Geekom AS 5 reviewed: A perfect companion for demanding projects and includes an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and AMD Radeon Vega 8

Despite being a small mini-PC, the Geekom AS 5 still manages to offer an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and a fast SoC that might already be too much of a good thing for everyday use. But, as the saying goes, having is better than needing. As a consequence, you can look forward to a confident future with the Geekom AS 5, as long as you’re solely concerned with office work.

Long-time mini-PC connoisseurs will take one look at the Geekom AS 5 and surely think they’ve seen it before somewhere. Well, that’s not without good reason. Geekom and Asus have formed a cooperation meaning the Geekom AS 5 and the Asus ExpertCenter PN52 are built the same.

Unlike Asus, whose PN52 also comes with lower spec SoCs, Geekom’s only option is based on AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900HX. Currently, the Geekom AS 5 is changing hands for für $609. A fair price since Asus is asking for a hefty $900 for an identical-build mini-PC with only 16 GB of RAM and the same SSD.

In this review, the test sample goes head to head with current, similarly-equipped mini-PCs in the same price segment. You can find a list thereof in the following table. As we already mentioned, the Geekom AS 5 and the Asus ExpertCenter PN52 both share the same platform.

This means we are dealing with a different design to the Geekom Mini IT12 . The dimensions of the AS 5 have grown somewhat compared to the other in-house device, even though the device’s footprint continues to be small. When it comes to the weight, at 724 grams, our review sample secures a mid-table placing.

The materials mainly consist of plastic and aluminum. Once more, that reminds us of the familiar NUC design seen in the Geekom Mini IT12. Basically, the concept is good and exceptionally robust.

Viewed subjectively, With their aluminum chassis, Morefine’s devices come across as having a more premium feel to them. There can be no real complaints regarding the build quality. Everything fits together snugly and we couldn’t find any gaps in our review model.

Like many other mini-PCs, the Geekom AS 5 can also be attached to a monitor with the included VESA mount. Despite its size, the small Geekom AS 5 offers very many interface options. All the ports can be found on the front and rear of the device.

On both sides of the min-PC, there are generous-sized vents designed to aid cooling. With its seven USB connectors, our mini-PC review model has some of the most ports seen in a machine of this type. In addition, two of them are fitted with a type-C connector.

Nevertheless, the AS 5 lacks Thunderbolt support. However, anyone wishing to simultaneously connect many monitors can confidently grab the Geekom AS 5 as our test model can easily handle up to four displays. Geekom has equipped its AS 5 with a modern Wi-Fi 6E module from MediaTek.

The swappable M. 2 card can also handle the speedy 6 GHz band where significantly higher data transfer speeds are possible than a connection with your regular 5 GHz frequency band. In this area, our review device not only heads the pack of competitors but also leaves them standing.

Things don’t look just as rosy in tests with a 5 GHz connection and our Geekom AS 5 slides to a low, mid-table placing, behind much of the competition. With the exception of the Minisforum Neptune Series NAD9 , the competition is bunched quite tightly together. As always, we used our test router for this test – the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000.

Alternatively, it’s also possible to connect the AS 5 to a network via an ethernet connector. At up to 2. 5 Gbit/s, this is even faster than the 6 GHz wireless connection.

The Geekom AS 5’s box contents include the 120-watt PSU as well as the mounting plate for fitting the device to a monitor (VESA mount), an HDMI cable, a quick guide and some screws. The Geekom AS 5 can be opened via the base. The four screws form part of the stand and keep the base, along with some communication ports on the top of part of the chassis.

Removing the bottom cover isn’t hard although the SSD’s thermal pad provides some resistance. Basically, accessing the built-in components, such as the RAM and SSD, is a piece of cake. However, anyone wishing to inspect the cooling unit will have to dismantle the device a little more.

However, you should only proceed with caution in order to avoid damaging the Wi-Fi antenna’s delicate cables. With the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX -based Geekom AS 5, you get a lot of power in the smallest of footprints. With 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD, the rest of the specs are also something to be proud of.

All of this makes the Geekom AS 5 perfectly equipped for everyday office use and even more demanding tasks such as photo editing and simple video editing are no hurdle to this computing servant. All the performance tests were carried out using the Highest Performance mode. The SoC’s performance was not changed in the BIOS and was left in accordance with the manufacturer’s factory settings.

With the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX , the Geekom AS 5 offers a good SoC with 8 cores and 16 threads which, however, no longer belongs to the most up-to-date chips as AMD already has its successor in place, the Ryzen 9 6900HX – a chip we will take a look at in one of our forthcoming tests. However, in current comparisons, our review device did relatively well and is close on the heels of the newer SoC-equipped competition. Geekom doesn’t throttle the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX’s power consumption which means the SoC operates at 54 watts in turbo mode and 35 watts under continuous load, in accordance manufacturer’s claims.

One of the strengths of the SoC used here is its multi-thread performance, although compared to the competition, the single-core performance drops a bit. Intel is playing in another league here with its current Raptor Lake P processors, as seen, for example, with the Intel NUC 13 Pro . Even the Morefine M600 , which is already equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX , can do nothing about it.

However, The Geekom AS 5 scores astonishingly well when it comes to the AIDA64 benchmarks with our review device even leading the way and pushing the Morefine M600 into second place. Basically, we see AMD-based devices as having clear advantages. Intel appears slightly disadvantaged in this regard with the Intel NUC 13 Pro having to cope with being some 19 percent behind its AMD cousin.

Additional comparisons and benchmarks can be found in our CPU comparison table . With the Cinebench R15 continuous loop, we evaluated the SoC’s behavior under load, over a lengthy period of time. The Geekom AS 5 handled the 50 runs relatively well, even though we recorded a slight dip in performance after the 20th run.

The system performance synthetic benchmarks are solid. In PCMark 10, our Geekom AS 5 achieved an excellent result, putting it in second place. However, the trend seen in Crossmark and the RAM benchmarks didn’t continue.

In this area, our review model even slipped down to last place since the Intel-based systems are slightly better suited to the Crossmark test. The Geekom AS 5 struggles to keep up with DDR5 systems when it comes to the RAM benchmarks due to only having DDR4. Despite this, we can confidently say that none of this will be felt in everyday use.

Initially, the interaction of the built-in components was good and not responsible for any high latency in the playback of our 4K test video. Regarding the iGPU, we observed a relatively low load of only 10 percent. The latencies only shot up after launching Prime95 but, despite this, our review device still managed to secure second place among its peers.

Geekom has equipped the AS 5 with a Kingston 1024 GB NVMe SSD. The installed model uses the NVMe interface and should deliver corresponding transfer rates. In terms of the read speed, we observed solid performance although write speeds were abysmal.

In order to rule out this being a problem with the Geekom AS 5, we also tested the Kingston NV2 in another mini-PC. However, the performance wasn’t significantly better. As a comparison, we also equipped the Geekom AS 5 with our Kingston KC3000.

This resulted in considerably better transfer rates and made it clear that the problem doesn’t lie with our review device but with the Kingston NV2. In the test, our review model’s problems meant it had to be content with last place. In addition, there were also continual dips in performance in the stress test.

Although the internal metal surfaces are used for cooling, the performance loss associated with continuous read accesses, cannot be avoided. Meanwhile, the Geekom AS 5 can house up to three storage drives. Two of which use the M.

2 interface and an additional 2. 5-inch format drive can also be fitted. For additional comparisons and benchmarks, take a look at our comparison table .

Note: Our US colleagues also received a Geekom AS 5 at the same time we did. Very quickly, we were able to make a comparison with a device sharing the same build. Lo and behold, their recorded transfer rates are of a much better standard.

With the AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 , the SoC comes with an iGPU that has accompanied us for many years. Unfortunately, you can also observe this in the meantime because, in benchmarks, the now-aged iGPU is noticeably inferior to its successor. However, it can still compete well with an Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 .

This means the Geekom AS 5 is able to secure a mid-table placing due to the many Intel systems here in our comparison. Sadly, the Geekom AS 5 lacks a Thunderbolt option which means the device cannot be connected to an external GPU in order to accelerate 3D performance. Further comparisons and benchmarks can be found in our G PU comparison table .

The built-in iGPU can longer be recommended as a gaming solution. With its AMD Radeon RX Vega , the Geekom AS 5 can only manage playable frame rates in older titles and very often at low resolution and sparse details. Based on the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX , the Morefine M600 offers a much more powerful iGPU which leaves us hoping that Geekom’s successors will be more competitive.

Anyone on the hunt for tangibly better gaming performance should take a look at the Minisforum HX99G and the NUCXi7 . Both of the aforementioned Minisforum models are equipped with a dedicated graphics card and, in tests, they deliver good gaming performance. In idle use, the powerful SoC can still be cooled without a cacophony of noise.

By contrast, under load, we noticed that the Geekom AS 5 suffers from a significant increase in fan noise. At a maximum of 47. 1 dB(A), our test sample runs louder than most other mini-PCs in current comparisons.

At 50. 9 dB(A), we only recorded higher noise levels in the Ace Magician AMR5 Running idle, the Geekom AS 5’s case heats up a little. This means there is no real heat build-up to speak of since the warm air takes the shortest route possible and is directed toward the rear of the device before being expelled.

In the Prime95 stress test, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX could only reach 77. 8 °C meaning the SoC still has a lot of breathing space before reaching its thermal limits. When simultaneously putting the CPU and the iGPU under load, we saw only marginally low temperatures because both components have to share the combined TDP of up to 54 watts.

When it comes to energy requirements, the Geekom AS 5 scores very well. In idle use, we measured around 8. 6 to 9.

6 watts, although the average consumption under load settled to around 60 watts. The maximum we measured was 84 watts meaning the 120-watt PSU has no difficulties and also plenty of reserves left for two additional mass storage devices. The Geekom AS 5 is undoubtedly a small, if not the smallest, very powerful mini-PC and has a lot to offer.

The basis provided by the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX is a good choice and is sufficient for everyday office use. You can demand even more from the mini-PC because, with 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD, few corners have been cut. Considering the device’s compact size, the port selection is very generous.

The Geekom AS 5 brings many USB interfaces along for the ride. Even multi-monitor setups are no problem since up to four displays can be connected. In terms of Wi-Fi performance, the device is only superior to the competition when it comes to the 6 GHz bands in this test.

If you choose to use the 5 GHz Wi-Fi frequencies, expect to be neck and neck with the competition. Up to this point, the Geekom AS 5 doesn’t really put a foot wrong. The only thing you have to swallow is the lack of Thunderbolt.

The Geekom AS 5 is a good mini-PC with a speedy AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX. However, without Thunderbolt it is not entirely future-proof. We don’t view the cooperation with Asus critically, but more as an advantage.

At $609, our review configuration Geekom is perfectly priced and cheaper than the Asus PC. The choice of SSD is worthy of criticism as it didn’t live up to the demands expected of an NVMe SSD in our benchmarks. An additional point of criticism is the noise level under load.

The device is only really quiet in idle use or under light load. Due to the temperatures recorded in our stress test, Geekom could have adjusted the fan curve a little better. This means that it’s up to the user to rely on their own skills.

Luckily, the BIOS offers diverse options to counteract this. The Geekom AS 5 currently costs $609 and can be purchased directly from the manufacturer . .