The former closely resembles the Mac Mini, while the latter looks like a shrunken Mac Pro, but AMD Ryzen chips power both.

The Pro mini PC uses high-grade aluminum for its PC case and features a “cheese grater” design on the front for optimal airflow. On the other hand, the Plus model has a design similar to the Mac mini, with its components accessible via its removable foot. However, it also has a vent in the back above its ports, reminiscent of the larger Mac Studio.

The Omini Plus is available in a single configuration, powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 7535H (now renamed the Ryzen 5 150) paired with 16GB DDR5 memory and a 2TB SSD. It also features a plethora of ports, including two USB4 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, two 2.5G Ethernet ports, one DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5mm jack. All this is supported by dual heat pipes and a large fan to keep everything cool, especially as its volume is only about 0.8L. This mini PC is priced at RMB 3,799 (around $535) at the current exchange rate, though it’s available for pre-order at RMB 3,399 ($478).

We also have the Omini Pro, which comes with more options. It starts with an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor with an integrated AMD Radeon 780M GPU. Although you can get this as a barebones unit, meaning you’ll have to supply your own memory and storage, it can also be had with a 32GB DDR5 SODIMM kit (upgradable up to 256GB) and a choice between a 1TB and a 2TB SSD. It also comes with two storage slots, with a total capacity of up to 8TB. Aside from the more powerful hardware, you get the same number of ports as above, which is already plentiful. The Omini Pro starts at RMB 3,099 (~$435) for the barebones version, although it’s on pre-order for just RMB 2,699 (around $380).

These devices aren’t designed for gamers specifically, but you can do some casual gaming on the side. Nevertheless, they’re largely good enough for most productivity applications, with the Omini Pro capable of onboard AI processing thanks to its built-in NPU. So, if you want a stylish mini PC that evokes Apple’s aesthetics but works with Windows 11 or Linux, these are great options to check out, provided they become available in your location.

Nvidia's DGX Spark AI mini-PC got its first star turn at CES this year and was penciled in for a May launch date at the show, but the platform has since experienced delays on its road to market. Whatever wrinkles were preventing a launch have apparently been ironed out. Nvidia has announced that DGX Spark systems will be available to buy starting October 15, both from Nvidia itself and from partners including Dell, Asus, MSI, and HP.

As a refresher, the DGX Spark is a Grace Blackwell GB10-powered mini-PC platform that's custom-tailored to the needs of local AI inference and development. Running inference on many of today's state-of-the-art AI models requires far, far more GPU-local memory than even the 32GB that an RTX 5090 can provide. (The RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell offers up to 96GB of GPU-local memory, but that's an $8000+ product before you add in the cost of a host server or workstation).

The DGX Spark (formerly known as Project DIGITS) includes a unified, coherent pool of 128GB of LPDDR5X memory that's shared between a 20-Arm-core Nvidia Grace CPU and a Blackwell GPU that purports to deliver up to 1 petaFLOP of AI inferencing performance (assuming a model has been reduced to FP4 quantization with sparsity).

The company says a single DGX Spark supports up to 200-billion-parameter models locally (again assuming FP4 quantization). If one Spark isn't enough, two of these units can be connected using the built-in Nvidia ConnectX 7 NIC to double up on memory and compute resources.

The DGX Spark runs Nvidia's own DGX OS (a fork of Ubuntu) and supports the all-important CUDA software stack for AI developers. Unlike Strix Halo, which has found a niche as a (costly) gaming chip in devices as diverse as handhelds, the DGX Spark's Arm- and Linux-first nature makes it less appealing as a turn-key gaming platform, though curious enthusiasts can probably get their gaming fix on it with some work.

Until now, mini-PCs and laptops built around AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 SoC (aka Strix Halo) have had the market of "relatively reasonably priced chip with a massive memory pool and enough compute for reasonable inferencing performance" all to themselves. Strix Halo supports up to 112GB of GPU memory (out of a possible 128GB of onboard RAM). But those systems don't natively support the widespread CUDA stack, making for some hurdles for developers and enthusiasts who want to get their AI projects up and running.

For its part, Nvidia says it's been working with a wide range of software partners to ensure that their tools work well with DGX Spark, including Anaconda, Cadence, ComfyUI, Docker, Google, Hugging Face, JetBrains, LM Studio, Meta, Microsoft, Ollama, and Roboflow, so it seems likely that if you have an LLM you want to run locally, a DGX Spark should be a solid foundation.

Nvidia originally said DGX Spark systems would start at $3,000 back in January, but at least the first-party DGX Spark will now retail for $3,999. Even at that price, its tiny size, relatively modest 240W power envelope, and complete turn-key support for the CUDA stack are likely to win it a lot of fans in the burgeoning AI space. We’ll have to see whether its long time in the oven has been a liability in a market where everything can still change in the space of hours or days.

Tech enthusiasts typically adore miniaturization, but companies have always found it tricky to make compact PCs that retain the most important aspects of a traditional desktop. An interesting new approach to this conundrum that caused a blip on our radar is the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC on Kickstarter.

In essence, this pleasingly compact (4.75-liter) PC comes with a desktop RTX 4070 GPU installed, but it is supported by choice mobile components such as (up to) a Core Ultra 7 255H, 2x SODIMM RAM sticks, and a 1TB M.2 2230 NVMe SSD. There isn’t a big wall wart PSU outside the case, either; this design has a 400W unit in the chassis.

We aren’t saying that the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC is the first PC maker to take this approach of cherry-picking between desktop and mobile parts for a sweet spot compact PC build, but it might get a lot of choices right. Check the specs, and see if it is right for you:

Stand out specs, beyond the processing power and size of this device, are the number of video outs and having the latest Wi-Fi 7 on board. It is also great to have a USB4 port for fast external storage and dock solutions.

Read our extensive review of the RTX 4070 to get some insight into what this desktop graphics card can achieve. However, we must point out that, according to the project FAQ, this graphics card isn’t interchangeable with any other you might grab from a retailer.

It is not a standard desktop graphics card inside

Though it looks like there may be a standard graphics card in the fish tank, in the FAQ, the makers clarify, “The Wee Beastie doesn't have the full sized 4070 graphics card that you would normally buy from the store and install into your full sized PC. It actually has the 4070 GPU processing chip that’s mounted on the circuit board along with all the other components needed to make it work. You would not be able to remove the 4070 from the Wee Beastie and plug and play it in another computer.” We think it uses an RTX 4070 desktop GPU on an MXM card.

Hopefully, the partnered 13700H (14C/20T, up to 5.0 GHz) or Ultra 7 255H (16C/16T and up to 5.1 GHz) won’t dampen the desktop GPU’s vigor.

One of the best things about a pre-built like this is the neatness, integration, and off-the-peg action readiness. According to its makers, the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC is also “whisper quiet under load and prevents thermal throttling,” which directly addresses a lot of typical Mini PC concerns. According to the specs, there are “13 high performance fans” in this system, so decent air circulation should be taken for granted, if not its quietness.

Some will also find the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC to be quite handsome. Videos and images shared by the device maker show the build is clean and clutter-free. The RGB lighting looks cool, too. Some images even show the fish tank case being used to show off some figurines (inside).

At Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit, the company unveiled its Snapdragon X2 Elite processors for PCs. They serve as the follow-up to last year's X Elite series, which served as a kickstart for Windows on Arm and made an attempt to rival Apple's M-series. Qualcomm's reference designs on display at the summit included laptops, tablets, and some fascinating mini PCs, including a circular puck and a small square that docks into a monitor.

Pictured above is a reference design mini PC built around the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, an 18-core powerhouse capable of boosting up to 5 GHz (across two cores) with support for 228 GB/s of memory bandwidth. It's a tier above even the X2 Elite, which begs the question: how is it so thin? We know that some of Qualcomm's concepts were cooled by Frore AirJets, so it's possible solid state cooling played a role.

The completely circular design is unlike anything we've seen before — it's like if someone took a trash-can Mac Pro and squashed it down to look like a coaster. It even appears like a modern Apple computer from the bottom, and has suitably similar I/O in the form of two USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a barrel jack connection for power. The device also seems to be milled from aluminum, with a Snapdragon red finish.

Qualcomm also showed a square unit compressed down to be almost as thin as a USB-C port. This one's a bit different because it's intentionally squared to fit in as part of a modular all-in-one system. The mini PC slides into a base, connected to a large monitor, which it subsequently powers.

It feels like an upgrade to all-in-one computers that have existed for decades, but this one looks like you could swap out the computing parts.

Speaking of which, the company did tell PC Mag that it's working with at least three OEMs in Taiwan. That means it's possible there might be some interest in adapting these reference designs down the line.

Mini-PC and eGPU maker Aoostar has added yet another eGPU dock to its arsenal of products. On Reddit, the company announced the EG01, a Thunderbolt 5 graphics card dock that supports full-size desktop graphics cards, ATX/SFX power supplies, and features an optional mini-PC holder on top. Pricing and a release date have yet to be disclosed.

Not much information has been publicly revealed about the dock; however, Notebookcheck was able to get some in-depth information about the EG01. But the outlet was able to find that the dock allegedly takes advantage of a Thunderbolt 5 interface and is compatible with OCuLink, making it one of the first docks to feature both connectivity standards. Thunderbolt 5 and OCuLink provide a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface from the host system to the graphics card, offering the best connectivity you'll see on eGPU docks right now.

Edge computing specialist Aaeon has rolled out the tiny new PICO-MTU4-SEMI, which it claims to be the “world’s smallest Intel Core Ultra-powered Mini PC.” This Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 125U-packing PC measures just 108 x 95 x 43mm (about 0.44 liters, 14.9 fl oz). Searching our archives for smaller Core Ultra PCs seems to support the compactness claims, with the Aaeon being noticeably smaller than the MSI Cubi NUC 1M that we previously featured, for example.

The Aaeon PICO-MTU4-SEMI design gets bonus points for being entirely passive; however, it must lose some for looking like something you’d tether to the back of an Acorn Electron. Readers are also likely to be uneasy regarding the port selection. However, the limited internal expansion options seem like an understandable constraint here.

Knowing that this is a device targeting installation within “industrial robots and AGVs while still providing a broad selection of interfaces for peripheral devices such as cameras and sensors,” provides some background to the port selection. Thus, the PICO-MTU4-SEMI bristles with the familiar DB9 style ports, common on such devices. These are mostly intended for legacy-friendly COM ports, facilitating RS-232/422/485 serial communication with various industrial devices and machinery. We see on this new Aaeon that one is also a GPIO, for further I/O control flexibility. All these 9-pin ports are tagged as ‘optional’ in Aaeon’s spec sheets.

Sticking to the topic of ports, around the other side of the device, you will find a meager pair of USB 3.2 Type-A ports, 2.5GbE and 1GbE LAN ports, a single display output in the shape of an HDMI 1.4 connector, and a DC-in jack. That isn’t a lot, but one assumes Aaeon must know its business audience.

Tech channel SatisFactory Process has published a video revealing the careful and intricate business of manufacturing and preparing a mini PC for retail. Its 22-minute episode shows how a Beelink Mini PC begins with an almost amorphous blank of aluminum and ends with a compact yet tastefully formed device packing some of the newest chips and complementary technologies.

Beelink devices haven’t been reviewed on Tom’s Hardware previously, but we covered news of the release of some of their latest devices, like the SER9 mini-PC, powered by one of AMD's Ryzen AI 300 (Strix Point) processors. The firm has been going since 2011, and, judging by recent releases, it looks like it has found its niche in making cute aluminum mini PCs for the mass market.

From an amorphous aluminum blank

After a brief overview of Beelink operations and a glance at key stages of production, we are taken to the start of the production process – stamping the mini PC shell from an aluminum blank. They are roughly circular blanks, but when put in a press with a restraining jig, a ‘canteen’ shaped shell emerges. A secondary stamping machine refines this form to define cutouts and edges more precisely.

Next, we see the shell moved into a milling machine filled with gushing milky coolant. The spinning cutters in the machine add even more precise detailing to the shell. We don’t see it at the time, but we also believe cutouts for the front I/O ports are made at this time.

After further milling, we see one of the four sides of the shell removed for the rear I/O shield area. A factory worker now polishes all the surfaces of the shell. The milled form is then taken, in groups of 20 to 30 units, through an industrial dishwasher-style device – it looks hot.

Next up, the shell goes through a sandblaster for texture. Then we see it moved to a process for dipping, where it is anodized for color, with the quality of finish confirmed by a spectrophotometer reading. The Beelink logo is now laser-engraved on the top of the aluminum shell.

It is now time for the inner frame assembly, starting with a perfect-fit glued-in plastic sub-frame, which will accept screws and posts to fix components within.

Electronics prepared

The video now takes us to the area where the ‘computer’ is put into the ‘computer.’ We get a first glimpse of the motherboard PCB, which promptly goes into a machine to solder on an initial array of components at high speed.

Stopping for a photo at this point, we see that things like the DIMM slots, HDMI and USB ports, capacitors, and other surface mount chips are mainly in place. Trays of these partially finished motherboards are next sent along for manual I/O port installation, placed in jigs on a conveyor, and ultimately go through a wave soldering machine to fix all the hand-placed components in place.

It is now time for Beelink technicians to do a quick manual cleanup, implement any easy quick repairs, and add the CMOS battery to the board. Following various labeling activities and inductor impedance tests, we observed a technician involved in the MAC address setting. There follows a full interface functionality test, with lots of manual plugging and unplugging here. This will have been the first time all these components, brought together, have worked in unison.

After some further inspection and cleaning, the populated boards are data logged and bagged up. Cartons of these finished boards are then sent to the mini PC production assembly lines.

Mini PC assembly

The nimble fingers of the factory workers are required again, this time for placing and applying thermal pads and pastes. Of course, the CPU and system board cooler assembly gets fixed down next. A fan that almost completely covers the board is fixed on top of this assembly, which we think is a vapor chamber-style cooler.

After inspection of the manufactured assembly so far, we see the mating of the electronics and the aluminum shell that we saw prepared earlier. Extra panel I/O modules, out of line with the motherboard PCB, are now connected via ribbon cables.

It is time for all the user-replaceable and serviceable parts to be added now, with the Wi-Fi, RAM, and SSD slots all being populated. Naturally, it is time for another full system test to make sure no gremlins have squeezed into these systems.

Next, the bottom cover is secured before a physical check, where these mini PCs are shaken, bounced on tables, and so on. After passing the ‘physical,’ Beelink puts the machines through a burn-in and stability test stage.

Ready for retail, and this model is on sale right now

Lastly, there is a ‘pre-shipment re-test’ where the machines are powered up and required to pass a suite of hardware tests before packaging. Packaging is primarily done by hand, sometimes with the aid of a jig, and the mini PCs are at last in their final retail-ready boxes, cartoned off – ready to be sent to a warehouse or store near you.

Mini PC specialist Geekom has shared a video which shows its latest IT15 model being subjected to unnatural levels of violence. We are accustomed to seeing devices, particularly portable ones, being dropped, crushed, and splashed as part of standard endurance testing. However, this cute little machine, packing up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 285H processor, endures torture like being spun in a washing machine, being hit by a sledgehammer, extremes of heat and cold, and the indignity of being dragged along the road by a motorbike. The PC survives intact, but with a few grazes, and we see it boot up at the end of the video.

Expand the tweet above to see the video. At the start of the video, the Geekom IT15 is inexplicably carried in a reinforced aluminum flight case, lulling it into a false sense of security, perhaps. Then the horror begins.

A 1.8-ton car runs over the little 0.46-liter NUC-style device at least twice. It is then hung up by a thread and walloped with a baseball bat. Geekom’s digital assassins were intent on whacking the IT15 some more, so they also sledgehammered it as it sat beneath two concrete blocks.

The punishment continued as the IT15 torturers decided to drag the little machine along a tarmac road, pulled by a motorbike at high speed. Just when you think it might end, seeing the device being carried carefully on top of a stack of books, it gets “dropped from height” down concrete steps. Someone in the Geekom team seemed to have then remembered that tests of devices enduring cold and heat were typical ruggedness assessment fare, so we saw the device chilled by sub-zero gases and then subjected to a blowtorch.

After such rough treatment, the IT15 might be due a clean, right? But throwing a mini PC in a washing machine for a “violent spin” probably isn’t advisable – so they did just that. It was a dry wash program, and not for too long, though.

At last, the pummelling of the Geekom IT15 does actually come to an end, and we get a close-up of all its battle scars. Your local used mobile phone emporium might refer to this as ‘Condition A minus.’ After taking it from the washer and plugging it into power and a monitor, the IT15 appears to have weathered all the abuse without affecting its computing ability. The probably inadvisable penultimate caption of the video proudly declares, “It just won’t break,” which some will see as a challenge.

Video shows “serious testing”

We reached out to Geekom regarding its extreme testing of the IT15 to ensure it was genuine. Our contact insisted that the video showed “serious testing,” and that a lot of the product's rugged nature is due to the ABS shell, which is “cushioned and, together with the sturdy internal metal frame, is particularly robust.” Actually, the firm’s official product pages include some durability claims, such as the device being able to “withstand 200kg of force without deformation,” and the all-metal frame and base adding to its strength.

Often, the most intriguing hardware modifications are also the strangest. CherryTree Inc., recognized for its unique custom PCs, has provided Gamers Nexus with the GeeFarce 5027 POS, a contender that could rival the best graphics cards available today, or not.

There are several options for disposing of a damaged graphics card. You could reuse it as a paperweight or doorstop, or simply throw it in the dumpster; however, that isn't the most responsible action, as it contributes to e-waste. Instead, CherryTree had the innovative idea of repurposing a graphics card into a fully functional system. The Gigabyte graphics card is a few generations old, as indicated by the cooler design, which was previously used with the manufacturer's GeForce RTX 20-series (codenamed Turing) graphics cards released approximately six years ago.

When the shroud was removed, it became apparent that CherryTree had integrated a NUC into the GeeFarce 5027 POS. Although not the most recent model, the Asus NUC 13 Pro still has decent specifications. It's equipped with the Core i7-1360P chip (codenamed Raptor Lake), which wields 12 cores and 16 threads with a boost clock speed up to 5 GHz on the P-cores. It also has integrated Iris Xe graphics, with 96 EUs up to 1.5 GHz. CherryTree paired the 28W Raptor Lake processor with 64GB of DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM memory and a 2TB MP33 PCIe 3.0 SSD, both sourced from TeamGroup.

I was browsing through the r/buildapcsales today, looking for something interesting, when I stumbled onto quite the deal. Amazon is selling a fully-functional desktop mini PC for just $44.99, and that's not even a limited-time sale. But just what do you get for your money?

The Wo-We Mini PC is powered by a dual-core, Intel Celeron N4020 CPU and sports 4GB of RAM, 128GB of eMMC storage, and Wi-Fi 5 wireless connectivity. It comes with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled, though we don't know which version.

In terms of video out, the PC has both a VGA and an HDMI port. It can support dual screens and a maximum resolution of 4K (on a single screen) via its Intel UHD Graphics 600 integrated GPU.

On its Amazon page, Wo-We claims that the Mini PC offers "powerful performance without breaking the bank" and that its Intel UHD 600 GPU offers "state-of-the-art" graphics technology. The company says that its 802.11ac Wi-Fi offers "faster, smoother and more stable Internet access" too.

The tiny, 5.12 x 6.61-inch black box has a USB-C 5 Gbps port, microSD and dual USB Type-A 5 Gbps ports on the front. The back has the VGA, HDMI, 1 Gbps Ethernet, and dual USB 2.0 ports.

Depending on your needs, the Wo-We is either "Whoa, we got a lot for the money" or "Woe betide we who bought this." If you just want to use web tools, are comfortable working in Ubuntu Linux (which isn't hard to learn), and don't do much multitasking, this could work out.

If you like to have many tabs open or you don't have a lot of patience, this could end up as a $44 paperweight. We haven't gotten the Wo-We Mini PC in for testing. However, we wouldn't expect great performance, considering that its 2019-era Celeron has two cores, two threads, 4MB of cache, a base clock of 1.1 GHz, and a boost clock of 2.8 GHz.

Those are some weak specs, as most desktop CPUs and even many mobile CPUs these days have boost clocks in the 4 to 5 GHz range. The good news is that the Celeron only has a 6W TDP, so it doesn't need active cooling. That keeps the Mini PC from making noise.

What probably hurts the experience more is the 4GB of RAM, which would make web browsing with more than a couple of tabs open a challenge. However, Linux usually makes better use of memory than Windows does.

Another problem: the eMMC memory is probably about equivalent in speed to a typical (not high-speed) microSD card. So boot time and the time you wait to open apps could be slow.

Tech-savvy users who know to expect lag may have the patience for slowness, but those who need this the most -- people who don't have computers already -- will likely be less inclined to tolerate it. If you're a low-information user, you may be confused by Linux and frustrated by any problems you run into. You could always get Windows and install it, though not Windows 11.

Of course, there are other low-cost choices that allow you to do basic computing. Right now, Woot has a Raspberry Pi 4B with 8GB of RAM for $44. However, during non-sale times, you're getting 2GB of RAM on your Pi at this price and 4GB will cost you quite a bit more. And with Raspberry Pi, you'd need to buy a microSD card to install your OS on, get micro HDMI cables for video and you couldn't run install Windows (like you can on the Wo-We).

Wo-We also sells a $54 Mini PC with 8GB of RAM but with an even older AMD Excavator A9-9400 CPU that launched in May 2016. That's a bit long in the tooth, even for a bargain.

It's interesting to see that you can get a workable, brand-new desktop PC for $44. However, the people most fascinated with this system (PC enthusiasts like me) probably need it the least.

Zotac is preparing to launch new mini-PC offerings at Computex next week, featuring AMD's beastly Strix Halo APUs and desktop Blackwell GPUs from Nvidia. So far, the company has showcased two designs with Nvidia hardware, featuring the desktop RTX 5060 Ti and the RTX 5070, and one AMD-based design with a Ryzen AI MAX CPU. Details on exact specifications and pricing have not been shared, but we'll hear more from the team at Taipei in just a few days.

Under its ZBOX Mini PC offerings, Zotac's Magnus-E lineup features compact yet powerful mini-PCs targeted at enthusiasts and content creators. The latest Strix Halo addition should extend their appeal to AI/ML developers as well. The upcoming Magnus One is equipped with an 8.48-liter chassis, housing a desktop RTX 5070 Ti 16GB along with a Core Ultra 7 processor from Intel, potentially from the Core Ultra 200S series.

The Magnus EN follows with a compact 2.65-liter design, home to the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (desktop). This is accompanied by a mobile Core Ultra 7 processor, which can either be the Core Ultra 7 265H or its HX counterpart. With Arrow Lake, the distinction between Intel's H and HX grade processors goes beyond TDP and core counts. Arrow Lake-H features rebadged SoC Tiles from Meteor Lake, which can potentially offset performance gains, as shown in a previous review.

If you're in the market for a new computer, and you would like something that doesn't take up too much space, you may want to consider a mini PC. These are smaller than your average desktop, with an impressively tiny footprint. Today, we've got a deal to share on one of the biggest name brands out there. Apple has its own line of mini PCs known as the Mac Mini range. Right now at Amazon, you can find the 2024 Apple Mac Mini M4 desktop for its lowest price to date — it's currently listed at $499, a full $100 below its recommended price of $599.

This edition features Apple's M4 chip, not to be confused with the M4 Pro, which is a bit more powerful. We had the opportunity to review the Mac Mini M4 Pro last year and loved our experience. For a Mini PC this size, it has plenty to offer, making it a great option for someone that wants a machine oriented for work purposes rather than gaming. It's important to note, however, that we only reviewed the M4 Pro edition, so the performance will differ from the one that's on sale today.

The SoC powering the Apple Mac Mini is an M4 chip. This features a 10-core processor alongside a 10-core GPU. This mini PC lives up to its name with a form factor that measures in at 5 x 5in. Because it's created by Apple, it's easy to integrate the Mac Mini into a family with numerous iDevices. For example, you can access your iPhone from the Mac Mini using "iPhone Mirroring" which lets you not only see what's on your iPhone screen from the computer but also control and interact with it in real time.

To support the M4 chip, the system comes with 16GB of RAM, and there's a 256GB SSD for storage. It has quite an impressive selection of ports, as well, given its size. You get two USB Type-C ports, three Thunderbolt ports, and an HDMI output. For network support, you can take advantage of WiFi 6 wireless connections or use a hard wire with its Ethernet jack. As far as audio support goes, it has a built-in speaker alongside an optional 3.5mm audio jack for connecting external audio peripherals.

If you want to check out this deal, head over to the Apple 2024 M4 Mac Mini desktop product page at Amazon for more details.

Asus has lifted the curtains of the Ascent GX10, the company's rendition of Nvidia's Project Digits, at GTC 2025. Leveraging the chipmaker's GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, the Ascent GX10 offers up to 1,000 TOPS of AI performance.

Like Project Digits, the Ascent GX10 is a mini-PC that can be placed on your desk. You just need to connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to it to have a powerful AI supercomputer at your disposal. Asus hasn't liberated the product page for the Ascent GX10, so all the specifications we have on the mini-PC come from the press release.

The GB10, the heart of the Ascent GX10, combines Nvidia's Grace CPU and Blackwell GPU. However, the GB10 is a shrunk-down version of Nvidia's Grace Blackwell Superchip.

The Grace CPU features a 20-core Arm design comprising 10 Cortex-X925 and 10 Cortex-A725 cores. It is connected to Nvidia's latest Blackwell GPU through a high-performance NVLink-C2C interconnect. In unison, the GB10 delivers up to 1 PFLOP (1,000 TFLOPS) of FP4 performance.

Ascent GX10, Bringing AI Power To Developer's Fingertips

“AI is transforming every industry, and the ASUS Ascent GX10 is designed to bring this transformative power to every developer’s fingertips,” said KuoWei Chao, General Manager of ASUS IoT and NUC Business Group in the press release. “By integrating the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Superchip, we are providing a powerful yet compact tool that enables developers, data scientists, and AI researchers to innovate and push the boundaries of AI right from their desks.”

The Ascent GX10 also has 128GB of unified system memory, which allows the device to handle AI models with up to 200 billion parameters. While Asus didn't reveal the memory's specifications, it should use the same LPDDR5x as Project Digits and up to 4TB of M.2 NVMe storage with self-encryption.

The device has Nvidia's ConnectX network interface as part of its networking capabilities, meaning you can hook up to Ascend GX10 systems for larger AI models, such as Llama 3.1, which flaunts up to 405 billion parameters.

Without a product page or additional renders, we can't know for sure what kind of connectivity the Ascend GX10 will offer. For reference, Project Digits has four USB4 Type-C ports, Wi-Fi, an Ethernet port, and one HDMI 2.1a port for the display.

Asus hasn't revealed the Ascent GX10's availability or pricing. Project Digits will hit the market in May, starting at $3,000, and we expect the AScent GX10 to have similar availability and pricing.

China's GMKTec has announced the EVO-X2, which it claims is "the world's first AI mini PC equipped with the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor." The device was shown off at the AMD Greater China Channel Summit today, with top red-team execs like CEO Lisa Su and SVP & GM Jack Huynh in attendance. GMKTec was lucky enough to get Dr. Su to sign one or more of the new EVO-X2 mini PCs, and the source blog hints there is a batch of Signature Editions.

Detailed hardware specs of the EVO-X2 are not readily available, and the product page has yet to be published by GMKTec, so you'll have to settle for a brief outline for now. As far as the internals go, all we are sure about is that this compact desktop will pack an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor. However, its performance in DeepSeek R1 tests is more than 3X that of an RTX 5080 desktop GPU, according to purported GMKTec hardware demonstrations.

To recap the AMD Strix Halo APU's specs, it features a Zen 5 architecture CPU configured with 16 cores and 32 threads (two CCDs), operating at a maximum frequency of 5.1 GHz. As an APU, this is joined by a beefy iGPU, namely the RDNA 3.5 architecture Radeon 8060S with 40 compute units. Rounding off the processing package, there is an XDNA2 NPU which is capable of 50 TOPS. AMD has also shoved 80MB cache onboard, but buyers will have a choice of the RAM quota (up to 128GB of 256-bit LPDDR5X-8533 RAM) at time of purchase.

Back to pixel peeping to unearth more details about the GMKTec EVO-X2, and one of the first comments we can make is that it is pretty sizable for a mini PC. In the image featuring Jack Huynh, you can see the AMD SVP & GM holding a Geekom machine, which appears to be a traditional '4 x 4' NUC-a-like. With the EVO-X2 in close proximity, we Photoshop-estimate that the EVO-X2 is a '5 x 4.5' and larger in the remaining dimension.

Images shared by GMKTec on social media provide further ideas about the shape and form of the EVO-X2. Also, we can clearly see a power button to the front, alongside an SD card reader, a Thunderbolt (Type C) port, twin USB (Type A ports), and a headset jack. Around the back are three more USB (Type-A) ports, another Thunderbolt, HDMI, DP, an RJ45 network port, another headset jack, and a barrel power jack.

Enthusiasts are excited about the new generation Strix Halo APUs from AMD. So if GMKTec can get its product on shelves ahead of the likes of the HP Z2 Mini G1a and Framework Desktop - at an attractive price - it will have won a minor coup. We don't know how many 'Lisa Su' signed models there are, but the source blog hints there is a batch.

As for who will be first with an AMD Strix Halo, Asus originally slated its ROG Flow Z13 for release in February, but it still seems to be in pre-order purgatory, and it's not a mini PC. The Framework Desktop machines with Ryzen AI Max chips aren't expected until Q3 this year. The other machine we have heard about, the HP Z2 Mini G1a, is set to be released in 'spring.'

The new Mac Studio continues Apple's practice of placing its homegrown Arm-based chips into a workstation chassis far more compact than what we find in its PC counterparts. While you might not immediately be clued into just how powerful Apple's new Mac Studio is by looking at it, don't be fooled. While the previous generation Mac Studio with M2 Ultra was powerful, Apple has dialed up performance even more with this generation.

We don't often test pre-built workstations, but we couldn’t turn down the chance to review two configurations of the new Mac Studio: a lower-end system with the M4 Max and a higher-end configuration with what is currently Apple's most powerful processor, the M3 Ultra.

Apple is aiming the Mac Studio with M4 Max at creative professionals, particularly photographers, video editors, and engineers (among others). The M3 Ultra-equipped variant is equipped to handle more demanding tasks like LLMs and scientific research.

Design of the Mac Studio (2025)

Apple has not changed the design of this year's Mac Studio, which is a good thing. The chassis is 7.7 inches wide, 7.7 inches deep, and 3.7 inches tall. Our M4 Max review unit weighs 6.1 pounds, while our M3 Ultra unit weighs a more substantial 8.0 pounds due to its inclusion of a larger copper heatsink to keep thermals in check.

Although the two systems look identical from the front, some internal differences exist. The M4 Max system has two USB-C ports up front that support 10 GB/s speeds and an SDXC (UHS-II) card slot. The M3 Ultra also has an SDXC card slot, but its two USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 5 at speeds up to 120 Gb/s.

The port allotment on the back of the two systems is identical. You'll find four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-A ports (5 Gb/s), an HDMI 2.1 port, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a 10 Gb/s Ethernet port. The Mac Studio has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity. Even though Wi-Fi 7 is becoming more commonplace on high-end PC motherboards, laptops, and desktops, Apple hasn't yet made that shift with the Mac Studio.

Above the rear ports you'll find a large panel with exhaust holes for the internal fan. Cool air is drawn in from the bottom of the unit.

We’ve grown accustomed to Macs not allowing for hardware upgrades post-purchase (with the exception of the Mac Pro's storage). That remains the case with the Mac Studio. CPU, RAM, and storage configurations must be selected at the time of purchase. If you get your Mac Studio home and want to later add more memory, you’re out of luck. Technically, the internal SSD is removable, but Apple’s on-SoC encryption protocols make a DIY change difficult. Some third parties have developed SSD modules that reverse-engineer Apple’s efforts, but that’s a risky proposition for a workstation-grade system that starts at $1,999 and can creep into 5-digit territory with all the trimmings.

Mac Studio Specifications

M3 Ultra and M4 Max Performance on the Mac Studio

The M4 Max is a known quantity; This is the same chip that debuted with the most recent refresh of the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros. Our M4 Max review unit has a 16-core CPU (12 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores), 40-core GPU, 128GB of unified memory, and a 128GB SSD.

The M3 Ultra is the more interesting of the two chips, and not just because it isn’t called the M4 Ultra. Apple’s official response to the lack of an M4 Ultra is that not every generation of its M-Series chip will get an “Ultra” variant. So, that leaves us with the M3 Ultra, which joins together two M3 Max chips (they are joined using what Apple eloquently calls “UltraFusion”). The 184 billion-transistor chip inside our review unit has 32 cores (24 performance cores, 8 efficiency cores) and can be paired with up to 512GB of unified memory (256GB in our review unit) and delivers a maximum of 819 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Apple says that customers opting for the full 512GB allotment can run large language models (LLMs) that have up to 600 billion parameters completely within memory.

Given that our review unit also has a fully-enabled version of the M3 Ultra, it also incorporates 80 GPU cores, up from a maximum of 70 on the previous-generation M2 Ultra. It also has a 32-core neural processing unit (NPU) and a dedicated hardware media engine for H.256, HEVC, and ProRes encoding/decoding.

Joining our M3 Ultra and M4 Max review units in our testing are two PC-centric workstation chips: Intel’s Xeon W9-3495X and AMD’s Threadripper Pro 5995WX. We already had systems built around these processors in-house, so it seemed appropriate to compare them. The Xeon w9-3495X is a 56-core chip with a $5,889 MSRP. The Threadripper Pro 5995WX is a 64-core chip with a suggested retail price of $6,499. Those are before being built into systems, so it's a big difference from Apple, which makes entire PCs, not just chips.

We started our benchmarks with the Geekbench 6.4 CPU test. Here, the M3 Ultra delivered a single-core score of 3,349, putting it well ahead of the M2 Ultra (2,815) and beyond what’s possible with our AMD and Intel workstation systems. Apple’s decision to use two different generations of SoCs in the new Mac Studio shows the first quirk in our testing when it comes to the M4 Max. The M4 Max uses TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process node, along with a new, faster, and more powerful CPU architecture. The M3 Ultra, on the other hand, is using a first-generation 3nm TSMC node.

Geekbench reported that our M3 Ultra ran at 4.05 GHz, while the M4 Max ran at 4.5 GHz. As a result, the M4 Max put up a single-core score of 4,113. Multi-core performance was surprisingly close between the two, despite the M3 Ultra having double the cores. The M3 Ultra scored 27,929 on the multi-core benchmark, while the M4 Max wasn’t too far behind at 26,966.

Our file transfer test involves copying 25GB of mixed media files. The M3 Ultra finished the task, recording 2,685 MBps along the way, while the M4 Max hit 2,441 MBps, essentially tying the result of the last M2 Ultra Mac Studio that we tested.

The Mac Studio with M3 Ultra really stretched its legs in our Handbrake test, which involves transcoding a 4K video file to 1080p. The M3 Ultra completed the task in just one minute and 16 seconds compared to one minute and 56 seconds for the M4 Max. The Mac Studio with M2 Ultra finished in 2:45. The Xeon and Threadripper systems finished the transcode in roughly 2:40.

Moving on to the Xcode benchmark, which we use for simulating a large development project, the M3 Ultra finished in 64 seconds, which was an oddity compared to the M2 Ultra, which took just 58 seconds. The M4 Max completed the task in 79 seconds.

Using Cinebench 2024 we stress tested the M3 Ultra and M4 Max over ten runs in the multi-core benchmark. The M3 Ultra started the test just under 3,000, but remained consistently between 3,000 and 3,100 through the subsequent runs. The M4 Max, on the other hand, hovered between 2,050 and 2,100. We also use Cinebench 2024 to measure CPU temperatures, and TG Pro is our go-to macOS utility for measuring this data. TG Pro doesn’t fully support the M3 Ultra yet, but showed a system temperature of 43 degrees Celsius, while the M4 Max measured 42 degrees Celsius.

We use the Blender benchmark for testing performance applying visual effects and 3D modelling. We tested the CPU and GPU on the Mac Studio systems, while only the CPU was tested on the Xeon and Threadripper systems. While the M3 Ultra put up a valiant fight in Monster (339.9 samples per second), it was still no match for the core-packed Xeon (446.67) and Threadripper (485.33). The M4 Max was further behind at 240.52. It was a similar story in Junkshop, where the M3 Ultra and M4 Max recorded 243.2 and 153.9, respectively, compared to 302 and 350 for the Xeon and Threadripper. Finally, the Classroom test (173.3 for the M3 Ultra, 104.28 for the M4 Max) chalked up another win for the x86-64 stalwarts (212.33 for the Xeon, 230 for the Threadripper).

However, the M3 Ultra had the last laugh when switching to the GPU testing where it absolutely clobbered the competition. The M3 Ultra hit 3,246.45 samples per second in Monster, 1,581.17 in Junkshop and 1,643.26 in Classroom. The M4 Max also had a strong showing at 2,344.09, 1,271.57, and 1,234.93, respectively.

To test the gaming acumen of the new Mac Studios, I opted to try Resident Evil Village. I tested both systems with a 49-inch Philips Evnia 8000 DQHD 240 Hz QD-OLED gaming monitor. The game looked absolutely brilliant with all detail settings maxed out and with MetalFX upscaling turned on. I saw around 100 fps on the M3 Studio and around 80 fps on the M4 Max at 5120 x 1440.

My daily driver is a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro processor and 36GB of RAM. Either variant of the Mac Studio was overkill for my daily needs. I was never left wanting for more performance while gaming, editing photos in Pixelmator Pro (now an Apple app), or editing videos of my kids.

Software and Warranty on the Mac Studio

The new Mac Studio ships with macOS Sequoia 15.3.1, and required no additional OS or security updates out of the box (though by the time you get one, your mileage may vary). This is the latest version of the operating system that we first visited in our review of the 14-inch MacBook Pro in late 2024. Apple hasn’t given macOS a significant design overhaul in many years, and most of the updates to the operating system have been iterative and mostly fly under the radar.

The biggest addition to Sequoia is Apple Intelligence, which makes better use of context clues to find information in your treasure trove of digital data. Apple Intelligence also means that Siri is no longer dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to answering complex (and sometimes, rather basic) queries thanks to integration with ChatGPT. However, a fully rebuilt Siri is still way off in the distance for Mac users. Continuity updates mean that you can now mirror your iPhone on your macOS desktop using iPhone Mirroring, and you can drag and drop files and media between your Mac and iPhone. There are also quality of life improvements to Apple’s pack-in apps like Safari, Mail, and Messages.

There's no egregious bloat among the included software. Apple’s usual array of programs that are preinstalled include Safari, Maps, Notes, FaceTime, Mail, and Calendar. Apple also wants to lure you in on the recurring revenue train with its popular services like Apple Music and Apple TV. All of Apple’s apps, and a significant segment of third-party apps natively support Apple Silicon. After all, Apple first made the shift to its in-house chip designs in late 2020. For developers that haven’t yet gotten onboard the Apple Silicon train, Rosetta 2 serves as a translation layer between older apps designed for x86 software. When you first start an x86, Rosetta 2 automatically downloads from Apple to ensure that the app runs flawlessly.

All Mac Studios ship with a one-year warranty. If you’d like to add AppleCare+ coverage (Apple’s extended warranty), which in my opinion seems a little unnecessary for a desktop system, Apple charges $59.99/year.

Mac Studio Configurations

The base Mac Studio costs $1,999, which gets you an M4 Max processor with 14 CPU cores and a 32-core GPU. 36GB of unified memory comes standard, as is a 512GB SSD. Our M4 Max review unit was configured with the 16-core CPU/40-core GPU variant of the M4 Max, 128GB of unified memory, and a 1TB SSD, which retails for $3,699.

Our M3 Ultra review unit came with a 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU. Add in 256GB of unified memory and a 4TB SSD pushes the price to an eye-watering $8,099. If you have an itch for the M3 Ultra but want to save a few bucks, you can go with a smaller SSD, less memory, or opt for the 28-core CPU/60-core GPU version. The base M3 Ultra with the 28-core CPU/60-core GPU, 96GB of unified memory, and a 1TB SSD costs $3,999.

If you want to fully max out the M3 Ultra version of the Mac Studio, opting for 512GB of unified memory and a 16TB SSD brings the grand total to $14,099. You don’t get a mouse/trackpad or keyboard in the box, so be sure to source those as well if you’re speccing out a new system.

Bottom Line

The Mac Studio is a fascinating product. For less than the cost of just a Xeon or Threadripper workstation processor, you can get a fully-functioning macOS machine with some serious horsepower under the hood. The M3 Ultra dominated most of our CPU tests, except for the single-threaded Geekbench test that favored the M4 Max, and the Blender CPU tests which favored the Xeon and the Threadripper with their huge advantage in core counts.

The M3 Studio blew through our Handbrake transcode test in record time, aced our file transfer test, and held its own on the Blender CPU benchmark tests against the Intel and AMD competition. However, when we switched to the GPU in the Blender tests, the Mac Studio blew the doors off the competition, with the M4 Max trailing not too far behind.

The new Mac Studios achieves these feats silently, as even under full load, I could only hear the dual internal fans if my ear was up against the exhaust vent. But for all its plusses, the Mac Studio still has some downsides. There’s no way to upgrade your memory or SSD after purchase, so you’ll need to forecast what your needs will be a few years down the road regarding hardware resources. Also, memory and SSD upgrade prices are far pricier than what you find on the PC side.

But if you’re firmly in the Apple camp, or even a PC stalwart that doesn’t mind expanding his or her horizons to the macOS realm, the Mac Studio remains a compelling choice in a compact package.

Intel processors have always powered NUCs. However, things changed when Asus took over the NUC line from the chipmaker in 2023. The manufacturer is seemingly experimenting with AMD chips after customs filing discovered by ComputerBase (machine translated) showed an entry for a “Personal Computer mini-PC (NUC14LNS) Asus AMD Ryzen AI Max-395/W 8060S, 64 BIT”.

If this is true, this will be the first NUC to feature an AMD chip, and it will come soon after Asus launches a family of five NUCs powered by an Intel processor. It won’t be its first device to use a Ryzen AI Max+ (Strix Halo) CPU, though, as it’s rumored to power the upcoming ROG Flow Z13 laptop (also listed in the customs document).

AMD also claims that the Ryzen AI Max 395+’s integrated graphics, the Radeon 8060S, can beat the RTX 4070 laptop GPU by up to 68%—a massive claim by the company but is helped by the fact that it has 40 RDNA 3.5 graphics cores. If true, this will disadvantage Asus NUCs if it only sticks with Intel processors, especially as some smaller manufacturers like GMK have already hinted at releasing a mini-PC powered by this processor.

The mini-PC customs description says it’s “for BIS testing,” which likely means the Bureau of Indian Standards. If that’s the case, then Asus likely already built and tested the AMD-powered NUC within the company. Indian authorities are now testing it to ensure it conforms to local standards. This might also mean that this device is destined for launch in India, although there is no official word from Asus yet about whether this is the case or if it will have a global launch.

Given that Asus is investing in product certification, there’s a good chance this is a genuine product. The company is just holding off on its announcement until the authorities give it the green light. We also hope that it will make its way to our shores. That way, mini-PC fans will have more options, and we could enjoy the massive performance that its integrated GPU delivers.

A fan of Sony's classic handheld Windows slider PC designs is planning a drop-in upgrade. On Friday, Tomsek68 shared his plans on Reddit, proposing swapping out the decrepit internals of a Sony Vaio VGX-UX Micro PC (circa 2006) with a custom PCB and assembly based on an OrangePi CM5.

If the above-outlined project works out, the old Intel Core Solo-driven Windows XP device from Sony Vaio will be transformed into a modern octa-core processor packed with portable Linux. Moreover, Tomsek may be interested in crowdfunding these drop-in replacement boards if they see signs there are enough interested backers.

Tomsek68 says they have two Vaio VGN-UX devices that are too old to repair or revive. The Redditor has spent several weeks remodeling the internals of the Vaio, which comes out of the outer shell in one piece. Ultimately, the intention is to fine-tune 3D models to duplicate these innards and prepare a new PCB to become the new heart of the device.

Citing his PCB design skills, the Redditor seems confident of a successful project providing a drop-in replacement capable of revamping and revitalizing a Vaio VGN-UX UMPC. Instead of completing the project according to his needs, Tomsek68 generously asks other UMPC subreddit readers for opinions.

Tomsek68 knows that some aspects of the Vaio VGN-UX are well past their sell-by date, such as features like i.Link and the Memory Stick Duo / Pro Duo slot. However, they are polling the community about desirable new features, acceptable price points, and the optimal SBC for powering these reanimated Sony UMPCs. Nothing larger than a CM4/CM5 will suit explains the Redditor.

Redditor and PCB design hobbyist Tomsek68 specifically asked about a drop-in replacement upgrade board for these UMPCs. In other words, don't distract them with requests for new screens, thumb boards, or other off-topic upgrades. As a reminder, the Sony Vaio VGN-UX devices launched with slide-out 4.5-inch 1,024 x 600-pixel XBrite TFT LCD touchscreens, a full QWERTY keyboard for thumbing, a fingerprint reader, plus cameras front and back.

Hopefully, enough people will be interested in these upgrade plans and subsequently respond to the Redditor's Google forms to get this project off the ground. Should the groundswell of interest be sufficient (>50 units), Tomsek68 seems likely to move to crowdfunding.

Mini PC maker GMK has been showing off its new EVO-X1 mini PC. It looks like a great little device with one of the latest 'Strix Point' processors from AMD, and plenty of fast ports. However, it also hints that this machine is earmarked for a powerful Ryzen AI Max+ 395 'Strix Halo' processor upgrade in the not-too-distant future.

GMK introduced the EVO-X1 last year — a mini-PC equipped with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip and Radeon 890M integrated graphics. This is one of the most powerful chips in the current AMD Strix Point lineup, with the CPU boasting 12 cores and 24 threads and the integrated GPU having 16 compute units. The company also gave the EVO-X1 a standard 32GB of memory and a choice between 1TB or 2TB of storage.

What also makes this small computer stand out from the crowd is that it’s the first Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mini-PC that has an OCuLink port, allowing it to attach to a suitable external GPU without crippling its bandwidth too much. GMK doesn’t have an external GPU enclosure listed on its US website, though, so you’ll have to purchase them separately from other manufacturers, like the Aoostar AG01 or the Minisforum MGA1. But whatever the case, this OCuLink port would allow you to pair the excellent performance of the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with a more powerful GPU, up to an RTX 4090 (we wouldn’t recommend that, though, as OCuLink could show an up to 23% drop in performance for high-end GPUs). Connecting with OCuLink should provide much better bandwidth than the Thunderbolt 3 or 4, or USB4 alternatives.

Aside from the OCuLink port (which, unfortunately, isn’t hot-swappable), the EVO-X1 also has two USB-A ports, a USB-C port, and a 3.5 mm combo jack up front, plus the power button right beside the jack. It’s unclear what other USB ports are available at the back, but we also have one HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 2.1 for connecting your display to the onboard graphics. All these features are available for $1,299 for the 1 TB version (although it’s currently on sale at $919.99), while the 2 TB version is priced at $1,599 (with a sale price of $969.99).

Although these specifications are already impressive, GMK is going even further, saying in a press release on Chinese social media site BiliBili (machine translated) that the company “took the lead in launching the Ryzen AI Max+ 395.”

Although details are scant at the moment, the company shared a Geekbench result for the Vulkan test, which showed the processor, presumably on an EVO-X1 mini-PC evaluation platform, achieving 67,004 points. This score beats the RTX 3050 and RX 5700 desktop graphics cards, showing how far integrated GPUs have come along and the potential of AMD’s top-end Strix Halo chip for its mini-PC.

Still, you should note that reviewers rarely use Geekbench 6 to measure GPU performance and that we should wait for independent reviews to see what this mini-PC could do. Whatever the case, we want to see how the EVO-X1 mini-PC with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 would stack up as a gaming and productivity machine, and if its built-in GPU could really lead to the end of entry-level graphics cards.

At CES 2025, Chinese PC manufacturer Emdoor (usually focused on rugged PC products, and we previously covered one of its Intel Core Ultra gaming handhelds) showcased a new modular Mini PC design dubbed Clink-X xCraft that has since been confirmed for a planned March 2025 crowdfunding launch. This Mini PC boasts an incredibly compact form factor and potentially offers some very interesting upgrades post-launch.

Of course, there are limitations to this modular mini PC design. Like modular Framework laptops or Framework-based devices, Emdoor Clink-X xCraft will only come with custom motherboards with soldered OEM CPUs. But since the motherboard is so easily removable compared to the majority of mini PC designs, long-term support could still offset the downsides of this, particularly if truly meaningful modular attachments like an extended heatsink, discrete graphics, etc, actually come to fruition.

As far as the current fixed specifications go, the only two CPU options currently given with the motherboard are Ryzen "Hawk Point" CPUs, but specifically the Ryzen 7 250 and 260— which are just a rebadged Ryzen 7 8840U and Ryzen 7 8845HS, respectively. Those two CPUs are also rebadged Ryzen 7 7840U and Ryzen 7 7845HS, respectively, which makes the additional renaming cycle quite egregious. With either CPU, you'll be getting eight Zen 4 cores and AMD RDNA 3 integrated graphics, with the differences boiling down to the CPU base clock.

AMD's Ryzen 7 250 and its eight Zen 4 cores have a base clock of 3.3 GHz and boost up to 5.1 GHz, and are paired with 12 RDNA 3 iGPU Compute Units for graphical horsepower. The Ryzen 7 260 and its eight Zen 4 cores have a base clock of 3.8 GHz, boost up to 5.1 GHz, and also have 12 RDNA 3 CUs. These are still good specs since part of the reason 7840U and its ilk were so endlessly rebadgeable was because their iGPU performance took that long to be exceeded by the competition, but it's still worth noting.

I/O is fixed regardless of your CPU and also replaces your PCIe expansion besides the dual NVMe slots. The fastest connectors are dual USB4 20 Gbps Type-C ports, with dual USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one Type-A, one Type-C) following directly behind. There is also a USB Type-C port specifically for power input, one HDM1 2.1 port, one DisplayPort 2.1 port, and a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port.

Storage and RAM support seem a little more interesting — with dual NVMe Gen4 slots (M.2-2280, up to 4TB) and support for up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM at 5600 MT/s, this mini PC definitely isn't slacking in those options. It's just a bit of a shame the CPU is soldered, but going unsoldered likely would have pushed them in the direction of AM4 or AM5 and presented a greater technical challenge for this form factor.

As-is, I think it looks decently promising, but the fastest expansion effectively being limited to dual USB4 20 Gbps does concern me, particularly at a $500 starting price point. OCuLink or even just a PCIe slot would be far preferable, particularly for whatever future discrete GPU attachments may be planned.

Asus just launched its next-generation NUC PCs, offering users everything from pure performance, aesthetics, and speed to a system primarily focused on efficiency. These new mini-PCs are the NUC 14 Pro AI+, NUC 15 Pro, NUC 15 Pro+, 2025 ROG NUC, and NUC 14 Essential, ensuring the company has an NUC device for every user.

The NUC 14 Pro AI+ is slightly improving on the NUC 14 Pro AI Asus launched in early September. Like the earlier version, this device has a Lunar Lake Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU with Intel Arc integrated graphics, delivering an overall performance of 120 TOPs. It sports two Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2,5G Ethernet, HDMI, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.2, and four USB Type-A ports, ensuring you’ll never run out of connectivity options to attach whatever you need to your PC.

However, the NUC 14 Pro AI+ stands out from the competition because of its multi-color e-ink display on top of the case. This allows you to display whatever image or icon you want, even when the device is turned off. It also has an ARGB ring around the top edge of the case to highlight your aesthetics better.

But if you need performance over looks, the Asus NUC 15 Pro and NUC 15 Pro+ will deliver with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265H and Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processors, respectively. These Arrow Lake chips are Intel’s mobile versions of its latest desktop chips, giving you the horsepower you need for whatever you’re doing while still ensuring a small and portable package. Aside from their numerous ports, including two HDMI 2.1 and two Thunderbolt 4 ports for four 4K displays, Asus gave these NUCs tool-free access, allowing users to maintain and upgrade these devices easily.

One weakness many mini-PCs have is the lack of a discrete GPU, and the ROG NUC fixed this by adding an Nvidia laptop GPU to deliver the needed graphical power. Asus upgraded the ROG NUC by giving it the latest performance parts: up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and an RTX 50-series laptop GPU, giving it overall 200+ TOPS of performance. And despite its small size of just three liters, it runs quietly, even when pushed to its limits, because of its three fans and dual vapor chamber cooling solution.

Finally, not everyone needs this power and performance, so Asus released the NUC 14 Essential. This device uses Intel’s most efficient N-series chips, which could go as low as 6W. This means it has very little power draw and requires much less cooling, allowing Asus to fit all of it in a case that could go as small as 135 x 115 x 36 mm—about the size of a case fan. Still, you get the full Windows 11 OS and a plethora of ports—to USB Type-Cs, five USB Type-As, and a 2.5G Ethernet port. It also has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity.

These new devices prove that the NUC is not dead yet. Despite their small sizes, you can get the right NUC for your needs, no matter how efficient or powerful you need it to be.

Here at CES 2025, Mini PC manufacturer Geekom is showcasing its next-generation solutions and has one new desktop Mini PC with top-end mobile chips from AMD, Intel, and even Qualcomm. While Geekom claims its Snapdragon Mini PC will be the first to market, we've also spotted some Lenovo-made Qualcomm-powered Mini PCs on the CES 2024 show floor.

Narrowing in on Geekom's show floor presence, the focus is on the trio of upcoming Mini PCs: IT15, QS1, and A9 Max. We previously covered the tower-style Mega Mini G1 in a dedicated hands-on ahead of CES, but Geekom is also highlighting its already-released A6, which flaunts a last-gen AMD Ryzen 6700H with Radeon 680M iGPU.

On the Intel side, we have the Geekom IT15, which flaunts up to a Core Ultra 9 285H CPU or a Core Ultra 5 225H. Either CPU can be configured with Intel Arc XE-LPG A130T graphics and up to 64 GB DDR5-5800 RAM.W

The Geekom IT15's total size is 135.5 x 115.5 x 34.5 millimeters, so it seems Geekom isn't afraid to dedicate thermal mass to these new Intel CPUs. There's also room to mount one 2.5-inch SSD alongside two M.2 SSDs, though only one M.2 slot actually runs with NVMe Gen 4 bandwidth, with the other being SATA M.2.

In terms of I/O, the Geekom IT15 also seems fully featured, with 2 USB4 Type-C ports and 3 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports onboard. Combined with 2 HDMI 2.0 ports, a 2.5G Ethernet port, a standard headphone jack, and even an SD card slot, the Geekom IT15 seems like a good choice for those wanting an Intel-powered Mini PC. Built-in Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support ensure it shouldn't be lacking in connectivity options.

Unfortunately, further information on pricing or availability for this mini PC is not yet available.

More unique among Geekom's new contenders would be the Geekom QS1 Mini PC, which is the most compact of the new offerings at just 135.5 x 115.5 x 34.5 millimeters, built on top of a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset. Specifically, the X Elite X1E-80-100 with 12 CPU cores and an Adreno GPU is what's in use here, with an NPU advertised to reach up to 45 AI TOPS. RAM support goes as high as 64 GB of DDR4-8400 MT/s RAM, and storage support for up to 2 NVMe Gen 4 SSDs (one M.2-2280, one M.2-2230) is also included.

For the most part, the specifications we're seeing here are about in line with what we've come to expect in the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite PCs we've seen elsewhere, especially in the laptop space. However, a change in form factor can't really address the overall issues with Snapdragon X Elite (particularly relating to software compatibility, etc.).

For those intrigued by a Snapdragon X Elite mini PC, though, Geekom does seem to be giving this one a fair shot. By targeting a sub-$500 price point, including Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and having a healthy I/O, Geekom may still land some sales with this unit. It includes 1 USB4 Type-C port, 3 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, 1 USB 2 Type-A port, 1 HDMI 2.0 port, 1 DisplayPort 1.4 port, a standard headphone jack, a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, and even an SD card slot. Add some small hardware features like fingerprint unlock and an array of 4 digital built-in mics, and you may have a winner here...or at least, a piece of curiosity.

Last but certainly not least is the Geekom A9 Max, which is the biggest overall contender at 135 x 132 x 46.9 mm and likely the best overall performer thanks to AMD's onboard Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, complete with 12 cores, 24 threads, and an industry-leading Radeon 890M iGPU. There's also a slightly weaker AI 9 365 (10C,20T) configuration, which uses a weaker Radeon 880M but is otherwise the same. The onboard Ryzen NPU is rated for up to 55 AI TOPS.

As the larger footprint indicates, it would seem that the Geekom A9 Max is considered the new high-end of Geekom's Mini PCs, with AMD's sheer dominance in iGPU performance likely being why that choice was made. Giving this chipset the most cooling headroom makes sense, and like the other mini PCs in the lineup, the A9 Max supports up to 64 GB of DDR5 RAM, albeit limited to just 5600 MT/s. There's also support for dual NVMe Gen 4 drives but with mixed M.2-2280 (standard) and M.2-2230 (mini) slot support. Like all the other Geekom Mini PCs, the A9 Max also comes fully equipped with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support.

Of the offerings, the Geekom A9 Max has the more comprehensive I/O. I/O includes dual USB4 Type-C ports (one with power delivery support), a whopping 5 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, 1 USB2 Type-A port, 2 HDMI 2.0 ports, a standard headphone jack, an SD card slot, and dual 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

We’ve been visiting the booths at CES 2025 and have encountered some of the first desktop PCs on the market with Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X processors. Lenovo also showcases two new mini-PCs using the Arm architecture: the ThinkCentre Neo 50q QC and the IdeaCentre Mini x, equipped with Qualcomm’s first-generation Snapdragon X chips.

Although compact, these mini-PCs deliver enough performance without a massive cooling solution. The ThinkCentre Neo 50q QC has a base Snapdragon X chip, but you can get the Snapdragon X Plus if you need more firepower. Its Hexagon NPU can deliver 45 TOPS, which is more than enough for your AI needs. It has up to 16GB of LPDDR5X memory and two M.2 SSD slots.

This mini-PC has numerous ports: one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A and another USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C in front, alongside a 3.5mm combo audio jack. Looking at the back, you’ll see two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, one HDMI 2.1 port, one DisplayPort 1.4a, and a 1G RJ45 Ethernet jack. You also get Wi-Fi 6E for wireless connectivity, ensuring that you won’t have any issues with this device regarding productivity.

Because of its Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor, the ThinkCentre only requires 90 watts of power. Unfortunately, though, it has a proprietary power plug. If you could power it via USB-C, you could likely use a 20,000 mAh power bank to run this mini-PC.

Lenovo also introduced the IdeaCentre Mini x, which is about the same size as the ThinkCentre but is built for professionals and creatives. Because of this, the company is limiting the processor for this mini-PC to the more powerful Snapdragon X Plus. We’re still hoping the company will release a more powerful Snapdragon X Elite variant, allowing us to get the best performance in such a small package.

Nevertheless, we want to see how these mini-PCs perform versus their laptop counterparts. After all, a Snapdragon X Elite chip pushed past 100 watts only delivered modest gains of 10% to 30% compared to four times more power consumption. So, we’d love to see what kind of optimizations Lenovo did on these Snapdragon chips.

Apple set a new benchmark for mini-PCs with its latest Mac mini M4. However, if you prefer different PC hardware and a Windows (or Linux) operating system, then the Nvisen GX06 might be for you. This Chinese mini-PC draws heavy inspiration from Apple’s newest compact PC, offering a similar aesthetic, but with more extensive connectivity options and the flexibility of x86 hardware.

While the overall design closely mirrors the Mac mini M4, there are a few key differences. For example, the power button is positioned on the front, unlike the Mac mini, where the power button is awkwardly placed on the bottom of the chassis, requiring the PC to be lifted to press it. It also comes in a darker hue and all of the ports are located on the rear. The new Wintel device measures 203 x 203 millimeters and stands 53 millimeters tall, making it incredibly compact and easy to fit into any workspace. It even features a raised bottom just like the Mac mini, to enhance airflow and cooling. Sadly, the listing does not give any details of the cooling solution.

Moving to the internals, the Nvisen GX06 is equipped with an Intel Core i9-12900H processor, a slightly older but formidable chip featuring 14 cores, 20 threads, and a boost clock speed of 5.0 GHz. It also features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM allowing the mini-PC to handle light to moderate gaming and demanding applications like video editing. Additionally, it features 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1 TB M.2 SSD.

In terms of connectivity, the GX06 is well-equipped for its size. It offers one HDMI 2.1 port, two DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, and four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. Additionally, two Gigabit Ethernet ports are available for wired connections, along with separate microphone and headset jacks. For wireless connectivity, the GX06 supports Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 6.

The GX06 ships with a 210-watt power supply, which should be adequate to power the components. It’s available for purchase on the Chinese e-commerce platform Banggood (linked top) for around $820, which seems rather pricey... Moreover, buyers should be aware of potential import fees, especially for shipments to the U.S., where customs charges may apply for orders like this. We also found that the specifications listed are slightly different from the actual product shown in the pictures, so we highly recommend that you proceed with caution.

Asus's upcoming ROG NUC 2025 mini PC has been revealed a bit ahead of schedule. The new computer's appearance and existence were reportedly leaked in a social media teaser video early this morning on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), before being swiftly removed.

According to the leaked hype post, the Asus ROG NUC 2025 will be powered by an Intel Core Ultra 200-series processor. It is expected to be Intel's top-of-the-line Core Ultra 9 285H, the natural successor to the Core Ultra 9 185H found in the 2024 ROG NUC. The leak also confirmed that the NUC will contain Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics, a series widely expected to be announced at CES 2025 in early January.

The 2025 ROG NUC has been confirmed to be revealed at CES 2025. This date adds veracity to the leak's claim of RTX 50-series graphics; likely a mobile RTX 5060/5070 board. The 2025 ROG NUC will also likely come with a slew of other, less powerful NUCs from Asus; the 2024 ROG NUC was the flagship product among a stable of five other NUC SKUs, ranging from $1,199 to $1,999.

The existence of the social media leaks themselves is difficult to confirm. The only trace left of the posts is a Weibo post which contains the screenshots seen above, under the article headline. The NUC in the screenshots takes on a more angular appearance than its predecessor, sporting a boxier design and a proudly exposed cooling fan.

Assuming the leaks are not extremely elaborate 3D-modelled hoaxes, the 2025 ROG NUC seems to be a powerhouse. Like its predecessor, the 2024 ROG NUC, it is expected to be a highly-specialized product, carrying a matching price tag. The 2024 NUC launched at $2,000, though it is still unclear how much if at all Nvidia raises its prices on the RTX 50-series.

To see the 2025 ROG NUC's legitimate reveal and announcement, Asus will reveal its upcoming ROG slate at CES 2025, beginning on January 7th, 2025. Tom's Hardware will be live-covering the newest releases, announcements, and events at the forum on our CES 2025 landing page, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's highly-hyped opening keynote on the 6th.

Cirrus7 Incus, a redesigned passively cooled mini-PC from German PC manufacturer Cirrus7, was originally released in October 2019. The company recently updated its lineup of Cirrus7 Incus models to support AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPUs [h/t FanlessTech].

Since our original coverage, the lineup has also been upgraded with Intel 14th Gen support, though the Ryzen 9000 series will likely be the more compelling choice for most users. Cirrus7 Incus' designs are all based directly on the ASRock DeskMini mini-PC designs, which use a custom Mini-STX motherboard and case—though Cirrus7 is using a highly overhauled design for its passive cooling aims with Incus.

Cirrus7 highlights in its official documentation that the three distinct cooling designs (Standard Edition, Extended Cooling Edition, and Extreme Cooling Edition) are passive cooling solutions with thermal mass and case dimensions corresponding to intended workloads. The Extreme Cooling design is intended for full-time, high-wattage use with CPUs like the Ryzen 7 9700X, while the other designs are more appropriate for lower-power APUs. However, Extended Cooling or better is likely best for chips with a Radeon 780M iGPU or better.

*Technically based on but considerably changed from various models of ASRock DeskMini mini-PCs, ranging from DeskMini X300 and DeskMini X600, which use AMD CPUs, and DeskMini B760, based on an Intel platform.

**Any "Cooling Edition" can be used with any platform—this distinction is made to illustrate dimension and I/O differences between otherwise identical PCs more clearly.

The cheapest starting configuration, including the full-fat Ryzen 9700X and Extreme Cooling Edition design, starts at 1076€ Euros and includes 8GB of DDR5-4800 RAM and a 250GB Samsung 980 NVMe 3.0 drive. While the starting memory and storage specs are relatively humble, these specifications can be configured much higher, with plenty of storage configuration options available thanks to 4 total SSD connectors (2 SATA, 2 NVMe M.2).

For those who are fans of passive cooling and mini-PC designs, the Cirrus7 Incus may be a winner for its cooling capacity, compact size, and reasonably balanced aesthetics. The acceptable pricing will, of course, vary depending on the buyer. However, we recommend that those interested in PC gaming opt for an AM5 APU with an onboard Radeon 780M rather than a Radeon 7 9700X configuration with a weaker iGPU. Unfortunately, eGPU options don't look great with this mini PC, so be extra wary of the balance between CPU and iGPU you're picking at checkout.

Geekom says that it will launch the Geekom QS1, Geekom A9 Max, and Geekom IT15 in Las Vegas, all of which are powered by the latest chips, as well as show off its recently launched Geekom A6, which is its contender for the sub-$500 market.

Mini-PC maker Geekom is set to reveal new models powered by the latest chips at CES 2025. These devices would include some of the most powerful next-generation processors from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, giving users the freedom to choose between Team Blue or Team Red if they want an x86 chip or maybe be a bit more adventurous and go for a Snapdragon X Elite-powered desktop.

The Geekom QS1 would be one of the headlining products in the Geekom booth, especially as it’s the first Snapdragon X mini-PC after Qualcomm suddenly canceled its $899 dev kit. This tiny Windows 11 on Arm PC is powered by a Snapdragon X1E-80-100 chip with twelve 4.0 GHz Oryon CPU cores, a 3.8 TFLOPS Adreno X1-85 GPU, and a 45 TOPS NPU. The company didn’t say much more about the QS1 in its press release, but previous leaks suggest that it would come with up to 64GB of dual-channel RAM, up to 2TB M.2 2280 storage, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. We also expect it to come with a biometric fingerprint sensor in the power button, allowing you to take advantage of Windows Hello.

If you’re an Intel fan, Geekom also has something for you—the IT15. This tiny desktop packs the latest Intel Arrow Lake-H chips, allowing you to equip it with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H. The Intel Core Ultra 200H isexpected to launch at CES 2025, too, meaning Geekom would be among the first manufacturers to offer these powerful processors to the public.

Finally, we expect the Geekom A9 Max with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 processor under its hood. The HX 375 is at the top of AMD’s Strix Point product stack, with four Zen 5 and eight Zen 5c cores, giving it 12 and 24 threads. It also has a Radeon 890M integrated GPU and could deliver up to 80 TOPS of AI performance, allowing it to beat the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V in LLM performance. The company also said it will show off the more affordable Geekom A6, with its AMD Ryzen 7 6800H chip, Radeon 680M integrated GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and 1TB of storage.

We can’t wait until January 7 to see the exact specifications and pricing of these new Geekom models. In addition, we expect to see a flurry of next-generation releases, like the Nvidia RTX 5000 and AMD RX 8000 GPUs, which we expect to be revealed at CES 2025.

Amidst the chaos of October, Minisforum launched the MS-A1 AM5 mini-PC with both barebones and a Ryzen 7 8700G configuration— but earlier this morning, Minisforum also added a new variant with Ryzen 9 9950X.

Compared to other mini PCs, which usually don't come in alternative barebones forms, MS-A1 may be the most price-accessible, customizable mini-PC on the market, especially keeping that AM5 socket and OCuLink eGPU support in mind. Every configuration of the device comes in the same 189.5 x 186 x 48 mm form factor (longest side 7.4 inches).

Now, before making any recommendations, it's worth noting that with current market conditions in mind, you're mostly just paying for convenience if you opt for the Ryzen 9 9950X or Ryzen 7 8700G models since you can acquire separate CPU, memory, and RAM for less money if you opt for the barebones kit instead.

Bringing your Ryzen 9 9950X and matching RAM/storage for capacity could save you over $100, though you must be mindful of form factor restrictions. Fortunately, the mini-PC enclosure has its cooler built-in, so you don't need to worry about adding fans or buying an additional heatsink if you bring your CPU, though you may want to have a thermal paste kit on hand just in case.

*Note: The front M.2 slots seem to be smaller M.2-2230 rather than standard M.2-2280 slots. One may also be taken by opting for M.2 Wi-Fi/BT expansion, which is also supported.

The Minisforum MS-A1 is quite compelling as a barebones AM5 Mini PC kit. Its fully featured I/O, including USB 4 and OCuLink, should enable all the expansion end users need, significantly leveraging high-end desktop GPUs rather than compromised mobile GPUs. Those who want to maintain away-from-dock graphics performance can opt for a build or model with an APU like the Ryzen 8700G. In contrast, those who wish to prioritize multi-core performance could opt for a Ryzen 9 9950X config or go full custom with a gaming powerhouse like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Of course, those hoping to make the most of a mini-PC like this must pair it with an appropriate OCuLink eGPU docking station. To cut down on extraneous PSU cable routing, I recommend the Aoostar AG02 or AG01 docking stations, which include integrated PSUs capable of handling the best graphics cards within wattage limits.

On the note of wattage limits, this mini-PC is noted as only supporting 100W-120W in its documentation despite being able to use a Ryzen 9 9950X rated for a much higher TDP— we firmly recommend that anybody using higher-end CPUs with this mini-PC enable Eco Mode in the BIOS as quickly as possible, which should prevent power usage issues and not majorly impact performance, especially for a chip like Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Mini-PC manufacturer Geekom is the first maker to announce a desktop PC powered by a Snapdragon X Elite chip after Qualcomm abruptly canceled the Snapdragon X Elite dev kit. While initial leaks did not provide additional information, El Chapuzas Informatico (machine translated) was able to find and share the specifications of the Arm-powered mini-PC.

According to the Spanish tech publication, the QS1 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X1E-80-100 SoC paired with an Adreno GPU rated at up to 4.6 TFLOPs. It will also have up to 64GB of dual-channel LPDRR5-5600 memory and up to 2TB of M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 storage.

What’s interesting about the leaked information is that its CPU, the Snapdragon X1E-80-100, does not match the stated 4.6-TFLOP output of the Adreno GPU. The X1E-80-100's GPU could only hit 3.8 TFLOPs, as per Qualcomm’s documentation, while the GPU for the higher tier X1E-84-100 is rated for 4.6 TFLOPs.

As El Chapuzas says, we’re unsure if this is just a typographical error or if Geekom was able to up the chip’s performance by applying more voltage, especially as it’s no longer constrained by the limited space and power that many laptops have to deal with. Nevertheless, initial tests have shown that putting more power into a Snapdragon X Elite only offers a limited performance uplift.

Also, note that since the Snapdragon X Elite is an integrated system, like the Intel Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) series, you cannot upgrade the memory capacity of this mini-PC after you get it. Nevertheless, its maximum capacity of 64GB of dual-channel LPDDR5-5600 memory is more than enough for most applications today. You probably don’t have to worry much about getting more RAM in the next few years. The mini-PC also has excellent wireless connectivity options, equipped with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Unfortunately, we have no information yet about the launch timeline or pricing of the Geekom QS1 Pro. Previously, the most affordable Qualcomm Snapdragon X PC was Qualcomm’s dev kit, priced at $899. However, with its discontinuation, we hope the QS1 Pro will replace that, allowing more users, especially developers, to get into Windows on Arm.