New GEEKOM Mini PC showcase at CES 2024

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We were lucky enough to get a look at the latest GEEKOM products coming out in 2024 at their CES booth during the world famous tech event. These included the GEEKOM A7 – a highly compact productivity focused machine with Ryzen APU options, plus the GEEKOM APro8 Max – a miniature gaming PC packing a Radeon RX 7600M XT GPU. Read below for all the details, and if you’re at CES we’d encourage you to go check out their booth for yourselves!

Who are GEEKOM?

GEEKOM are a Taiwanese electronics company that has been around since 2003, but who pivoted their focus in 2021 towards producing mini PCs, which is what the brand is best known for today. The mini PCs they have produced over the last couple of years have been well received by reviewers, and they can be accurately described as pioneers in the field. Going forward, it seems they’re looking to expand their range to cover more use-cases, including making further inroads into the gaming space.

GEEKOM APro8 Max release date window, features & specs

The APro8 Max is a new mini gaming PC from GEEKOM. Slightly larger than its more ultra compact models as listed below, it nevertheless remains impressively small considering what you get with it, and is targeted towards those looking for something akin to a mini games console but with all the functionality of a desktop PC. Besides gaming, the latest Ryzen 9 8940HS processor, with all the benefits of the 8000 series NPU integration, ensures that it will have exceptional AI-performance enhancement for those workloads that support the tech, which, combined with the raw processing power of the CPU in single-core and multi-core scenarios, means this is a great option for creatives as well.

The mini-PC comes with an AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT dedicated graphics card. The performance of this GPU approximates to that of a laptop Nvidia RTX 4060, meaning it’s (technically) capable of 60FPS gaming at 4K in some titles, providing you don’t mind playing on the lower settings. More typically though, this would be the ideal compact machine for hooking up to a 1080p or 1440p gaming monitor and playing on medium-high settings for a solid FPS on the latest AAA titles.

The combination of AMD Ryzen and Radeon tech means it can incorporate AMD SmartShift technology to make more efficient use of power between the two core components.

It’s got a very impressive number of ports and display outputs for a smaller PC, allowing for multiple outputs to 4K and even 8K displays.

GEEKOM have confirmed that the APro8 Max is due to be released at some point in Q3 2024, so we’ll have to wait a short while before we can get our hands on it.

GEEKOM A7 & GEEKOM A7 Max features & specs

The GEEKOM A7 is a small form factor PC perfect for work from home setups with limited space. The specific dimensions are listed below, but it’s surprisingly compact for what you get. Back in December, Alan Chen the CEO of the company claimed that ‘In terms of body size, the A7 will be the thinnest Mini PC on the market, with stability and performance guaranteed’. 

The main attraction for these compact PCs is the AMD Ryzen APUs (CPUs but with powerful integrated graphics), of which you can either have a Ryzen 7 7840HS (3.8-5.1GHz clock speeds) or the more powerful Ryzen 9 7940HS (4.0-5.2GHz clock speeds). Both come with Radeon 780M integrated graphics, which is capable of performance roughly equivalent to an Nvidia GTX 1650 dedicated GPU – meaning you can even indulge in some light gaming on older titles, or some newer games on lower settings. You also can equip the A7 with up to 64GB of 5600MHz DDR5 RAM, which is quite frankly a ridiculously high upper threshold that should satisfy even the most demanding of workloads.

Despite the slimline profile the A7 series comes with a good number of ports for general USB use, and SD 4.0 card reader – perfect for creatives using a camera in their work, as well as two HDMI 2.0 ports (capable of 4K display output) plus at least one USB-C port (capable of 8K output) – the A7 Max variant has two of these. The USB 4.0 port allows for a PD 100W power supply and DisplayPort 1.4 video output specifically, and also should permit linking the device to an external GPU dock, should you need some additional graphical firepower (though you should check compatibility before you buy one). The inclusion of USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 ports also means that it is backward compatible. 

The main improvement when it comes to the A7 Max model, on top of the additional USB 4.0 port, is that it has dual 2.5G RJ45 Ethernet port sockets, should this be something you require in your workload. Most people will probably find the standard A7 sufficient for their needs however. In terms of other connectivity you get WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 in both models.

GEEKOM A8 & GEEKOM A8 Max features & specs

Although the A7 version is only just being released, we also got to see the specs sheet of the next in line: the GEEKOM A8/A8 Max. Certification for this product is still ongoing and we’re not exactly sure when it will be hitting the market, but it promises to be ‘the world’s first mini PC with an AMD Hawk Point Ryzen 8040 chip’.

Being fairly similar to the generation before it in most aspects (though with slightly different dimensions and lacking an SD-card reader for the non-Max variant this time round), the key difference will be the more advanced processor options; specifically you’ll be able to pick up units with a Ryzen 7 8840HS or Ryzen 9 8940HS processors, both of which come with the same AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics as the 7000 series APUs in the GEEKOM A7 range. However, the key difference will be the AI workload support – both processors incorporate the latest NPU from AMD to bring all the advantages of that to bear.

Unless you’re planning on using AI-focused workflows, or creative software etc. that can benefit from an AI generative boost, the likelihood is the A7 series will probably fit your needs just fine, as well as likely being cheaper and available sooner, however it’s good to see that GEEKOM are continually pushing the boundaries within the Mini PC space.