AOOSTAR R7 previewed as new mini-PC and NAS with four storage options and AMD Ryzen APU

Earlier today, we reported on the AOOSTAR R1, an Intel Processor N100-powered mini-PC whose design lends itself to be used as network-attached storage (NAS). While the AOOSTAR R1 supports AV1 decoding and should be relatively power efficient thanks to its 6 W processor, the latter may render it not powerful enough for some use cases. Alternatively, AOOSTAR offers the R7, which should address any performance deficiencies associated with the AOOSTAR R1 at the cost of a higher starting price and increased power consumption.

According to AOOSTAR, it has based the R7 around the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, a Lucienne series APU with eight Zen 2 CPU cores that can boost 4.3 GHz and a 25 W TDP. In our tests, the Ryzen 7 5700U averages 1.81x higher performance than the Processor N100, which AMD bases around a 7 nm node. For reference, AOOSTAR complements the Ryzen 7 5700U with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB PCIe 3.0 SSD, as well as the following ports:

• 2x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
• 1x 3.5 mm jack
• 1x DisplayPort 1.4
• 1x HDMI
• 1x MicroSD card slot
• 2x USB 2.0 Type-A
• 2x USB 3.2 Type-A
• 1x USB Type-C (DisplayPort Alt)

Moreover, the AOOSTAR R7 has two SO-DIMM slots and a second M.2 2280 slot. By contrast, the AOOSTAR R1 makes do with one of each, although both units have a pair of 3.5-inch drive bays. The AOOSTAR R7 will be available to order towards the end of November with an official release date set for mid-December. Currently, AOOSTAR has priced the mini-PC and NAS at US$419, making it US$150 more expensive than the AOOSTAR R1.

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