Fastest AMD Rembrandt Design In A SFF Package

Modern-day AMD Ryzen APUs are powerhouses when it comes to offering great CPU performance with superb integrated graphics capabilities. That is one of the major reasons why the Ryzen APUs are being adopted widely by Mini PC manufacturers and we are seeing some very interesting and unique designs from a host of OEMs. Another reason why these APUs are such a common sight in Mini PCs is because of their efficient design which means that you don’t necessarily need to feed them with a lot of power or worry about higher temperatures.

Recently, Geekom & ASUS came together to collab on a new Mini PC known as the AS6. The AS6 Mini PC is powered by AMD’s Rembrandt APUs and is aiming to take on the competition with a solid performance in a very solid SFF package. While we were working on this review, ASUS was chosen by Intel to work on its future NUC Mini PCs and since the AS6 is also designed by ASUS, we can expect some top-notch engineering to have gone into this tiny machine.

Geekom reached out to us to review their AS6 Mini PC in the 32 GB DDR5 and 1 TB SSD config. The configuration is solid for all kinds of workloads. The PC officially costs $749 US but using the code “as640a”, you can get a discount of $40 US which will bring the pricing down to $709 US which is very competitive as we will show in our review below.

Geekom x ASUS AS6 Mini PC – Specifications At A Glance

Geekom’s AS6 Mini PC comes in the AMD Ryzen 6000H flavors which are based on the Rembrandt APU. You can get the Ryzen 9 6900HX option or the Ryzen 7 6800H. There’s also the Ryzen 7 7735H which is a rebrand of the existing Ryzen 6000 family. All three solutions share the same 32 GB and 1 TB SSD configurations but can be configured by the users manually for further expandability.

Coming to the specifications, the Geekom AS6 Mini PC  rocks the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU which features 8 cores, 16 threads, 20 MB of cache (L3+L2 combined), and a boost clock of up to 4.9 GHz. The CPU has a TDP of 45W which can be configured down to 15W and up to 65W. The CPU cores utilize the Zen 3+ architecture that offers insane amounts of efficiency for the 6nm node they are based upon.

Another primary component of the Geekom AS6 Mini PC is its RDNA 2 graphics core. Unlike the older Vega iGPU featured on past APUs, starting with Ryzen 6000, AMD has adopted its brand new RDNA graphics core which provides a bigger boost to graphics performance & also to overall capabilities that the APU can perform. The iGPU is known as the Radeon 680M and houses 12 Compute Units for a total of 768 shaders running at a top clock of 2400 MHz & is compliant with all AMD premium technologies including FSR, Freesync, etc.

Talking about the settings you can configure, the BIOS provides some room for user customization such as setting power limits, thermal limits, shared memory pool for iGPU, and even adjusting ram speeds. We got our DIMMs to run at 5600 Mbps which is a pretty decent boost over the reference DDR5-4800 speeds. We also set the APU to its 54W profile which should also provide a boost in the CPU performance.

Other specs for the Geekom AS6 Mini PC  include 16 GB DDR5-4800 (Dual-Channel) memory from Crucial. This isn’t soldered and instead features a SO-DIMM design so users can completely upgrade it as they wish. Storage comes in the form of two M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4.0 SSDs. The case comes with enough space to host a 2.5″ SATA HDD too with up to 2 TB capacities.

For I/O, you will be getting 2 USB4 Type-C ports, 5 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, dual HDMI 2.1 ports, 1 DP 1.4 port, a single 2.5GbE LAN port, an audio jack, and a Padlock ring. There’s also full support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth v5.2 functionality. The Geekom AS6 Mini PC is powered by a standard DC-In port through a 20V 7.5A (150W) power adapter.

Geekom x ASUS AS6 Mini PC – Unboxing & A Closer Look

The Geekom AS6 Mini PC  comes in a small cardboard box package. It has a black color with purple colored lines. You can notice the “Geekom” and the “Powered by ASUS” logos. One weird choice for the packaging is the Radeon graphics logo which is very old and not the newer one used by AMD in its RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 family

Lifting the top box cover, you are welcomed by the Geekom AS6 Mini PC itself which sits in a cardboard casing and is wrapped within a plastic foil to prevent dust from entering the top grills.

Before talking about the case itself, we have to mention the accessories that come with the AS6. It comes with a Power Adapter, a VESA Mount, 2 packs of SSD Mounting screws, a quick guide, a user manual, an 8K UHD-certified HDMI cable, and a pack of screws to mount the HDD.

The User Guide has the renowned ASUS tagline, In Search of Incredible. This is very much a ASUS product as much as it is a Geekom product.

Out of the box, the Geekom AS6 Mini PC looks very durable and solid. It’s not as compact as the Minisforum Mini PCs that we have tested but the extra room accommodates better cooling and IO capabilities. The black color along with the grills on the side to dissipate heat out of the chassis are great to look at and offer a premium feel.

The whole Mini PC measures 120 x 130 x 58 mm and comes in a 0.9-liter chassis design. The AS6 weighs just 0.9 kg. The PC comes with an anti-dust self-cleaning system that pushes air and dust particulates out of the chassis. The heatsink itself is a copper base with aluminum fins and Direct copper contact technology from ASUS known as DirectCU. You might remember DirectCU from the older ASUS GPU series.

The exterior shell of the case is made out of aluminum and is a very solid design. The bottom cover is plastic & can be removed by unscrewing four screws that aren’t hidden beneath the footrests.

The front of the Geekom AS6 Mini PC houses a USB4 Type-C port, the Audio jack, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and the Power On/Off button.

The back of the Geekom AS6 Mini PC features two HDMI 2.1 ports, a single DP 1.4 port, another USB4 Type-C port, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and a 2.5 GbE LAN port and DC-In.

As stated above, opening the bottom plastic cover is simple and reveals the internals that is just partially upgradable. These include the M.2 SSD and the memory. There’s also a small SATA header but the most important thing to note is that both M.2 SSD slots feature a thermal adhesive pad and contact with an aluminum frame for cooling which is very important since the limited space might make things hot within the chassis and the extra cooling on the SSD is definitely a plus.

Our test unit came with 32 GB of DDR5-4800 memory and 1 TB of SSD. The single SATA 2.5″ drive can be attached to the port on the opposite side of the SSD slot through a SATA III connector that’s bundled within the accessories. Only a 2.5″ drive is compatible given the small and limited size of the chassis.

The ribbon connector that attaches the secondary SSD and HDD PCB to the main board reveals the actual ASUS branded name of the Geekom AS6. The PC is actually labeled as PN52-FPC by ASUS.

Geekom x ASUS AS6 Mini PC – CPU System Performance

For performance testing, we compared the Geekom AS6 Mini PC to several other Mini PCs that we have previously tested.

Right off the bat, you can see a large increase in performance over the previous generation AMD Mini PC offerings and even the competing solutions from Intel. The Zen 3 cores are really doing amazing work in getting higher performance in a package of this size and that too with some real nice power figures.

Geekom x ASUS AS6 Mini PC – GPU Gaming Performance

For gaming, we tested a couple of the latest and most played esports titles at 1080p resolution. The performance was measured between the AMD Radeon 680M, AMD Vega 8, Vega 7, and Intel Iris Xe-LP integrated graphics.

Geekom x ASUS AS6 Mini PC – Thermals & Power Consumption

The Geekom AS6 Mini PC is an extremely efficient design. Once again, the options in the BIOS will let you unlock its full power or switch it to max efficiency mode. Using the 45 Watts mode, we got to see the following power figures.

The thermals were slightly better off than the Minisforum UM690 since the Geekom AS6 Mini PC had more room to breathe. The CPU peaked out around 73C which is 7C less than what we got on the Minisforum UM690.

Conclusion – Geekom & ASUS Should Collab More!

Looking at the performance of the Geekom AS6 Mini PC, it currently sits as the fastest Ryzen 6000 APU-powered Mini PC that we have tested yet. The extra performance is thanks to a bigger cooling solution in a more spacious yet still compact shape. Compared to the Minisforum UM690, the CPU and GPU performs mostly the same but the slightly better thermals lead to better clocks that result in a small tick in performance.

As for the iGPU, we have said it before and we will say it again, there’s no iGPU out there that can compete with AMD’s RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 iGPUs. The Radeon 680M is a very capable chip for 1080p resolutions and better yet. While you can emulate games on this tiny machine, we would suggest waiting for the newer Ryzen 7000 Phoenix systems as their AVX-512 capabilities allow for a major leap in performance in that particular use case.

I/O is another strong suit of the Geekom AS6 Mini PC with dual USB4, dual HDMI 2.1 Five USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, and the latest WIFI6E/BT5.2 capabilities. We would have liked the USB 3.2 ports to be Gen 2 but I guess the extra amount of ports is also worth it. The system also features two full M.2 slots running at Gen 4×4 speeds which is great. Minisforum ships their solutions with a heatsink & Geekom takes a different approach by attaching a thermal adhesive to the base & attaching it to the aluminum frame on the case.

Now the same configuration from Minisforum costs $649 US at the moment so you’ll be paying $60 US extra to grab the Geekom AS6 Mini PC. Is the extra amount worth it? Well given the USB4, extra I/O capabilities, and an additional M.2 SSD slot, I’d say the Geekom AS6 with its spectacular Mini PC performance is well worth the price. This machine has loads of power to run your daily tasks and I can’t wait to check out the latest Phoenix PCs that the company has to offer soon!

Buy the Geekom AS6 Mini PC For $709 US Here Using Code: as640a