What kind of device is this and what is it capable of?
Electronics manufacturers release interesting devices every week, including miniature computers. We’ll tell you about one of them today. The fact is that this is a device that can become a “workhorse” both for solving purely office tasks and for development. It is based on the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, supports up to 64 GB of RAM and 2 TB SSD. Details are traditionally under the cut.
Housing and contents
The dimensions of the device are small – 112.4 × 112.4 × 37 mm, the body is made of aluminum with a plastic cover on the bottom. As mentioned above, the processor is AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, the graphics here are Radeon 780M. The processor is made using a 4nm process technology. The cooling is active, the manufacturer claims that the device is not particularly noisy – in general, this is confirmed by those users who managed to purchase the device.
The motherboard has two slots for DDR5 SO-DIMM RAM, as well as a slot for SSD M.2 2230 NVMe.
As for the processor, it is a fairly powerful chip, the performance of which is enough to solve most office and other tasks. It has 8 Zen 4 cores, operating frequency is from 4 to 5.2 GHz, which is very good. The graphics chip has 12 cores and a frequency of 2.8 GHz.
The device comes with 32 GB of RAM, although, as mentioned above, it supports up to 64 GB. As for wireless connectivity, it is an Azurewave AW-XB591NF M.2 2230 module with a MediaTek 7922 chip. It supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 (LMP 12.8966).
The mini-PC has a lot of ports and connectors. For example, only on the back side of the device are located:
1 × Power jack
1 × USB4 Type-C Gen 3×2 (40 Gbit/s) port
1 × HDMI 2.0 port
1 × 2.5 Gb Ethernet port
1 × USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gbit/s) port
1 × USB Type-A 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) port
1 × USB4 Type-C port with DP Alt Mode
1 × HDMI 2.0 port
On the front side there is USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gbit/s) plus an audio connector. There is also a backlit power button. One of the sides of the case is perforated for better cooling, and there is also a slot for memory cards.
If you need to disassemble the device, then this is done simply: remove the rubber feet from the bottom side, they open the screw heads, they need to be unscrewed – and that’s it, after removing the cover, access to the motherboard is gained.
Detailed Specifications:
model: Geekom A7
device type: mini pc
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
video processor: integrated AMD Radeon 780M
operating system: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
RAM: maximum 64 GB DDR5 RAM @ 5600 MHz (2 × 16 GB SODIMM DDR5-5600 included)
drives: 1 × SSD M.2 2280 PCI-e Gen4 ×4 (2 TB NVMe PCI-e ×4 Gen4 included)
interfaces:
○ 1 × USB 2.0
○ 3 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
○ 1 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (DP support)
○ 1 × USB 4 Type-C
○ 1 × Audio Jack
○ 1 × K-Lock(side)
○ 1 × SD card slot
○ 2 × HDMI 2.0b
○ 1 × RJ45 LAN 2.5G
○ 1 × DC-in 19Vwireless interfaces: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 ax), Bluetooth v5.2
dimensions: 112.4 × 112.4 × 37 mm
weight: 450 g
price: N/D*
What about performance?
One of the device owners conducted a full performance test comparing the results of different mini-PCs. This is what happened in the end.
The capabilities of the device are really good. This is largely due to the presence of the AMD Radeon 780M video chip, which allows you to play modern games. In particular, it can “pull” SOTTR, Horizon Zero Dawn, COD MW II. In addition, you can play Cyberpunk 2077, albeit at minimum settings – you still need to take into account that the mini-PC is not positioned by the developer as a gaming device.
You can also connect an external module with a video card that is more powerful than what the mini-PC itself has. This allows you to turn the device into a full-fledged gaming PC, capable of handling both modern titles and tasks like video editing.
At the same time, cooling is organized at a level – the cooler turns on only when launching really “heavy” applications or content, but the noise is moderate. The processor consumes an average of 45 W, in some cases this figure rises to 60 W.
By the way, in the BIOS there are supposedly cooling system operation profiles that relate to the processor. There are three settings, everything is as usual: quiet, normal and performance modes.
How much does the device cost?
Quite a lot. So, for a model with a Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB SSD you will need to pay $849. And for a model with a Ryzen 7 7840HS processor and 1 TB SSD – $699.
As a conclusion, we can say that this model is universal. In addition to good performance, it also looks good. And the fact that the device can cope with a wide range of tasks is only a plus for it. You can use a mini-PC to work with documents, media content, play and code. As stated above, this is a workhorse that really does what it needs to do.
