The mini PCs worth your money.
The GEEKOM A5 2025 Edition pairs a Ryzen 5 7430U with 16GB RAM and three storage bays for around $260–$279 on sale — one of the best budget mini PCs for home and office.
$399 ($260–$279 on sale)
GMKtec EVO-X3 launches with Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128GB LPDDR5X, and an OCuLink eGPU port from $3,600 — one of the first Strix Halo mini PCs aimed at local LLMs.
The GMKtec K15 AI pairs an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U with three M.2 slots, an OCuLink eGPU port, and dual 2.5GbE from ~$610. A quiet, expandable mini PC.
$610–$820
The GMKtec M6 Ultra pairs a Ryzen 5 7640HS with dual 2.5GbE, USB4, and 32GB DDR5 from around $550 — TechRadar's top-rated value mini PC for work and study.
$550–$700
The GMKtec M8 pairs a Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H with USB4, OCuLink, and dual 2.5GbE for under $400 on sale — an entry-level mini PC value pick for home and office.
$360–$480
The KAMRUI Hyper H2 packs a 10-core Intel Core i5-14450HX, 32 GB RAM, and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD into a $459 mini PC — a productivity bargain, if you skip gaming.
$400–$459
The NIMO AI Mini PC pairs a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with 128GB of unified LPDDR5X for $2,999.99 — an Amazon-buyable Strix Halo workstation for local LLM inference.
$2,999.99
You don't need a $3,000 AI workstation to code with a frontier AI agent. Here's how to run Claude Code on a mini PC — why a modest box is enough, how it compares to local LLMs on Strix Halo machines, and how to get started.
What buyers are actually saying.
In early 2024, AceMagic admitted that three of its mini-PC models shipped from the factory with malware on the system image. The statement was unusually candid for the category — and the unanswered questions are still part of the brand's record.
ASUS now owns the future of the NUC. The signing ceremony is the easy part of the story; the support fine print, the discontinued partner programs, and the warranty handoffs are where buyers actually learn what changed.
Beelink's EX docking station is a genuinely original piece of mini-PC engineering — a PCIe x8 slot on the bottom of a 158 mm cube, paired with a 600 W brick that swallows an RTX 4090. The 'open-source' announcement that followed is more complicated than the headlines suggested.
Geekom marketed the Mini IT13 around its Core i9-13900H. Independent reviews from NotebookCheck, AnandTech, Liliputing and CNX Software all reached the same uncomfortable conclusion: the chassis cannot keep that chip fed.
GMKtec beat Framework, HP and every NUC successor to shipping a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 mini-PC. The hardware is real, the AI pitch is louder than the software stack underneath it, and the warranty is still the same one.
With 64 GB of unified memory and 273 GB/s of bandwidth, Apple's smallest desktop has quietly become the most underrated mini-PC for running 70B-class models on your desk — provided you can stomach the upgrade tax and the absence of CUDA.
Every 2025-2026 mini PC with a TOPS number on the spec sheet calls itself an 'AI PC.' Here is what that NPU actually accelerates today, what still runs on the iGPU and CPU, and why memory — not TOPS — decides how a 7B model feels on your desk.
For local AI development, the question used to be 'desktop or laptop.' In 2025-2026, ASUS and Beelink answered with two different ways to put a real RTX 4070 next to your monitor — one inside a 2.5-liter chassis, one in an external dock — and both genuinely change what is possible on a small desk.