Minisforum AI X1 Professional evaluate: A mini PC with most efficiency

Lately, Minisforum has developed from an insider tip to a agency identify within the mini PC market. The producer has turn out to be famend for its compact techniques with excessive computing energy, progressive cooling, and complex designs.

With the brand new AI X1 Professional, Minisforum needs to show this declare – as a strong all-round PC with built-in AI acceleration, which isn’t solely supposed for professionals and builders, but in addition for good dwelling fans and creatives. The next evaluate reveals whether or not the producer lives as much as its personal declare.

Finest Costs At present: Minisforum AI X1 Professional

Minisforum AI X1 Professional: Specs

• CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 12 cores / 24 threads, max. frequency 5.1 GHz
• AI efficiency (NPU): as much as 80 TOPS
• Graphics: AMD Radeon 890M
• Reminiscence: 64 GB, 2 × DDR5-SO-DIMM 5600 MHz
• Inside storage: 1 × M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD, pre-installed Kingston OM8TAP41024K1 1TB
• Connectivity: 2 × 2.5 Gbit/s LAN ports (RJ45), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Entrance connections: 2 × USB 3.2 Gen2 Kind-A, 1 × USB 4 (Alt PD Out 15 Watt, knowledge price as much as 40 GB/s, 3.5 mm combo socket, co-pilot button, 2 × digital microphones (DMIC)
• Rear connections: 1 × USB2.0 Kind-A, 1 × OCuLink (PCIe 4.0 ×4), 1 × USB4 (Alt PD-In 65-100 watts & PD Out 15 watts, 1 × DisplayPort 2.0, 1× HDMI 2.1 FRL, Kensington lock
• OS: Home windows 11 Professional
• Dimensions: 195 × 195 × 47.5 mm (W × D × H), 1.5kg

Minisforum AI X1 Professional: Design

At first look, the looks of the AI X1 Professional with its silver-colored housing and black accents is subtly harking back to a Mac Mini, however this impression rapidly fades once you take a look at the small print. Minisforum takes a way more practical strategy.

When evaluating the housings of the Minisforum AI X1 Professional and the Geekom IT15, essentially completely different design philosophies within the mini PC phase turn out to be clear. While each units give attention to compactness, they pursue completely different objectives, which is mirrored of their dimensions and construction.

Christoph Hoffmann

With its dimensions of 195 × 195 × 47.5 millimetres, the Minisforum AI X1 Professional is an efficient deal bigger than lots of its opponents (IT15: 117 × 112 × 49.2 millimetres). Its sq. footprint is sort of twice as giant as that of the Geekom IT15. Nonetheless, this bigger quantity is a deliberate design determination that brings two decisive benefits: Firstly, it allows the set up of an built-in energy provide unit. Lastly, the unpleasant exterior brick that causes cable litter in lots of mini PCs is now not obligatory. The result’s a tidy {and professional} look.

Then again, the bigger inside presents area for extra highly effective cooling and superior expandability with three M.2 slots. Weighing in at 1.5kg, the AI X1 Professional can be considerably heavier on account of its sturdy steel chassis and inside parts.

Regardless of its immense efficiency and inside energy provide unit, the system stays compact, even when it’s barely bigger than a few of its direct opponents. On the entrance, there are additionally trendy conveniences akin to a fingerprint reader for safe and quick login and a devoted Co-pilot button that emphasizes the give attention to AI features.

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With a bracket, the AI X1 Professional will be positioned upright or connected to the again of a monitor and even to a wall with the VESA mount.

Minisforum AI X1 Professional: Options

The true energy of the AI X1 Professional is revealed once you check out its internal values and connectivity. Minisforum has created tools that redefines the time period mini PC and makes it an actual desktop various. The centerpiece is the power to improve—a function that has turn out to be uncommon on this class.

On the coronary heart of the Minisforum AI X1 Professional is the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, one of many first desktop APUs based mostly on the Zen 5 structure. Along with 12 CPU cores and the highly effective Radeon 890M graphics, the chip comes with a devoted NPU that delivers as much as 50 TOPS of AI efficiency—excellent for native language fashions, picture evaluation or Co-pilot features with out cloud dependency.

As a substitute of counting on soldered reminiscence, the AI X1 Professional presents two SODIMM slots for as much as 128GB DDR5-5600 RAM. This provides fans the liberty to customise the system to their wants—be it for memory-hungry digital machines operating Residence Assistant and different companies, or for complicated knowledge processing. Our check system has 64 GB of RAM, though variants with 32 and 96GB RAM are additionally obtainable.

One other spotlight is the mass storage: three M.2 slots for quick NVMe SSDs can be found. This makes it attainable to comprehend an enormous and quick storage resolution, splendid for an intensive media assortment. A Kingston OM8TAP41024K1 with 1TB capability is put in within the check system. The mannequin with 96GB RAM comes with a 2TB NVMe SSD.

The number of connections is solely excellent and units the AI X1 Professional aside from the competitors. Along with two USB4 ports, which allow excessive knowledge charges and the connection of exterior GPUs, there’s additionally a devoted OCuLink port. This presents a good quicker connection to exterior graphics playing cards and turns the mini PC into an expandable gaming or workstation platform.

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Two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports guarantee a secure and quick community connection, whereas Wi-Fi 7 makes wi-fi communication future-proof. The bundle is rounded off with HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.0, and an built-in SD card reader

The Minisforum AI X1 Professional presents distinctive flexibility when connecting displays and might function as much as 4 shows concurrently. It owes this functionality to a mixture of contemporary, devoted, and multifunctional video outputs: HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.0 and two USB4 ports. This makes the AI X1 Professional a strong centre for demanding multitasking environments, whether or not within the workplace, for inventive work or as a management centre within the good dwelling.

Minisforum AI X1 Professional: Working system

The Minisforum AI X1 Professional is put in and activated with Home windows 11 25H2 through the preliminary setup and with an energetic web connection.

The setup runs easily and drivers and firmware are robotically updated. Copilot integration together with NPU help is energetic and works seamlessly. This eliminates the necessity for the same old retrofitting of updates or AI packages—the mini PC is straight away prepared for all new Home windows AI options, from native textual content recognition and picture understanding to automated workflows.

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We don’t go into element about Home windows 11 25H2 itself within the check—nevertheless, it’s clear in lots of locations that the Minisforum AI X1 Professional absolutely helps the system’s new AI features. Copilot , Recall, and native mannequin acceleration are energetic and entry the NPU of the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 straight.

Consequently, AI-based duties akin to textual content recognition, picture evaluation, or voice help run noticeably quicker and with out cloud dependency—a transparent indication that {hardware} and software program are optimally harmonized right here.

Minisforum AI X1 Professional: Efficiency

The Minisforum AI X1 Professional with the brand new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is positioned effectively above the earlier technology of mini PCs when it comes to efficiency and competes straight with highly effective ultrabooks and compact workstations in lots of situations.

We used the PCMark 10 benchmark check to find out the desktop computing efficiency. This software program provides us reasonable values by operating on a regular basis duties one after the opposite. The PCMark 10 whole rating of seven,809 factors is in a variety that solely techniques with high-end cell processors such because the Intel Core Extremely 9 185H or the Apple M3 Professional have achieved to this point.

The “Necessities” (11,353 factors) and “Productiveness” (10,594 factors) classes specifically present that on a regular basis workplace, communication and multitasking purposes are dealt with with absolute ease. The “Digital Content material Creation” class with 10,746 factors additionally demonstrates sturdy efficiency in photograph and video modifying—an indicator of an excellently harmonized CPU and GPU steadiness.

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The CPU profile from 3DMark reveals wonderful scaling throughout all thread ranges: With 8,292 factors at full load and 1,161 factors within the single-thread check, the HX 370 is on a par with Intel’s Core Extremely 9 288V and solely simply behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, though the chip depends on a extra energy-efficient Zen 5 structure. This implies: excessive multi-core efficiency with wonderful effectivity—a decisive criterion for steady operation in compact housings.

Christoph Hoffmann

The system achieved 3,528 factors in 3DMark Time Spy, with the built-in Radeon 890M scoring a powerful 3,152 graphics factors. This GPU based mostly on RDNA-3 is round 40 p.c increased than the Radeon 780M and thus brings usable gaming efficiency to a mini PC and not using a devoted graphics card. The Intel Core U9-285H put in within the Geekom IT15 nevertheless delivers a TimeSpy results of 4,244 factors.

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Video games akin to Cyberpunk 2077, Fortnite or Forza Horizon 5 run easily in 1080p at medium to excessive settings with the AMD CPU. The newer artificial exams akin to Metal Nomad Gentle (3,023 factors, 22 FPS) and Photo voltaic Bay (14,762 factors) additionally verify the excessive effectivity for CPU graphics in DirectX 12 and ray tracing situations.

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The Geekbench AI Professional rating of seven,007 factors (quantised) illustrates the energy of the built-in NPU, which relies on the XDNA-2 structure. This makes the HX 370 one of many few chips that may run AI workloads regionally at desktop stage—splendid for purposes akin to picture evaluation, transcription, or native language modeling. Compared, the values of the Geekom IT15 with Intel Core U9-285H: 8,005 within the Quantised Rating.

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Lastly, the efficiency of the SSD can be spectacular: The put in 1 TB Kingston NVMe drive achieves 6,132 MB/s learn and 5,259 MB/s write within the Crystal Disk Mark, which additional accelerates the system response time. Right here, the X1 Professional is roughly on a par with the Geekom A9 Max with its Lexar SSD and 6,242 and 5,423 MB/s respectively.

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Is the Minisforum AI X1 Professional value it?

Total, the Minisforum AI X1 Professional delivers a powerful general bundle and soundly demonstrates how a lot efficiency will be packed right into a mini PC right this moment. With the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, the highly effective Radeon 890M and the built-in NPU, it combines desktop energy, vitality effectivity and AI functionality in a compact housing.

Three NVMe slots, twin 2.5 GbE, OCuLink and USB4 make it extraordinarily versatile—whether or not for dwelling workplace, good dwelling, or gaming. The workmanship and options are clearly above the category common. Solely the worth and the shortage of 10 GbE spoil the image barely. Total: a strong, future-proof mini PC for energy customers.