Minix Elite EU512-AI review: A particularly energy-efficient Core Ultra Mini PC

The Core Ultra 5 125H can theoretically consume 115W in Turbo mode - but not in the Minix Elite EU512-AI, which is capped at 50W. This limitation shows up clearly in all CPU and GPU benchmarks, where similarly equipped competitors often perform significantly better.

On the other hand, the Minix is much more energy-efficient than many of its rivals with similar specs and easily handles everyday office tasks without needing more power. While there are more affordable mini PCs with lower-power CPUs, they typically lack a built-in NPU for AI workloads. workloads.

On the manufacturer's website, our configuration costs €829 ($967). At our loaner Geekmaxi, the model costs €659 ($768) with discount code"CKDI8P1Q".

Subjectively, everything runs smoothly. However, in comparison, our Minix performs 4 - 5% below average in PCMark 10 and CrossMark; most other mini PCs with the same CPU are faster. This is probably also due to the RAM, as it performs particularly slowly in our AIDA tests.

When we run an AI workload on the CPU using Geekbench AI, the results are somewhat below average, which is consistent with other comparisons. Fortunately, the integrated NPU performs significantly better than the CPU. However, it's still weaker than what we've seen in other mini PCs with the same CPU/NPU combination. Nevertheless, the Core 5 125H should be able to calculate local AI tasks sufficiently well.

The 512GB Kingston SSD is partitioned. Today, a 120GB system partition is hardly sufficient as it fills up quickly. The best course of action here is to delete the existing partitions and reinstall Windows on the full 512GB drive.

The memory performs about average in comparisons, but it operates approximately 10% below its potential and unfortunately gets throttled quickly during prolonged use.