Geekom AX8 Pro Review

When I took the AX8 Pro out of the box, my first impression was of a nice weight and density. My second impression was: “Holy God SHIT “this thing is miniature!”

I kid you not, the AX8 Pro is an absolute marvel of miniaturization. Measuring just 11.1cm x 11.7cm x 3.8cm, it’s the most compact mini-PC we’ve tested, by a wide margin. And that tiny chassis houses one of AMD’s latest and greatest APUs.

With eight cores and 16 threads, the Ryzen 9 8945HS is a great little chip. During stress tests, we saw it draw a peak of 65W, boosting from a base 4GHz to a healthy 5.2GHz, with a peak operating temperature of 92°C under sustained load. That may seem a bit mild, but it’s still eight degrees below the processor’s 100°C TJMax, the point at which throttling kicks in.

Paired with that excellent silicon is the Radeon 780M iGPU, also known as RDNA 3, and this is likely the last generation of chips we’ll see it in. AMD’s upcoming AI-branded Zen 5 mobile APUs will feature the Radeon 890M GPU with RDNA 3.5, and our Zen 5 laptop tests so far show just how powerful that chip is. But until it hits the mainstream, the Radeon 780M is still the most reliably capable iGPU, improved only by the performance boost — and commensurate cost — of adding a discrete mobile GPU to the mix, as we see in devices like the ASUS ROG NUC.

It all adds up to a powerful, versatile mini-PC, a machine that can be used for both work and pleasure, with desktop-level performance and enough power to run most games at 1080p. Much of its gaming performance relies on the Radeon 780M, so it’s no surprise that it trades blows with previous generations of APUs equipped with the same iGPU, like the Ryzen 7 7840HS and Ryzen 9 7940HS, and on the Intel side, the Arc Core 9 Ultra 185H.

Indie and older games are where the 780M shines, and at 1080p with medium graphics settings it can be a blast to play with. In our testing we found Subnautica running smoothly and pleasantly at 55-75fps, Stray at a similarly slick 52-75fps, Soulstone Survivors at 80-120fps, and Doom Eternal at a gory 70-80fps.

Moving on to more modern and demanding AAA titles at 1080p, using medium detail settings and FSR set to auto when the engine offers it, the AX8 Pro keeps up with its aforementioned peers, and occasionally beats them, but never by more than a nose. It puts in a solid showing in Total War: WARHAMMER 3’s battle and campaign benchmarks, clocking in at 42fps and 33fps respectively. Forza delivers a consistent 46fps. The challenging Homeworld 3 benchmark averages 39fps, while Cyberpunk 2077 enjoys a healthy 51fps.

The AX8 Pro’s cooling system does blow a little under heavy loads, but that’s the sound of air being forced through the fan grilles; there’s no whistling whine that’s so common with small, high-RPM fans. You hear the airflow being generated by the mechanism, not the mechanism itself, and while it’s initially quite audible, it’s a sound that can be mostly muted. There are quieter mini PCs out there, but this thing is so compact I’m honestly surprised it doesn’t sound like a Lilliputian Airbus.

A little digging in the BIOS reveals three fan modes that you can toggle between to change the cooling and audio profiles. Toggling between Quiet, Normal, and Performance modes does indeed change the maximum fan speed and associated volume, but in testing we found that it also changes the TDP, with the fan curve shifting to accommodate smaller or larger wattage limits and the accompanying heat output, so the “fan mode” label doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

Running Prime95 to stress the system and using HWInfo64 to measure the changes, Quiet Mode caused the CPU to draw 51W to hit a maximum turbo speed of 5.1GHz and a maximum temperature of 83 degrees Celsius. Normal Mode draws 59W, which is 5.1GHz at 89°C, and Performance Mode draws 65W to hit a maximum CPU clock speed of 5.2GHz and push temperatures to 92°C. Our shrink-wrapped retail AX8 Pro was set to Performance Mode out of the box, so all of the above benchmarks were run in that mode.

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TDP changes can of course affect performance, so our final test was to re-run the Cyberpunk benchmark in all three modes and note the performance changes between the different wattages. In Quiet mode (51W), the game averaged 48 fps, and the fan remained very quiet. In Normal mode (59W), the game reached 51 fps, and the increased fan speed was more audible but even and unnoticeable. In Performance mode (65W), it performed no better than in Normal mode, reaching the same 51 fps in Cyberpunk, but noticeably raising the fan noise to a significant level. Other games may or may not benefit more from the jump to 65W, but if they do, it’s hard to imagine a significant level of increase. Our recommendation would be to lower the fan mode to Normal and leave it there.

In terms of performance, the average frame rates achieved by the AX8 Pro are in line with what we’ve come to expect from mini PCs running games on the Radeon 780M at 1080p. Assuming that neither Ryzen APU paired with the 780M is underpowered, that puts the playing field between these chips and devices fairly even in terms of gaming performance. There’s no denying that the Ryzen 9 8945HS AX8 Pro does allow it to hit higher frame rates than its counterparts in some titles, but only gradually. And that’s no surprise, since on paper AMD’s 7th- and 8th-generation Ryzen 9 mobile APUs seem identical.

Both the 7940HS and 8945HS have eight cores, reach a 5.2 GHz turbo clock speed, have the same L1, L2, and L3 cache sizes, AMD rates them at the same 45-54W TDP, and both are based on the Radeon 780M for gaming. Same transistor count, same everything else as far as I can tell AMD Spec Sheetswhich sounds like copy-paste. Geekom’s implementation, which forces the processor to work above its quoted 54W TDP, is most likely what gives it the minimal performance advantage. But the fact remains that you’re paying a huge premium here for a slightly newer processor that’s basically a rebrand of the previous generation, and in most titles there’s no difference in performance at all.

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One of the attractions of mini-PCs is the fact that they offer fast general computing and 1080p gaming power on a tight budget, and the AX8 Pro is objectively no bargain compared to the prices of its competitors. Additionally, Zen 5 APUs that use the new RDNA3.5 iGPU, also known as the Radeon 890M, are starting to appear in devices. The able Mr. Ridley found that even in a lower-powered notebook scenario, the Radeon 890M provides a tangible performance boost over the 780M. It will be interesting to see if this performance improves further at the TDP levels offered by boxes like the AX8 Pro. So if you’re thinking of spending that kind of money on a top-of-the-line mini-PC, it might be worth waiting a little longer.

If you want the world’s smallest computer with a highly efficient APU, the Geekom AX8 Pro is it. But keep in mind that you can spend much less and achieve almost identical results.