GEEKOM "AI-Enhanced" Ryzen 8945HS AE8 Mini PC review

GEEKOM is back with another Mini PC, this time the AE8, which by the way, has the same exact spec as the A8 that we reviewed back in June so our findings from it will probably not be too different from that. The GEEKOM AE8 comes in two different configurations (listed below). Our configuration is powered by the Ryzen 9 8945HS, which came out last December, and despite its TDP of just 45W, has a base clock of 4.0 GHz and a Turbo Boost of 5.2 GHz, invoking up to a max TDP of 54W. The Ryzen 8040 series mobile APUs are part of AMD's Hawk Point (Zen 4) announced last December.

Below are its full specifications, and bold indicates our configuration.

GEEKOM has two configurations of the AE8, with the only difference being a slightly less-powerful Ryzen 7 CPU with half the storage (512 GB). This knocks $120 off the price compared to the $799 Ryzen 9 configuration. In both instances, a Windows 11 Pro license is also preloaded.

The AE8 case is reminiscent of the Mini IT13, which I have to say, is a favorite design of mine out of all the mini PCs I have tested.

The packaging is completely white, with the AE8 sitting in a foam cushion above a small envelope that contains a Thank you card and booklet that has guidance on all of the controls, how to access the AE8 to swap out the SSD or memory, and safety information in several European languages. Upon removing the foam cushion, you can find cardboard compartment that contains the power lead, HDMI cable, VESA plate, and a bag of screws.

What’s In The Box

• 1 x AE8 Mini PC
• 1 x Power Adapter
• 1 x HDMI Cable
• 1 x VESA plate and bag of screws
• 1 x Envelope with booklet and Thank you card

In short, you have everything you need to get started.

Design

As mentioned earlier the exterior borrows inspiration from the IT series of mini PCs, the top is detachable too [image] but all it gives access to is the top of the IceBlast 1.5 Cooling System, nothing can be configured here. The outer casing is made from, what GEEKOM calls a "durable metal frame". The top is completely flat, with the GEEKOM logo stamped in white, centered on the top of the Mini PC.

All of the edges are rounded off, so there are no sharp edges, and it definitely has a premium feel to it. The AE8 is light as well; it's just 1.3 pounds, so it won't weigh you down when carrying it from place to place.

The front of the AE8 includes two USB 3.2 Gen 2 type A ports, and again, I would have liked to have seen at least one Type C port, more and more devices are shipping with Type C connectors and come with cables that are Type C end-to-end. It's also not possible to connect a screen on the front, which is a bit of an inconvenience.

GEEKOM also claims on the product page that the AE8 series underwent the following tests prior to production:

• Vibration Test
• Drop Test (unspecified height)
• High-Temperature Test
• Cold Temperature Test
• Humidity Test
• Altitude Test

Again it's disappointing that there is no more information about the above tests, I have again asked my contact if GEEKOM plan to clarify any data points that customers can look in on, and will update when if I hear back on this.

The AE8 also comes with the same new cooling system that is included in the A8 called the IceBlast 1.5 Cooling System:

GEEKOM's self-developed cooling system "IceBlast 1.5" brings a brand-new experience with low noise and high airflow to dissipate heat faster, maintain high performance and say goodbye to hot panels.

I can confirm the AE8 generally did not get hot to the touch beyond a bit of warmth on the top of the Mini PC during the Cinebench 2024 test, and barely made any noise that I could hear.

As far as looks go, it is completely silver, and it isn't a fingerprint magnet. The top GEEKOM logo is a nice touch too, it looks and feels like premium hardware.

Accessing the AE8 is thankfully pretty straight forward, from the bottom simply unscrew the four screws centered in the rubber feet and lift off the bottom plate. This gives access to the single NVMe SSD and memory modules.

There also appears to be two additional connectors to expand USB connectivity which I found weird. Upon removing the SSD, the M.2 WiFi module can be accessed; this time the antenna is not fastened to the bottom plate, which makes accessing the AE8 far easier and manageable.

There are no further surprises here, except what looks like an unused option to add an additional 42mm M.2 SSD, they are expensive anyway so you're not missing out on much.

Usage

BIOS

The AE8 utilizies an AMIBIOS, which is similar to what HP, Dell and other PC manufacturers use to lock down customization of the machine's values, like CPU or memory over/underclocking as well as power management. All you can pretty much configure here is the time and date, some security related settings (like Secure Boot and so forth) and the Boot order of devices.

WINDOWS

On first boot, you are prompted to complete the setup of Windows 11 Pro, meaning you do not have to fork out for a license. After the setup was completed, I discovered I was on build 22631.4460 and only had to install a few updates that included the November 2024 Patch Tuesday update (KB5046633) and a few AMD drivers. In addition, GEEKOM does not include any bloatware in their PCs, so that is always a bonus.

Following on from my malware test of AceMagic, Beelink, and Geekom Mini PCs, I felt it was only right to at least ensure Microsoft Defender was updated and then run a Full Scan and after that an "Offline scan", which restarts the computer and scans the entire computer for rootkits or persistent malware before Windows loads. I am pleased to say that our AE8 came back clean. But don't take my word for it, always check your newly bought preloaded PCs for malware. For some reason Memory Integrity was disabled. I enabled it before running the scans.

The AE8 supports up to 4 screens at 8K @ 30Hz through the single USB 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (DP 1.4) ports or 4K @ 60Hz over the two HDMI 2.0b ports. However, I also used my ZSCMalls 17.3" FullHD 144Hz portable screen, which was also powered by one of the rear USB Type C ports.

Regarding connectivity, there are two HDMI 2.0b, a USB 3.2 Gen 2, and USB 4 Gen 3 Type C ports, one USB 2.0 port, an RJ45 2.5 GbE Ethernet port, along with a barrel port for power on the back. Around the front, there are two more USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and a port for a 3.5mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, there is no Type C on the front. For audio output, I linked my Edifier 360DB over Bluetooth, and I did not experience any noticeable audio delays.

As you can see from the above images, there is a Kensington lock option here, which I think should be present on all mobile devices. Ample venting on the sides and the rear are present for air cooling.

Benchmarks

Before I started running benchmarks, I ensured that Windows 11 and drivers were up to date. At the time of testing, the AE8 was running Windows 11 Professional 23H2 build 22631.4460 (24H2 was not offered through Windows Update), and I also upgraded to the latest available Adrenalin 24.10.1 WHQL certified driver (October 2024).

For our benchmarks, UL Solutions provided us with Professional (commercial use) licenses for 3DMark, PCMark 10, and Procyon. In addition, we used a licensed version of Geekbench 6, Geekbench AI and Cinebench 2024.

3DMark Time Spy tests gaming capability with DX12 graphics performance and 7-Zip for compression and decompression speeds. PCMark tests are a mix of CPU and real-world productivity tests, such as using an office suite, web browsing, light photo/video editing, and making conference calls.

Cinebench stresses the entire CPU as it is a multi-threaded rendering test. Finally, Geekbench is a synthetic benchmark that is great for a quick look at the potential performance across a wide range of workloads.

We were also interested to see what happens in UL's Procyon, which is an Inferencing benchmark meant to test AI and ML performance. We know the Ryzen 8945HS has an NPU but unfortunately, at the moment, Windows still can't recognize it as DirectML does not yet support AMD's NPU.

However, AMD had confirmed that support would be added soon and you will be able to monitor NPU usage when a future Task Manager update is rolled out to Windows 11.

The highest temperature recorded during benchmarking was in Time Spy at 93.1C, which finally came out higher than the score recorded in the A7 which has the older Ryzen 9 7940HS. I ran the Time Spy test three times and recorded the highest score.

The scores appear to do better than those run in June on the A8, which may be testament to better drivers, all appear to be within the margin for error, even if the A7's older chip does better in 7-Zip and compute scores. It must be noted that I moved to Geekbench 6, while all previous scores used Geekbench 5.

The Procyon Windows ML score saw the biggest gains over the 7940HS, which is only half the performance of the 8945HS as the 7000 series chip only managed to put up 63 points versus 125 on our AE8.

This was very surprising considering we tested the CPU here, and the 7940HS CPU-wise is supposed to be near identical to 8945HS in terms of AI processing power as the core specs are very similar and the support for AI-influencing instructions like AVX remain the same. The latter does have a much more powerful NPU (rated at 16 TOPS vs 10 TOPS on 7940HS) but the NPU was not leveraged in the test. One thing that also be noted is that the product page claims 39 TOPS, however this is the total CPU rated TOPS, while the NPU itself is 16 TOPS. Microsoft recommends a minimum of 40 TOPS for a "CoPilot+ PC", or AI PC.

However, as you might see from the Timespy and Compute scores, don't think you can replace your gaming desktop with this, you'd still need a dedicated GPU if you intended to do much of any gaming on it.

I also tested the SSD's capability using AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5.

Despite running all of the above benchmark tests, the AE8 did not get hot to the touch, more like warm, and there were no annoying noises coming from the single fan that cooled the unit. The AE8 includes an SSD made by Wodposit which is a brand I have never heard of. As the above images show, the SSD is not setting any records here, and from a brief search online it seems that it cannot keep up with the more established brands, appearing right at the bottom of Passmarks list of common drive benchmarks.

As I did this on all the previous Mini PCs, I decided to give Quake Champions a go to see if it would be playable. Everything was detected as "Low" in the video settings.

It was definitely playable, it didn't lag or glitch. I was even able to bump the Details, Post Processing, and Texture Filtering to Medium, which is probably helped by the extra 256 CUDA Cores present in the Radeon 780M compared to Vega 8, as well as a 35% bump in Boost Clock .

Conclusion

As with all the Mini PCs I've reviewed in the past couple of years, the AE8 isn't a gaming PC. You will not be able to enjoy graphically intensive games on it. Still, it is suited as something like an office workstation with a mixture of light gaming, or perhaps a good solution for a student or office worker without a permanent desk, affording the ability to pack this away after every use. This thing also doesn't take up much room in your bag if you need to move it from place to place.

When it comes to Mini PCs, the market is saturated with cheaper options, but you'll be quickly disappointed to find they might not include USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 4, dual channel memory, and more. Some manufacturers are also still selling "new" Mini PCs with 8th gen Intel Core mobile CPUs, so you really have to be on the lookout.

When you're spending a hundreds of dollars to replace the job of a full-sized PC, you're going to want it to replicate as much of the capability as possible, aside from the obvious lack of GPU prowess. In addition, GEEKOM markets this as an AI PC with the slogan "Stay Ahead with AI." but in reality it falls short of the minimum requirements of 40 TOPS for a CoPilot+ ready PC, coupled with the fact that Windows 11 still does not support the NPU in Windows 11, I'd say to just keep your expectations in check.

As I said earlier, the decision ultimately comes down to what you're willing to pay for the options you need. This Mini PC will let you connect up to four displays, all operating at 4K @ 60Hz, whereas cheaper solutions might be limited to just two screens.

Coupon code

It's available right now for $799 on the official website, or on Amazon, for this AE8 Mini PC, which includes a Ryzen 9 8945HS processor, 32GB of 5600MT/s DDR5 memory, and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe with Windows 11 Pro installed on it, it's pretty good value for money and $50 cheaper than the A8's launch price.

For me, this loses a point for not having a USB Type C port on the front, the inclusion of a USB 2.0 port (why?), and for sticking with HDMI 2.0b for some reason.

This is a seriously capable Mini PC that includes a dedicated NPU for accelerating AI workloads, which will eventually get support in Windows 11, along with quick PCIe 4.0 storage and DDR5 5600MT/s memory. I give it a solid thumbs up!

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