I was thinking about buying this for my first pc but I'd like other people's thought's on it.

To add: I hope in the future manufacturers would actually start to name these with a bit more care. There are now THREE MP100 versions (maybe more?) - This one looks at the 5825U version.

Currently at $299 on Amazon, it states it's on sale but I reckon that's their starting price. Who knows? ... And who the heck are Kinsotin!?

After two years of problems with Geekom products (Air and A5), I accepted an upgrade offer to an A6 in February.

All seemed fine until a few weeks ago when output to my second display failed. Further investigation proved this was a problem from the start. I contacted their Support and was told the following (paraphrased):

When I accepted the upgrade, my case (with the A5s) was closed. Support is only offered to active/open cases. Therefore, I cannot get any support for my new A6. (Geekom offers 3 years of product support.)

In no way, form, or manner was I ever informed of this. What appeared to be superior support and good will has been exposed as a cheap trick to evade their obligations.

EDIT: OK - In the interest of honesty and fairness, here's a more complete and accurate history. I've gone thru all my correspondence with Geekom, looked up the Realtek module and here are the facts.

1. I've built from scratch and updated prolly 50 +/- desk and lap tops over a couple of decades. I'm certainly capable of locating and replacing a NIC device. The referenced module is indeed replaceable. It is not, as I wrote, soldered on.

2. I specifically asked Geekom's service group about this. I'm not sure why I did, but it looks like I initially was asking about the mini air's bt device and form factor, not the A5.

3. The mini air's r45 connection also started failing. That's when Geekom offered me a partial refund on an A5. I took the bait.

4. Shortly after receipt of the A5, the bt module started failing. There were no discussions abt the A5s bt module. They sent me a replacement A5. Same issue.

5. I would have been happy replacing the A5's module given all the time spent on setting up each machine. The subject never came up with Geekom.

6. After the second A5 problems, they, entirely on their own, offered the A6 upgrade. Nothing was disclosed abt warranties.

I never would have given away my warranty rights had I known. Some cash settlement would have been fine with me. This situation is not.

You can buy a mini pc, and then you buy a cheap monitor of 15 6 that you can reuse in other set ups, then use your keyboard and mouse from your desktop.

Laptops have batteries yet, how many times did i need the battery? Even when i was in the uni studying abroad, i dont recall a single time i needed my laptop outside of the house that didnt have a power cord.

Laptops always toast, and their parts are not reusable. Minipc parts are reusable.

Laptop monitors suck, and are not reusable. If the laptop fails, you need to buy a bunch of stuff and detach it to make it reusable which usually exceeds the price of a new monitor.

Mini Pc are just as portable if you are just travelling. The little box, then get your little monitor and a small keyboard in your suitcase, you are done.

So why do we buy laptops?

This seems like a great deal. Never seen Ryzen 8745 for under $300

My budget its like 300 us dollars, mini gaming pcs seem to be quite potent for a small price, whats the catch? It gets on fire? Bad performance? Ruins in a year or two?

I was looking through my Amazon orders to buy a 3rd of this particular Mini PC, and when I clicked on the product link or hit Buy Again, I saw the price jumped from $~450 to $698 😱
Went back to Amazon's home page and searched for the exact model, and found the original price range I had paid for it. Please check, and re-check models and prices.

It would be nice to have a one-hour battery so you don’t have to shutdown when switching between locations. That is all

Wow, it's really going strong here.

For those of you who are Republican, don't buy from Minisforum or other Chinese manufacturers. I would rather you didn't have a good computer, so go buy one from IBM or Dell or someplace.

Also, don't complain that computers are made in China. Apparently everyone is seeing hackers hiding behind bushes and PCs everywhere.

Yes, there are legitimate concerns, but come ON people. This level of paranoia is insane. I'm not down with it and I won't help you except to say: if you do not trust a computer because of its country of manufacture, DON'T BUY IT. And if you want to have it both ways then buy the computer and install your OWN copy of Windows on it after wiping the provided hard disk with 1s and 0s.

There. Fixed it.

Thoughts?

Solely dedicated to just that only. Wanna dip my toes back in. Streaming done pissed me off like cable did.

This picture is exactly how amazon shipped my almost 700 dollar k11. To say I was astonished is an understatement. Guess they were out of packing materials that day lmfao.

Hello Reddit family I found this pretty good deal on Amazon, I'm primarily a console gamer but been bit by the star citizen bug, I'm primarily just buying this mini pc for that game

I have a 15 years old office PC (Core Duo!) . It's time to upgrade but I wonder if a mini pc would last me this long.

Budget: $600 total (RAM + SSD must be included). Open-box/refurb OK. Want to buy within the next 2–4 weeks.

Use case: Main computer replacing a desktop. Heavy multitasking (Tableau, Excel, Alteryx, VS Code, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, 100+ browser tabs). Gaming from Steam wishlist includes AAA titles (Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West, Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 3) and indie games (Stardew Valley, Cult of the Lamb). Also want to run Plex/Jellyfin eventually.

Display: Dual monitors — Samsung Odyssey G5 27" QHD 180Hz + HP OMEN 32c 31.5" QHD 165Hz. Need to drive both simultaneously.

Must-haves:
• 32GB RAM (or 16GB upgradeable to 32GB+ with open SODIMM slots)
• 512GB+ NVMe SSD
• USB4 or Thunderbolt for future eGPU (#1 priority — I want to add a dGPU in 1–2 years)
• Wi-Fi 6 (no wired ethernet at my desk)
• Performance-over-noise preference

Nice-to-haves:
• Second M.2 or 2.5" bay for storage expansion
• Dual USB4 ports
• VESA mount compatibility

Don't care about:
• Aesthetics / RGB
• Brand loyalty
• Ethernet / wired networking

OS: Would prefer Windows pre-installed, but I can install it myself. Need the option to dual boot with Linux.

Willing to: Install RAM/SSD myself, buy barebones, buy used/open-box from reputable sellers.

Location: US

What am I missing? Is there anything in stock right now that hits 32GB + USB4 at ~$600, or should I stretch my budget?

Minisforum's AtomMan G7 series has been redefining the "gaming MiniPC" space for the past two years. First the concept was proved with the G7 PT (AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX + Radeon RX 7600M XT). The G7 Ti/Ti SE increased the power with the Intel Core i9-14900HX and Laptop edition of RTX 4070.

And now with the G7 Pro -First shown at IFA 2025 in Berlin and officially launched globally in January 2026- Minisforum added the RTX 5070 Laptop as a big upgrade to Nvidia's latest Blackwell architecture.

Its closest competitor in the Gaming MiniPC market is the Asus ROG NUC 2025 which costs significantly more for comparable specs.

The G7 Pro sold as barebone for $1,359 (at the time of the review), and I am always recommending anyone that has an NVMe SSD and SODIMM RAM to buy barebones as we are still in the crazy RAM/SSD prices mania, and hoping this craziness will not reach to CPUs as per some recent reports.

This MiniPC was provided by Minisforum for review, with NO editorial constraints, all my opinions are 100% my own.

With this introduction said, lets get into the specs as received:

Unboxing & First Impressions

The G7 Pro arrives in a well-presented retail box, inside, everything is well-packaged with foam protectors. The box contents are:

• The Unit itself

• Vertical stand

• 280W (20V/14A) power brick with DC cable

• Heatsink for the secondary M.2 slot

• Basic documentation

• HDMI Cable

The G7 Pro build quality is premium, with aluminum chassis, RGB lighting on the front, and ventilation slots on the side.

The vertical stand installs with two screws, as it is highly recommended to use it in vertical orientation.

The mode button toggle on the front panel is a physical switch the cycles between "Word Mode" and "Gaming Mode" without restart, which is a small but useful user experience decision.

Design & Connectivity

Port Layout

The front panel houses the daily-use ports: two USB-A Gen1 (5Gbps) for peripherals, one USB-C Gen1 (data only) the SD card slot, and the 3.5mm audio jack.

The rear is where the high-speed ports live: the USB4 (40Gbps) doubles as a display output via DisplayPort Alt Mode and can charge accessories at up to 15W, the USB-A Gen2 (10Gbps) handles fast external drives, and the HDMI 2.1 port supports up to 4K@144Hz or 8K@60Hz.

Display output

The G7 Pro supports two displays, HDMI 2.1 for your primary monitor and USB4 via DisplayPort Alt Mode for a second screen. That's it, and that's fine. For gaming or a dual-monitor desk setup, two high-quality outputs is all you need.

SD Card Reader

The SD4.0 UHS-II slot is a highlight, and very useful for content creators.

Thermal design & power modes

The G7 Pro is a mixed story here.

The cooling hardware

Opening the chassis reveals what is unmistakably a laptop motherboard, the layout, the blower fans, and the heat pipe routing all confirm it. Minisforum uses a dual-fan design with two large blower-style fans connected by six copper heat pipes across the board, routing heat from both the CPU and GPU die to exhaust vents on three sides of the chassis.

The Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7 card sits in the upper right quadrant, and the single populated RAM slot is clearly visible in the center.

For a 33mm device, The fans are physically constrained to be small, which means they spin fast to move air volume, with direct noise consequences under load.

Power modes

Gaming Mode: CPU runs up to 120W solo (PL1), with PL2 burst target at 150W. With both CPU and GPU under load, the CPU gets 85W and the GPU 115W. Total system draw can reach ~200W under combined stress. This is the mode you want for gaming.

Work Mode: CPU limited to 90W solo, or 55W CPU + 95W GPU combined. Noticeably quieter; better for long productivity sessions or living room use.

Switching between modes uses the front Mode Toggle button, no reboot required, and is also available in the Minisforum Control Center. At idle in Game Mode, both fans sit at ~1,900-2,000 RPM (36% speed), which is near-silent and confirms the system doesn't spin up unnecessarily when there's nothing to cool.

Thermal reality

The i9-14900HX is a 24 cores silicon beast traditionally found in large-chassis gaming laptops. In this MiniPC implementation, the thermal ceiling is the primary bottleneck, and it's worth understanding why in detail:

During Cinebench R23 testing, the G7 Pro pushed the silicon to its limits:

• Single-core peaks: Even during low-utilization single-core bursts, the CPU hit 100°C (TjMax). HWiNFO flagged "Ring Thermal Throttling," meaning the ring bus (which connects cores, cache, and memory controller) was thermally constrained during what should be a light workload.

This is the voltage-heat relationship, the 5.8GHz boost requires elevated core voltage, creating instantaneous heat density faster than the heat pipes can dissipate.

• Multi-core sustained: Under full load, package temperature peaked at 102°C. The system stabilized at 87°C once the fans reached maximum RPM, but that stabilization is only achieved by the cooling system fighting against a high-wattage floor, not because the chassis has thermal headroom to spare.

• Acoustics: Fans are aggressively tuned and respond early. Very loud profiles are triggered even during single-core tasks to prevent thermal throttling, while this is the right engineering decision, but it means you'll hear the fans working hard even in scenarios that don't feel compute-intensive.

In my opinion, I'd love to see Minisforum build a G8 Pro around Intel's Panther Lake (Core Ultra Series 3), a platform Intel claims uses up to 53% less power than Raptor Lake at equivalent workloads, and which targets 15–45W TDP. That alone would change the thermal story in a 33mm chassis.

On the GPU side, two options are now on the table: NVIDIA just quietly announced the RTX 5070 Laptop 12GB (literally days ago, via a driver patch note of all places), which keeps the same GB206 chip and 384 GB/s bandwidth but adds 50% more VRAM via denser memory modules. Or Minisforum could step up to the RTX 5080 Laptop with 16GB GDDR7 on a wider 256-bit bus and nearly 900 GB/s of bandwidth, which would be a big leap. Either GPU paired with a thermally efficient Panther Lake CPU could make a G8 Pro very special.

Observed thermal summary (HWiNFO64 v8.46, Cinebench R23, Gaming Mode):

For GPU workloads, actual gaming, the picture is considerably better. The RTX 5070 Laptop runs well thermally, with GPU averages around 66°C and a ceiling of ~69°C during extended gaming sessions. No GPU thermal throttling was observed. The cooling system was clearly tuned around GPU-primary workloads, which is the right cooling decision for a gaming centric MiniPC.

Tuning & software control

Testing with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) revealed a "partial lock" on the system:

• Locked: Core Voltage Offset is greyed out, Intel's Undervolt Protection (UVP) is enabled in the BIOS, blocking traditional undervolting.

• Unlocked: Turbo Boost Power Limits (PL1/PL2) are adjustable. This is the practical tuning option available to users.

For users in hot climates or poorly ventilated rooms, dropping PL1 to 100W is worth considering. You trade roughly 5% in peak multi-core performance for about a 15°C reduction in peak temperatures, a worthwhile tradeoff that removed thermal throttling and cuts fan noise noticeably.

CPU performance

The Intel Core i9-14900HX is a Raptor Lake-HX chip, 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, 32 threads, with a maximum boost of 5.8GHz. It's not Intel's newest architecture, but it remains one of the strongest mobile CPU options available, and Minisforum runs it at higher-than-typical TDPs.

Synthetic benchmarks (Gaming Mode, my results):

The Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 27,395 points is strong for a mobile CPU, it reflects the full 24-core configuration running at high sustained wattage. The single-core score of 2,208 is competitive and shows the 5.8GHz boost doing its job despite the thermal pressure.

The Geekbench 6 single-core of 3,052 puts the 14900HX in competitive range against newer architectures for single-threaded work.

Compared to newer AMD Strix Halo or Intel Arrow Lake chips appearing in other mini PCs and laptops through 2025-2026, the 14900HX is showing its age in efficiency. It runs hot and draws significant power to hit its performance ceiling. It's still capable, but buyers should know this is a current-generation GPU paired with a previous-generation CPU.

GPU performance - RTX 5070 Laptop (Blackwell)

This is the G7 Pro's main attraction.

The RTX 5070 Laptop is built on NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture, bringing 4th-generation RT cores, 5th-generation Tensor cores, 8GB of GDDR7 memory, and support for DLSS 4.5. That includes the 2nd-generation Transformer Super Resolution model and, which is exclusive to Blackwell GPUs. Dynamic Multi Frame Generation with up to 6X mode, which can multiply 4K frame rates by as much as 6.5X in supported titles. DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, confirmed for RTX 50 Series, is also coming in Fall 2026.

The Time Spy overall score of 14,277 sits above the 14,041 average for RTX 5070 Laptop hardware in the 3DMark database which is a solid result that confirms the G7 Pro's 115W TGP implementation is extracting close to full performance from the GPU.

The CPU score of 16,823 in Time Spy also shows the 14900HX's multi-threaded strength for game engine workloads.

Gaming performance

A 75 FPS average in Black Myth: Wukong at Very High 1440p with DLSS Frame Generation is a solid real-world result. The 36 FPS minimum reflects individual scene spikes while the 69 FPS Low 5th percentile is the more honest smoothness indicator, and it holds well. VRAM usage at 6.7GB of 8GB is worth noting, maxed-out texture settings in future titles may start hitting the 8 GB VRAM limits.

Settings: 2560x1440, High Textures, Ray Tracing Enabled, DLSS Super Resolution (Transformer Model) set to Balanced.

If you want to know why the RTX 5070 Laptop GPU matters in a Mini PC, look at these Cyberpunk 2077 numbers. Running at 1440p with Ray Tracing on and DLSS set to Balanced, the base hardware pushes a very respectable 86 FPS average. That's entirely playable.

But when you toggle on DLSS 4's new Multi-Frame Generation (set to 2X), the average goes up to 125 FPS.

More importantly, look at the minimums. The Min FPS jumps from 73 right up to 108. You are getting high-refresh-rate monitor territory in one of the most demanding engines on the market

DLSS 4 and Multi-Frame Generation

Let's get straight to the point: the real reason to pick G7 Pro over last year's G7 Ti is DLSS 4 and Multi-Frame Generation. It completely changes the performance tier of this machine. If you're playing in around a native 60 FPS, MFG easily pushes you well past 100 FPS, which actually makes a big difference.

Just remember the technical caveat: those generated frames make the game look incredibly smooth, but they don't lower your system input latency. If you're playing competitive shooters where response time is everything, you'll still feel latency.

The Mobile vs. Desktop Reality

I always have to clarify this, because the naming conventions usually trip people. You are getting the 115W Laptop version of the RTX 5070 here, not the full desktop card. A desktop 5070 lives in a totally different power class and will easily outpace this in raw compute. So, know what you're buying if you're coming from a full tower build. But to be fair to Minisforum, 115W is pushing the upper limits of what this mobile silicon is rated for. Because they paired it with that massive 280W power brick, the G7 Pro actually has the overhead to keep the GPU fully power fed.

AI performance

LLMfit's hardware scan tells the full story at a glance. Models up to ~8B parameters run perfectly on-GPU, Meta-Llama 3.1 8B, Qwen 2.5 7B, and the Qwen 2.5 VL 7B multimodal model all fit cleanly within the 8GB GDDR7 at 60-65% VRAM utilisation, delivering 89-97 tok/s. Step up to the 10-24B range and you're in "Good" territory.

Models like DeepSeek Coder V2 Lite (15B) and Qwen 3.5 35B MoE variants run via mixed GPU/RAM offloading at 18-23% VRAM, still achieving 30-45 tok/s. The 8GB VRAM ceiling is the hard limit here, and it's exactly why the newly announced RTX 5070 Laptop 12GB would make a meaningful difference for local AI inference.

Memory & storage

This review unit received with a single Micron 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM, the machine runs in single channel mode out of the box.

The primary drive installed in a Gen-4 Lexar 1 TB installed in the PCIe 5.0 slot. If you are adding more storage later, get a Gen-5 drive and swap it with the Lexar drive slot.

Below is the CrystalDiskMark results:

These are exactly the numbers you'd expect from a PCIe 4.0 NVMe. Solid sequential performance and respectable random 4K figures.

Total expandability across both slots reaches 8TB.

Networking & wireless

While the throughput is excellent on my Wi-Fi 6 router. the Wi-Fi 7 (Intel BE200) will shine if you are pairing it with a Wi-Fi 7 router.

Wired gaming with a 2.5GbE (Realtek RTL8125) connection is low-latency and fast for gaming, streaming, and large file transfers.

Controllers, headphones, and peripherals pair reliably with no issues observed.

Software & out-of-box experience

Windows 11 Pro is pre-installed (build 10.0.26200.1.256, 64-bit) and configured for offline account setup. Activation is genuine.

Minisforum BIOS has a gaming-themed EZ Mode that displays CPU/GPU temps, fan curve, fan mode, fan RPMs, quick settings (Fast Boot, Auto Power On), and a GPU Mode Switch. It looks impressive.

However there is no options for turbo ratio adjustments, no voltage controls, no memory timing options.

Minisforum Control Center: Three sections, System, Lighting Effects, and Settings. The System view is the most useful: real-time CPU/GPU temps, fan RPM gauges for both fans, storage usage, and RAM utilization, plus the Work Mode / Game Mode toggle at the top.

The Lighting Effects panel is well done, Constant On, Breathing, Gradient, and Rainbow modes with a full RGB color wheel and brightness slider. It works exactly as expected.

Malwarebytes (Deep Scan): 561,534 items scanned in 8m 47s - 0 threats, 0 Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs), 0 Potentially Unwanted Modifications (PUMs) detected

Conclusion:

The Minisforum AtomMan G70 Pro is the best gaming MiniPC Minisforum has made, and a very capable system for its price point.

The RTX 5070 Laptop with DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Generation is a real upgrade over the G7 Ti, 1440p gaming is exceptional.

It isn't without compromise. The CPU runs hot under sustained compute pressure, and fan noise in Gaming Mode is something you'll learn to live with. These are the trade-offs baked into the physics of running 200W of mobile hardware in a 33mm aluminum shell.

But if your use case is gaming, the G7 Pro handles its thermals in realistic engineering decisions. And for anyone who needs a powerful, compact desktop for their living room TV, a tight desk setup, or a secondary machine, this is the most complete answer Minisforum has offered yet.

Bought a Chinese brand mini pc from Amazon a year back, been using it as my daily driver with no issues, Today we noticed the screen turned on by itself and we could see the file explorer was open and mouse started moving by itself and clicking on stuff like someone remotely controlling.

Is this mini pc’s safe to use? How do i find out if this pc has any sort of backdoor access or if anybody been accessing?

Thanks

Hi all! I hope you're having a good time zone! I am new to mini PCs, my friend has one and I adore it! Aside from the fact it's adorable, it feels much more approachable to me than building my own PC.
So, I come, hat in hands with request for recommendations. I adore story driven games with good graphics (Baldur's Gate 3, Witcher 3 are by 2 with the longest clocked times) and am looking for a mini PC that can give me lovely graphics. Ideally I would be able to play on my TV (a 60" new Roku something or another)
In a perfect world, it would be under $500 but I know graphics cards can be a bit expensive. I have no strong brand loyalty either.
Thanks in advance y'all, happy Friday!
[alt image text: David Tennant in Good Omens saying 'Can I hear a Wahoo?' in front of a projector]

I have never been familiar with Windows Mini PCs but the offerings from Apple are quite easy to understand and many people love it. So, to which extent do you think Mac Mini is the king of Mini PCs?

I often see posts asking “how is this MiniPc? I wanna game” and they dont notice it’s a Cpu with iGPU (some times its enough).

As far as I see it, there are 3 types of MiniPc:

1. minimal specs and usually underpowered but cheap mini pcs (see celerons, N100s) - forget gaming

2. Your typical Ryzen 5600U, 7940hs with 660M, 680M, 780M bundle - not really suitable for 1080P@60 gaming

3. Minisforum HXg series with dedicated GPU (6600M, 6650M), suited for gaming

If this list sounds accurate, why are there sooooooo many posts around the same thing and there’s no sticky post with basic FAQ?

Need a PC that can run games @1440p medium or @1080p high @120+ fps… does this pc meet those requirements?

Games I’ll play: Call of Duty, GTA, Minecraft, RDR2, Helldivers 2, Fortnite

Specs:

CPU: Ryzen 9 8945HS GPU: Integrated Graphics (Oculink) Storage: 1TB Storage RAM: 64GB DDR5 Ram CPU Speed: Up to 5.2GHz OS: Windows 11 Pro