GEEKOM AS 6 review: Ryzen 9 6900HX desktop power inside a Mini PC

GEEKOM is a brand known to us here at Neowin. In recent times we've reviewed a couple of their Intel-powered Mini PCs (1, 2), but now they are back with an AMD Mini PC powered by ASUS and it's called the GEEKOM AS 6. This thing is marketed as a Mini gaming PC and they asked us to take a look at it. We'll be referring to it as the AS 6 in our review.

Below are the full specifications of it. I have bolded my configuration where relevant.

GEEKOM only has the two AMD configurations listed in the above spec table, and both come with 32GB of DDR5 4800 MT/s RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD (both Kingston) with a Windows 11 Pro license preloaded.

Before we dive in, we should note that although this is a GEEKOM branded Mini PC, it is based off the very same ASUS ExpertCenter PN53 configuration, and my contact told me they are selling these in partnership with ASUS, much like how they are also selling their own variant of an Intel NUC 13.

The packaging was certainly a different experience than I was used to with the Mini IT11 and IT12. It seems no thought was given to the impression a buyer should have when unboxing it, which is a huge shame considering they are actually marketing it as a Mini gaming PC. First impressions count, and for all its real-world merits in hardware specifications, I was a little disappointed at the lack of presentation.

On the left you have the AS 6 housed within a cardboard compartment, which can be lifted out and inside the right compartment you'll find the VESA mounting plate, power supply and other items that are listed below.

What’s In The Box

• 1 x AS 6 Mini PC
• 1 x Power Adapter
• 1 x VESA Mount (2 packs of screws included)
• 1 x SSD Mounting Screws (2 packs)
• 1 x HDD Mounting Screws (1 pack)
• 1 x Quick Guide
• 1 x User Manual

Omissions

As you can see above, GEEKOM's own documentation says it does not ship a HDMI cable in the box, but for some reason there was one in mine — it did not matter as it wasn't HDMI 2.1 compliant. I reached out to my contact to confirm if they actually ship a HDMI cable in the box or not, and was told they do. The cable is present in the box contents graphic on their official site, although it isn't mentioned in the "What's in the box" text on the same page.

Design

The look of it is pretty cool, it's kind of a dark gray color and completely smooth on top, but textured thanks to the tiny lines that go from the top to the bottom on the front and back of the Mini PC. Unlike GEEKOM's Intel offerings, the AS 6 has the GEEKOM logo, "Powered by ASUS", and an HDMI logo stamped on the front of it, but thankfully the colors and size used is quite subtle so it doesn't really detract from the look at all.

The front of the AS 6 includes a 3.5mm headphone jack port, a USB4 Type-C port supporting up to 8K (7680 x 4320) @ 60Hz, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 type A ports. There's nothing missing upfront.

As far as looks go, and as previously mentioned, it's a dark gray, and thanks to the fact it's not glossy, it's not a fingerprint magnet. Essentially, it's a plastic shell covering a metal frame. It doesn't feel cheap, and isn't flimsy either, and even when the base is removed it remains sturdy.

Accessing the AS 6 is as easy as unscrewing the bottom plate with the four Philips head screws located in the center of each rubber foot, a small hobby screwdriver is enough for the job, but you may want to use a flat-head screwdriver to prise the plate free, taking care not to damage the ribbon which connects to an SSD port that allows for an optional full sized 2.5-inch SSD which can be secured in a "sled" on the backplate. Helpfully, the backplate screws do not come loose from the rubber feet, so you won't lose them either.

As you can see from the above images which can be enlarged when clicked on, there is ample room to manage the SODIMMs and Kingston 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, so you can swap them for something else if you want.

The AS 6's motherboard is split with the second NVMe and third (2.5-inch) SSD options on a different PCB attached to the backplate and connected with (in my opinion) a too-short ribbon cable. If the cable had been just a little longer, then the two sides of the Mini PC could have laid flat when managing it, but awkwardly that isn't possible, so you'll just have to be careful when managing the internal components.

The backplate only fits back in one way, but this is to ensure that the NVMe is always connected to the heat spreader.

Usage

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, which is nice. After the setup was completed, I was disappointed to find that it shipped with an older version of Windows 11 21H2, so I had to install a bunch of updates (see above). However, GEEKOM does not include any bloatware in their PCs, so that is always a bonus.

The AS 6 supports up to 8K @ 60Hz through the HDMI 2.1 port so I can connect my Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 and utilize the maximum native resolution for my screen, which is 5120x1440 @ 240Hz.

It's physically possible to directly attach five screens to the AS 6 Pro using the two HDMI, single DisplayPort, and the two Thunderbolt 4 ports if you wanted. However in all of the documentation, including at ASUS, it says that the AS 6's Integrated AMD Radeon 600M series graphics supports "quad display support" so although it is possible to attach five screens, it looks like it can only drive four.

Regarding connectivity, there are three USB 3.2 gen 2 ports along with a barrel port for power on the back. Around the front, there are two more USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a Type C USB 4 port, and a port for a 3.5mm headphone jack. For audio output, I linked my Edifier 360DB over Bluetooth, and I did not experience any significant audio delays.

As you can see from the two images above, you can affix a Kensington lock on one side, and/or a padlock on the back ring. Both sides are entirely a plastic grill for air cooling, of which smaller grills can also be found on the back and on the bottom backplate. You may have noticed there is no card reader present, although USB card readers are relatively inexpensive, it would have been nice to have™.

Benchmarks

Before I started running benchmarks, I ensured that Windows 11 and drivers were up to date. At the time of testing, the AS 6 was running Windows 11 Professional 22H2 build 22621.1702 and I also upgraded to the latest Adrenalin 23.5.2 WHQL certified driver (June 2023).

With that out of the way, and because people like that sort of thing, I ran some benchmarks and compared it to my main PC which I built in 2019 and benchmarked in December 2022.

My Main PC consists of the following:

• Intel Core i9-9900K (stock)
• Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI (BIOS revision F12)
• 64GB DDR4-3200 G.Skill Ripjaws (16-18-18-38) dual channel
• Samsung 980 1TB NVMe
• KFA2 RTX 2070 SUPER (Nvidia driver 527.37)
• Windows 10 22H2 build 19045.2311

For the benchmarks, I used 3DMark, PCMark 10, Geekbench, and Cinebench. 3DMark Time Spy tests gaming capability with DX12 graphics performance.

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.

As you can see, the Ryzen 9 6900HX does better in almost all of the benchmarks compared to the i7-1360P powered Nuc 13 Pro, especially in the onboard GPU department as far as OpenCL compute score goes. However, don't think you can replace your 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.

Despite running all of the above benchmark tests, the AS 6 did not get hot to the touch, and there were no annoying noises coming from the single fan that cools the unit. The AS 6 also includes an "Anti-Dust Self-Cleaning System" and although to me it looks like a standard laptop fan, who am I to argue. In addition, they also claim they kept the noise down, even on full load to just 35dB which is quite impressive.

For kicks and to blow off a bit of steam, I decided to give Quake Champions a go to see if it would be playable, and after toning down the screen resolution to 3840 x 1080 with everything set to "Low" (which was auto-detected anyway) I can say that it was playable, but it didn't look great. Gameplay itself was smooth, but the graphics were blocky with everything set to low, I bumped the Details, Post Processing and Texture Filtering to Medium and did not experience any noticeable slow downs.

Conclusion

One thing that remains clear about these Mini PCs, and that includes the AS 6, is that it isn't a gaming PC. You will not be able to enjoy graphically intensive games on it, but it absolutely is suited as an office workstation, 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 isn't taking up much room, you can even screw it to the back of a screen if it has VESA support with the included mount plate.

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 Thunderbolt 4, dual channel memory, or even a Kensington lock and more. When you're spending hundreds of dollars to replace the job of a full-sized PC, you're going to want it to replicate as much of its capability as possible, aside from the obvious lack of GPU prowess.

GEEKOM also provides a cheaper AS 6 entry point with a Ryzen 7 6800H processor, as of writing $90 cheaper, but containing the same storage and memory options as the Ryzen 9 6900HX model.

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 five displays, whereas cheaper solutions will be limited to two screens.

Starting at $659 for AS 6 Ryzen 7 6800H variant, it's not cheap by any means, but it contains a modern chipset with DDR5 memory and PCIe 4.0 connectivity. Aside from not being able to seriously game on it, you are still getting a powerful machine with a tiny footprint.

But wait, there's more

For a while at least, the AS 6 Ryzen 9 6900HX can be availed for $709 on the official site after using code: as640a, it can be had even cheaper at $699 using code ONLYPP if you check out using PayPal, the $50 off offer also applies to the Ryzen 7 6800H variant.

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Gallery: GEEKOM AS 6