Compact, reasonably powerful and often energy-efficient mini PCs are increasingly becoming a real alternative to large desktop setups.
Geekom, which is celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, has produced a number of such products, including the Geekom A7 mini PC, which the company unveiled at CES 2024.
The company’s latest offering is the AX8 Pro mini PC, which features an Intel NUC-inspired design and comes with a choice of Intel and AMD processors. This dual-option approach opens the door to users with different performance needs and brand preferences.
Many ports
The mini PC comes in two colors: white for Intel-based models and blue for AMD models. On the Intel side, buyers can choose between Core i7 and Core i9 models. They come with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM with a speed of up to 5600MHz and storage options up to 2TB NVMe 4.0. Graphics performance ranges from Intel UHD Graphics (12th or 13th Gen) to more powerful Intel Iris Xe Graphics.
The AMD counterparts, such as the Ryzen 7 8845HS and Ryzen 9 8949HS models, offer up to 8 cores and 16 threads, run at clock speeds of up to 5.2 GHz and are supported by a Radeon 780M GPU with 12 RDNA3 Compute Units.
Both AMD and Intel models come equipped with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, one USB4 port, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, one USB 2.0 Type-A port, and two HDMI 2.0 ports. The USB4 port provides improved performance over external GPU connections, although we would have liked to see an OCuLink port for this. There’s a 2.5G Ethernet port for wired networking and support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.
The lineup starts with more budget-friendly models and goes up to the high-end Ryzen 9 8945HS model, priced at 5099 Chinese yuan or around $702. Geekom has launched the new AX8 Pro JD.com.