Deal | Powerful mini PC with AMD Ryzen 9 APU, 16 GB DDR5 RAM, and plenty of ports gets nearly $270 discount

Mini PC prices have witnessed massive hikes in recent months, owing to the ongoing DRAM shortage. Therefore, it has become rather difficult to find a well-equipped mini PC with a decent amount of RAM.

However, offers appear every now and then, easing the burden on shoppers to some extent. For instance, Best Buy is now offering a nearly $270 discount on the Geekom A7 Max mini PC, equipped with a decently powerful Ryzen 9 APU and 16 GB of DDR5 RAM. A terabyte of storage is also present.

According to our in-depth review of the Geekom A7 Max, the 8-core AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS APU performs rather admirably in multi-threaded synthetic benchmarks. In fact, the results put it in the same ballpark as the latest Ryzen AI 7 350.

In simpler terms, folks with moderately intensive CPU-based workloads will find hardly any room for complaint with the Geekom A7 Max mini PC. 

Our review also indicates that the mini PC features a well-designed cooling system, allowing for decent sustained performance with only a marginal drop in our Cinebench R15 loop test.

The RDNA 3-based Radeon 780M was quite a decent iGPU when it first came out roughly three years ago, but that is no longer the case. The iGPU is almost three times slower than the Arc B390 iGPU found in high-end Panther Lake chips. With that in mind, the A7 Max is only good enough for very lightweight gaming and other non-intensive GPU workloads.

The A7 Max mini PC boasts a solid I/O setup - minus OCuLink

The lack of an OCuLink port further adds to the A7 Max mini PC's misery, forcing eGPU gamers to rely on slower USB 4-based eGPU setups. The rest of the I/O on offer has been detailed below. 

• Five USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, single USB 2.0 Type-A
• Dual USB4 Type-C
• Dual 2.5G Ethernet
• Dual HDMI 2.0
• Audio jack (3.5mm)

We were quite pleased with the build quality of the system, which features an aluminum housing. The mini PC's internals are also relatively easy to access. Like most other competitors in this segment, the A7 Max Mini PC features upgradeable RAM, storage, and WLAN modules.

At its current price on Best Buy, the A7 Max Mini PC offers a compelling value proposition for most users, given that they do not have any substantial GPU performance requirements. Interested customers are definitely advised to check out our detailed review of the mini PC for pulling the trigger.

Disclaimer: Notebookcheck is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability.