GEEKOM AX8 Pro Mini PC Review

GEEKOM continues to pack powerful components into unbelievably small cases, giving fans of mini and portable PCs more hardware to salivate over. With the AX8 Pro, users can spec up to the R9-8945HS with 32 GB RAM and a 2 TB SSD. Leveraging the power of AMD’s 780M graphics, the AX8 Pro is a powerhouse that can perform for both work and play. How has it held up during my testing? This is my review.

Playing with power

The AX8 Pro uses AMD’s Hawk Point 8040 series of processors, with both the R7-8845HS and R9-8945HS available for selection. My review unit uses the latter, allowing me to assess the upper-end model in terms of performance and heat management. On paper, this R9 processor looks like a beast, with 8 cores and 16 threads. Other spec highlights for this processor include the up to 5.2 GHz max boost clock and 38 TOPS (AMD Ryzen AI).

It’s good to see a modern processor in this higher-end GEEKOM PC. While the price is high relative to the company’s lower-end hardware, the cost is impressive given the competition.

It can game

The 780M graphics are also worth highlighting. They’re built on the RDNA 3 architecture and support DirectX 12 Ultimate, ray tracing, and variable-rate shading. What does this all mean? Well, given its small size, the AX8 Pro’s gaming performance is better than you might expect.

As for what games the AX8 Pro can play, the choice really is yours. In the past, I’ve used my GEEKOM PCs for competitive titles like Valorant and CS:GO, as well as Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite with heavily reduced settings. With the AX8 Pro, I’m able to play open-world games like The Witcher 3 and even Cyberpunk 2077, albeit with the resolution dialed down to 720p to maintain a playable above-30 FPS experience.

For less demanding games, the resolution can be pushed up to 1080p and higher, with frame rates also improving. In a nutshell, the AX8 Pro delivered playable experiences in all the games that I tested, which is a huge win.

The graphics grunt also pairs wonderfully with the CPU power for tasks like video editing. If you regularly shoot video on location and then edit in a hotel room, GEEKOM continues to be one of the best options for a portable powerhouse setup.

Keep your cool

Temps rose to 91C during stress tests but hovered at 78-80C while gaming and rendering. They were well-maintained, and throttling was never a concern. It runs quietly, too, which will be especially important for those operating in an office environment. GEEKOM is calling it “IceBlast 1.5,” and I think the name is justified, as it works well.

With 32 GB of DDR5 RAM (upgradeable to 64GB) and a 1 TB SSD (expandable to 2 TB), the AX8 Pro boasts solid specs that shouldn’t need upgrading anytime soon.

The external I/O includes two HDMI ports, two USB 4.0 ports, four USB ports, and a 2.5 GbE LAN port. The AX8 Pro also supports WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 for fast, reliable wireless connections and comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled.

Room for improvement

When it comes to downsides, I would have liked to have seen an additional M.2 slot for expanding the storage even further. With the AX8 Pro boasting such powerful components, it’s surely going to attract professionals who need that grunt, many of whom will no doubt want as much high-speed storage as possible.

My only other cons are nitpicks, with the lack of USB-C on the front I/O being a personal pet peeve. The lack of an SD card slot is also a slight disappointment.