Mini PCs Pack a Punch: Beelink SER9 and Geekcom GT1 Mega Showcase AI-Ready Performance

Beelink SER9 review

PC Gamer's got your back Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware. AMD's Strix Point Ryzen APUs landed this year, and began rolling out in notebooks to a chorus of high praise. These smashing mobile processors come armed with AMD's new RDNA 3.5 integrated graphics architecture, aka the Radeon 890M. Laptop manufacturers often select low-power variants of APUs, or set lower TDP limits, in order to preserve battery life and minimise heat. That's prudent in a mobile context, but what if your use-case is the desktop? I say plug it in and give it all the watts! Enter the Beelink SER9 mini PC, sporting the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370: AMD's top-shelf Strix Point APU. Yep, new chip generation, baffling new chip designation... it's almost like AMD is in competition with Intel not simply for market-share, but to see who can troll consumers the hardest. At any road, you may be assured that the HX 370 is a step up in performance from AMD's Zen 4 Ryzen 8000-series APUs, and outperforms Intel's Meteor Lake headliner, the Core Ultra 9 185H. Strix Point also marks an architectural gearshift for AMD. Rather than fielding a bunch of identical cores like previous Ryzen CPUs, it's a dual-cluster design of four Zen 5 cores which run up to 5.1GHz, and eight Zen 5c (compact) cores, which are smaller, more power-efficient, generate less heat, have half the L3 cache, and max out at 3.3GHz. Intel led the way on the big/little philosophy with its 12th Gen CPUs, but this is new ground for AMD. There's also a heavier focus on AI -- the clue's in the name -- so the AI 9 HX 370 also sports an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) capable of delivering 50 TOPS, or trillions of operations per second, the defining metric for NPUs. Beelink claims this rises to 80 TOPS if the CPU and iGPU cores get in on the action, which far exceeds the 40 TOPS threshold required to qualify for Microsoft's Copilot-branded PC initiative. The SER9 isn't Copilot branded, but there's plenty of poke there to manage useful AI tasks such as voice recognition, smart noise-suppression in calls and such. Beelink suggests the SER9 is also suitable for text-prompt art-gen models such as stable diffusion; it'll never be as quick as setting a hench GPU loose on the task, but it's a nice-to-have all the same. AI still has bags of untapped potential, but my interest won't be intensively piqued until NPC behaviour and dialogue in games starts getting the Neural Processing treatment. The SER9 can run the HX 370 in balanced (54W) or performance (65W) modes, and happily I found that switching to the latter makes zero difference to its noise output -- it cools the APU effectively and remains extremely quiet even at full tilt. In fact, the only thing that kicked the cooling-fan into overdrive was Forza Motorsport's shader-compiling process, which that particular title seems to want to do every time I blink. Benchmarking highlights a solid performance uplift over the previous top iGPU, AMD's Radeon 780M. Which is no surprise, as the 890M features 25% more Compute Units, Shader Units and RT cores than the 780M, among other improvements. This makes it capable of knocking out 5.9 TFLOPS to the 780M's 4.3 TFLOPS. So: bigger, better, faster, more, basically. Gains vary per game, but let's start with the chart-topper. The Radeon 780M in a Ryzen 9 7940HS running at 65W TDP averages around 50 fps in Cyberpunk, at 1080p, medium settings, Frame Gen and FSR set to balanced, which is none too shabby. The 890M in the SER 9 boosts that to a gangbusting 88 fps average at the same settings, with 1% lows remaining above 60 fps. I think that's simply incredible for an iGPU. Not every game is going to see such a dramatic improvement, but it's still gains all round for the 890M at 1080p and medium settings, when set against the 780M. Warhammer III sees performance hikes of 26% in campaign and 25% in battle, reaching 38 fps and 53 fps respectively. Forza Motorsport sees a 14% uplift to 53 fps, though Homeworld 3's built-in benchmark, which always benefits from greater CPU grunt, only sees a boost of 1 fps, so no change there. The 780M was always happy with indie titles, and the 890M even more so; I threw Stray and Subnautica its way and it returned averages of 68 fps and 82 fps respectively. So it's all good news. In a nutshell, the Radeon 890M is the new king of the iGPU hill. So how about the rest of the SER9 package? RAM-wise it packs 32 GB of LPDDR5-7500, and it's quick off the mark. Benchmarked against 32 GB of 5600MHz desktop DDR5 using MaxxMem, it has only 6% higher read-speeds, but outperforms the desktop RAM with 22% faster copy speeds and a massive 77% uptick in write speeds. Given the Radeon 890M ringfences a block of this to use as VRAM, it's undoubtedly a contributor to the system's gaming performance. The downside is that it's soldered onto the motherboard Macbook-style, and Beelink only sells a 32 GB configuration of the SER9. If you're happy with 32 GB for life -- which I imagine is true for most people -- then great. But if your use-case demands 64GB or more then you're outta luck, as the RAM cannot be replaced or increased. IO-wise, you get a 10 Gbps USB-C and a single Type-A up front, plus a 40 Gbps USB4 and another three Type-A ports round the back. There's a choice of DisplayPort 1.4 or HDMI 2.1, networking is handled by a WiFi 6 / Bluetooth 5.2 M.2 card or 2.5G LAN, and you also get a quad-microphone array, front and rear audio jacks, and a tiny pair of rudimentary built-in speakers. Release the screws on the underside to pop it open and you'll find a steel-mesh dust filter, plus a heavy-duty SSD cooler-block covering both M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots. So while the memory isn't upgradeable, you can at least bump up the storage with an extra M.2 drive. In summary, It's a tidy, super-compact, all-aluminium affair, and whisper-quiet under load. It's pretty well-appointed in IO, and is hands-down the best mini-PC we've tested for 1080p gaming, short of a machine with a discrete GPU such as Minisforum's G7 PT. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Radeon 890M are a killer combo, which you pay for at the checkout; at $999/£761, it's not a cheap mini-PC. But if you want the best possible pixel-pusher in the tiniest form-factor available, the SER9 is the one to beat.

Beelink SER9 "AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370" Mini PC Review - The Fastest iGPU On The Market Right Now

Beelink was established in 2011 & is regarded as one of the top sellers in the Mini PC category at Amazon. The company has a diverse portfolio of Mini PCs, Players, and gadgets but the core focus is on the Mini PC segment which includes both Intel and AMD options. While we have looked at several of Beelink's Mini PC options in the past ranging from AMD & Intel CPUs, today's a bit special as the company is among the leading manufacturers to introduce AMD's latest Ryzen AI 300 APUs in a Mini PC form factor. The company sent us their new and top-of-the-line SER9 Mini PC which is equipped with the fastest AMD APU on the market, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, and this will be my first taste of what Strix Point has to offer in a compact form factor and how much of an upgrade users can expect coming from older Phoenix/Hawk Point platforms. The Beelink SER9 Mini PC with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 comes in one configuration at the moment, the 1 TB (Storage) and 32 GB (Memory) option which is listed for $999 US. This is a premium and high-end Mini PC option and the price is fair given that laptops based on the same chip go for $1450 US and above. Beelink SER9 Mini PC - Specifications At A Glance Beelink's SER9 Mini PC comes with the top AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU which is the fastest in the Strix Point family. Our unit was the fully decked out variant with two LPDDR5X-7500 32 GB (16 GB x2) SO-DIMM memory modules and a 1 TB PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 M.2 drive. Coming to the specifications, the Beelink SER9 Mini PC rocks the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" CPU which features 12 cores based on the Zen 5 core architecture in a combination of four Zen 5 and eight Zen 5C cores to offer a highly efficient yet powerful computing layout, 24 threads, 24 MB of L3 cache, 12 MB of L2 cache, and a boost clock of up to 5.10 GHz. The CPU has a default TDP of 28W which can be tuned between 15-54W. Out of the box, the Mini PC is configured at the highest 54W TDP which should offer great performance. For the GPU, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is packing the brand new Radeon 890M iGPU which is based on the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture. This new iGPU optimizes the RDNA 3 architecture and delivers higher throughput, which in some cases should provide up to 30-40% gains. As for the specs of this iGPU, it comes with 16 compute units which are half that of the Radeon RX 7600 dGPU, and has a clock speed of 2900 MHz. The iGPU is fully overclockable. You additionally get all the latest video support such as DP 2.1, Adaptive-Sync, UHBR10, up to 8K 60Hz and 4K 240Hz support, and the iGPU also fully supports FSR 3 with Frame-Gen, AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2, Hypr-RX and the rest of the technologies that you would get on modern-day Radeon GPUs. Other specs for the Beelink SER9 Mini PC include 32 GB LPDDR5X-(Dual-Channel) memory operating at 7500MT/s out of the box. The memory is soldered to the system which means that you are only limited with the base spec that Beelink has to offer but it is overclockable and can be tuned up to 8000 MT/s. Storage comes in the form of dual M.2 2280 SSD slots running at Gen 4.0 speeds that can support up to 8 TB capacities. I/O on the Beelink GTi12 Ultra Mini PC, includes a USB 3.2 (10 Gbps Type-A) port, a USB Type-C (10 Gbps), a 3.5mm audio jack, CLR CMOS button, and a power button on the front. The backside offers two USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.2 (10 Gbps), 1 USB4 (40 Gbps Type-C), 1 DP 1.4, 1 HDMI 2.1, 1 3.5mm audio jack, a 2.5GbE LAN port and the DC IN power port. The following are the main features of the Mini PC: The Beelink SER9 Mini PC comes in a white colored cardboard package which has a simplistic look. The back of the box has some basic specifications which list the specific configuration for this model. We got the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 variant with 32 GB of memory and 1 TB storage capacity. Within the box, you are first greeted with a nice "Thank You" card. Little things like these make for a fun unboxing experience. Lifting the top box cover, you are welcomed by a soft plastic internal in which the PC and its various accessories are kept safe and away from harm. Before talking about the case itself, we have to mention the accessories that come with the Mini PC. It comes with a Power cord, a mounting bracket with screws, and a manual. The Mini PC comes with a HuntKey "HKA12019063-6BA" power adapter which offers up to 120.08W of power and has a standard input of 100-240V at 60/50Hz (2.0A). With the SER9 Mini PC out of the package itself, you are met with another "Thank You" message on the plastic film around the PC. So looking at the PC, you are met with a gorgeous and perfect square-shaped chassis that comes with a beautiful grey color scheme with a metallic Silver "Beelink" logo in the center. The curved edges and the aluminum + shiny exterior have a very premium feel. You can get the PC in two color schemes, the Space Gray version that we got or a Frost Silver color which has a whiter hue. The top and sides are fully enclosed except for the rear and bottom of the chassis which have vents to push hot air out of the unit that is dissipated by the cooling solution. The front I/O on the Beelink SER9 Mini PC comes with two USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports (Type-A + Type-C), a 3.5mm audio jack, a power button, a white light indicator, and four small microphone arrays on the top of the ports. The back I/O of the Beelink SER9 Mini PC comes with a single 2.5GbE Ethernet LAN port, HDMI and DP outputs, 1 40 Gbps USB4 Type-C port & four two 2.0 Gen 2, a single USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) Type-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the DC in power port. The back side has large vents which push air out of the chassis. That's about it as far as the outside goes but overall, the looks and feel are very premium of the SER9 Mini PC. Our test unit came with 32 GB of LPXDDR5-7500 memory and 1 TB of Gen4 NVMeSSD. This is the maximum config you can get from Beelink but still leaves room for expansion of up to 8 TB M.2 capacities for the storage. The interiors of the Mini PC can be accessed by removing four screws at the bottom which are hidden underneath four rubber pads. Once inside, you will notice a large metal dust filter over the two major components, the speakers and the power supply. The speakers within the SER9 are big and offer really good sound quality. The Mini PC also features a built-in microphone which is powered by the B1 AI chip for effective noise recognition and noise reduction. This is why there are four microphone ports on the front. You can use the PC as an assistant just like Siri. The Beelink SER9 Mini PC measures 135x135x44.7mm (W/L/H). The PC also comes with a strong cooling solution in the form of Beelink's MSC2.0 design which includes a vapor chamber on the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 SoC and a large blade fan that keeps the internals cool. The SSDs are also featured under a dedicated heatsink. For performance testing, we used the 54W power profile for the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 when testing the Beelink SER9 Mini PC. For gaming, we tested a couple of the latest and most played esports titles along with a mix of AAA titles at 1080p resolution. The performance was measured between the AMD Radeon 890M, Radeon 780, Radeon 680M, AMD Vega 8, Vega 7, Vega 6, Intel Iris Xe, and Intel Iris Xe-LP integrated graphics. Following are the power and thermal numbers of the Beelink SER9 Mini PC using its default 54W and 65W+ tuned power profile. As for thermals, the Beelink SER9 Mini PC peaked at around 85C with the 65W+ and 81C with the 54W default configuration. The fan noise wasn't noticeable even at full load which is a good thing. Beelink is back with another powerful Mini PC featuring the latest and greatest. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 powered SER9 is the fastest Mini PC that we have tested yet, offering insane CPU & GPU performance in such a small and compact design that its just astonishing to witness going by the numbers. The Beelink SER9's design is once again great out of the box, featuring that perfect square shape with rounded edges and a nice silver esthetic. The internals are just as good with strong-sounding speakers, dual SSD support, and an internal cooling solution that does the job well while keeping quiet. One thing that users might miss on the SER9 is the ram upgradability option which means you will be stuck with the DRAM configurations that Beelink has to offer and those currently only go up to 32 GB but this is a faster LPDDR5X we are looking at which can be overclocked to 8000 MT/s for added performance. The internal cooler also lets users manually tweak the SER9 to push it beyond the factory default TDP of 54W up to 80W which is nice. The AMD Radeon 890M iGPU is as strong as ever, featuring the fastest iGPU performance that we have seen to date and with great support for all the Radeon features such as FSR 3 Frame-Gen, Fluid Motion Frames 2, Anti-Lag 2, HYPR-RX and you can even tune it to run up to 200 MHz to get those extra frames. We found no trouble playing AAA games at 60+ FPS with a mix of medium and high settings. This RDNA 3.5 iGPU is a beast. On the IO side, the lack of USB4 or TB4 ports is quite evident as there's only one. We hope to see more of those options in upgraded designs but the feature set is still very nice. For a price tag of $999 US, the SER9 is definitely a premium-positioned product and the PC is the first on the market with this configuration. But there's no doubt that Beelink has really pushed out a very capable PC that has so much power to offer that you'll be surprised by this little thing.

Geekcom GT1 Mega mini PC review

The Geekom GT1 Mega instantly sets the tone with the high-quality metal exterior, with its row of USB Type-A ports across the front and a host of connection options across the rear, highlighting that this is something a little different. Inside is the latest 14th Gen Intel Ultra processor, which provides impressive performance in such a compact machine. The new processor, which in our review sample is the U9-185H option, with the U7-155H also available, enables close integration with AI-enabled features. These work with the Intel NPU, which has the effect of significantly accelerating tasks like AI computation and video rendering, which in real-world terms is an invisible feature that you only witness through the speed of the processing. There are other hints of this small machine's power beyond editing 4K footage in DaVinci Resolve, which it handles as if it's a machine many times its own size, and the smooth running of high-impact games. Connecting up two 4K displays is well within its abilities, with an option to support up to four 4K monitors or one 8K through the two HDMI ports and USB4. Sure enough, for video editing and 3D work, the Geekom ploughs through the processing without issue, and checking all Microsoft Office apps just doesn't pose any type of stress on the system. While all this power and speed are impressive at such a small size, it is worth noting that the fans will kick in early -- there's a lot of cooling to be done -- so if you like silence, while not loud, that fan whirr is apparent. Then there are the options to upgrade, which, being a mini PC, are limited: a slight boost to the internal RAM and SSD but little else. However, the USB4 ports afford plenty of other expansion options with external SSDs and eGPUs. As a true mini PC, the GT1 Mega will fit any workspace without issue, and the small VESA mount ensures that it's easy to fit and mount as needed. That, coupled with the 65W power consumption, means that it can easily be transported and powered in the field with a power station such as the Bluetti AC70. But is it the best mini PC we've tested? Well, while this is a great compact solution, it comes with a high price tag, especially considering the limited upgrade options. So, if you're looking to spend this amount, it might be better to look at a larger desktop solution. However, considering the design and advanced technology, on its own or partnered with other devices to expand its function, it's impressive and an ideal solution for any professional -- creative or otherwise -- who requires some serious processing power. The Geekom GT1 Mega is priced at $1,099 and is available directly from Geekom with a 3-year warranty. The GT1 Mega is housed in a compact form factor (135mm x 132mm x 46.9mm) that is common for mini PCs, which instantly makes it an ideal choice for anyone with limited workspace or requiring a machine that is easily portable between places of work. The exterior of the machine is of an extremely high quality, with the all-metal finish instantly giving the impression of quality and style. The simple monocoque design of the casing, with the line of four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, 3.5mm audio, and power button, are all neatly laid out, highlighting accessibility. That look helps to define this system as a core unit that can adapt to what you need it to do. For creatives, accessories such as the Logitech MX Creative Console, keyboard, and mouse can all be plugged in easily without searching around the back. Then on the side, alongside plenty of venting, which alongside the IceBlast 2.0 cooling system helps to keep on top of the heat from the fast processor, is an SD 4.0 card slot -- a feature that will appeal to photographers and videographers, although a CFExpress Type-B slot would be great to see. On the other side, for security, there's a Kensington port. Flipping over to the back, and again there's a host of connections, including two USB 4.0 and dual 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports, two HDMI 2.0, a USB Type-A 3.2, and one USB 2.0 port. The overall build is of a high quality, and flipping the machine onto its back, there are four small rubber feet and the hole for the VESA mount. Unscrewing the base gives you access to the inside, where there's the option to upgrade the RAM from the 32GB to 64GB and swap the PCIe SSD NVMe Gen 4, although our review sample was already fitted with the 2TB version, which is the maximum. The Geekom GT1 Mega features Intel's 14th Gen Ultra U9-185H processor with 16 cores and 22 threads. It also features an AI-accelerated NPU, which is capable of delivering processing up to 8 times faster than the previous generation and enables you to access the latest machine learning tasks and compatibility with AI-enabled applications that can make full use of the new technology. Visuals are supplied through Intel Arc graphics, which support both high-resolution video and gameplay, as well as the ability to run multiple displays from the system. This includes up to four 4K monitors or one 8K. Inside, the machine features 32GB of Dual-channel DDR5-5600 SODIMM, which can be upgraded to 64GB. This is matched with 2TB of M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 x 4 SSD, which is the maximum that the machine can take. Connections are a key feature of this small machine, and when it comes to networking, alongside the dual RJ45 2.5Gbps ports, there's also Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, further enhancing connection options. Alongside the latest Intel processing, the big point of interest here is the expansion options. While those are limited internally, the ability to utilise the two USB4 ports along with the USB 3.2 Gen ports gives you plenty of options. Although the internal graphics are good, if you need the boost of a dedicated external graphics card, then an eGPU can easily be fitted. Likewise, ultra-fast external SSDs, NAS, and mass storage devices are all easily compatible. The USB4 ports offer plenty of flexibility, with the ability to connect data devices, monitors, graphics, and even deliver up to 15W of PD power to quickly charge devices such as phones, tablets, and camera gear. When it comes to portability, the small form factor and solid metal build make it nice and robust, but if you're working in the field, then the fact that it only draws 65W of power means that it will sit alongside a portable computing suite that can be used in the field without too much of an issue and powered by a portable power station. However, it does utilise a 19V DC input rather than the more universal USB Type-C, so the external power adapter is required. Getting started with the GT1 Mega is fast, with the usual run-through of options for Windows 11 Pro. Once installed, the WiFi connection to install updates and applications is fast, and there's little slowdown as you switch from browsing to applications and general use of the machine. Starting with the range of Microsoft Office apps, the machine is simply fast and responsive, with the apps loading quickly. Navigating large Word documents, presentations, and long spreadsheets is handled with no issues or slowdowns. Essentially, the machine just makes short work of this level of applications. Likewise, two of the best photo editors, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, caused no issues, with the batch RAW processing of files from the Canon EOS R5C handled without a hitch. We also tested the machine with some of the best video editing software. RAW files along with 4K video Log3 footage from the Sony A7 IV were edited within Adobe Premiere Pro with the same ease. The only issue with video editing was the volume of internal storage; however, switching to using an external 8TB Samsung T5 Evo quickly resolved this, enabling impressive ease of editing for a 15-minute video. Finally, looking at gaming performance, three games were tested: *Tekken 8*, *Cyberpunk 2077*, and *Hogwarts Legacy*. In all cases, the machine was able to handle most of the graphic processing, though with some minor lag in *Hogwarts Legacy*. However, a Razer Core X eGPU with ASUS GeForce 3060 Ti gave a boost to the graphics performance. Once the external SSD and eGPU were added to the mix, the power of this small machine matched desktop PCs without issue, offering an incredibly small and effective solution for creative professionals looking for a compact and portable machine that can be used in the field. Finally, with the performance tested, we checked out how the machine coped with our benchmarking tests. Here, the real-world tests were reflected, with the Geekom GT1 Mega excelling across the board. The Intel Ultra U9-185H processor offered strong multi-core performance, scoring 15,911 in Cinebench CPU multi-core tests, highlighting what we had witnessed during video editing. Storage speeds using the internal SSD are fast, with CrystalDisk scores of 5049.75MB/s for read and 4399.79MB/s for write, ensuring quick boot times and rapid data transfers. Although the 2TB storage will be ample for most users, creatives should look at an external storage solution such as the Samsung T5 Evo or OWC Envoy as an option. If you do need to access the internal workings of the machine for an upgrade, the process is a little more involved than most. First, the four rubber feet need to be removed, then the four screws taken out, and the base prised off. Then there's the backing plate, which is again held by four screws; this needs to be carefully lifted away as there are two wires connected to the WiFi card. With the base plate propped up, you can access the M.2 Key-M slot for PCIe x4 Gen 4 NVMe SSD, 2280, and dual RAM slots, along with the M.2 Key-M slot PCIe x4 or SATA, 2242. It's also worth noting that the M.2 Key-E slot for CNVi/PCIe WiFi, 2230, can be upgraded, giving some future-proofing. Another interesting feature is the 16-pin FPC SATA connector to connect an FFC SATA cable to a 7mm 2.5" SATA, which opens up further options. While overall the performance is excellent, the graphics performance is just above average, with the Intel Arc handling most tasks. However, the Fire Strike and Time Spy results show that when pushed, an eGPU should be considered, as we found with Hogwarts Legacy. Overall, when it comes to performance, the core machine punches well above its size, but what really appeals is the fact that, with applications that support AI, this machine can see a real boost in performance. And if you need more storage for video or graphics for gaming, then an external drive or eGPU can be quickly fitted. The Geekom GT1 is one of the most impressive mini PCs available, with solid build and performance that will suit most creative and high-demand users. The Geekom GT1 Mega is a great option for professionals or creatives who need robust computing power in a compact form. Its AI processing and excellent multitasking capabilities make it a great mini PC, though its high price and limited internal, might be an issue for some.