Geekom A8 – mini-PC with AMD Ryzen 9 or Ryzen 7 (computer review)

01/07/2024
By Ray Shaw
In Reviews

The Geekom A8 is a mini-PC with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS or Ryzen 7 8845HS. It is a petite powerhouse.

The Geekom A8 is not just another mini-PC. It boasts impressive specifications, including support for up to 64GB DDR5 RAM, a 2TB PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD, and the formidable AMD Radeon 780M GPU.

What is a mini-PC, and who uses them?

GEEKOM Mini PCs are ultra-small (like a laptop without a screen or keyboard) running full-fat Windows 11. It uses a 19V/6.32A/120W power brick. They are low maintenance, have high durability, a higher heat tolerance (-25 to +55°/90% RH), low noise (40-55dB) and are VESA mountable.

The user list is long – police, paramedics, military, grey nomads, hot-desk workstations, point of sale, road haulage, and so much more. They offer flexibility in a small form factor.

You should be aware of the mini-PC format and not hesitate to consider it when using a laptop, desktop, or mini-tower PC.

And congratulations to Geekom on its 21st year as a PC maker – incredible in this age.

Australian Review: GEEKOM A8 Mini PC

Website		GEEKOM PC AU website Product Page
From		GEEKOM AU Amazon AU Including free shipping from its Australian warehouse
RRP (29 June 2024)		$1299 R7-8845HS/32GB/1TB on special at $1170 $1499 R9-8945HS, 32GB/2TB on special at $1399 (as tested)
CyberShack reader’s price to 31 August		Additional 5% off – use code cybershackA8 Geekom AU direct – both versions – best to shop direct Amazon AU R9 version Amazon AU R7 version
Warranty		3-years ACL and guaranteed 24-hour customer response
Company		Since 2003, Taiwanese GEEKOM has been a multinational consumer electronics company specialising in mini-PCs. It is one of the largest manufacturers of mini-PCs in the world. It now has an Australian base.
More	CyberShack Mini-PC reviews CyberShack Geekom reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

We are also tightening up on grading. From 2024 on, Pass, for example, means meeting expectations for the price bracket. We consider a Pass mark to be 70+/100 with extra points added for class-leading and excellence.

Geekom A8 specs as tested

Ryzen 9 8945HS (option R 7 8845HS)
Up to 64GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM (32GB tested)
Up to 2TB PCIe 4.0 x4 (Acer N7000 2TB as tested)
2 x HDMI 2.0 18Gbps supporting 4K@60Hz SDR, 8-bit/16.7m colours
USB-C 4.0 40Gbps 5V/3A/15W supporting Alt DP 1.4 (8K@30, SDR 8-bit, 16.7m colours)
USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps supporting Alt DP 1.4 (4K@30 SDR)
3 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (10Gbps)
USB-A 2.0 (480Mbps)
RJ-45 Ethernet 2.5Gbps
Wi-Fi 6E 6GHz and BNT 5.2.
3.5mm, 4-pole mic/2.0 speaker jack
Full-size SD slot
Windows 11 Pro
120W power brick (RNZ C-tick) and AU power plug

First Impression – Pass+

It is made from a fashionable dusty silver, CNC metal sandblasted, anodised, aviation-grade aluminium alloy. It has left and right honeycomb air vents and a removable base. You can replace memory (dual slot to 64GB), SSD (PCIe Gen 4 x 4 or earlier – single slot), and the Wi-Fi/BT card. Take care removing the base—it is easy, but a Wi-Fi antenna attached could break if rough handled.

Regarding rough handling, it passes multiple torture tests, such as vibration, high/low temperature, altitude, drop, and humidity. A new IceBlast 1.5 fan cooling system keeps the outside temperature to <35° even when the processor hits 90° under 100% load. It is relatively quiet, from about 40 dB (typical) to 55 dB under load.

Build quality is superb, as is the three-year warranty with local support. Size is 112.4 square x 37mm high x 450g (.47L). It can be VESA-mounted (plate supplied)

Power use – Pass+

Idle: 5W
Typical: 25-35W
Full load: 95W

Over a day of tests, it averaged 27.2Wh – negligible power use.

Let’s look at the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS and Ryzen 7 8845HS

Both are 4nm TSMC-made Hawk Point 8000 series 8-core/16-thread, 45W TDP, high-end laptop processors ideal for the mini-PC format. They clock from 4-5.2 GHz and 3.8-5.1 GHz, respectively.

Each has 20 PCIe lanes. USB-C 4.0 (40Gbps), USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps), and USB-A 2.0 (480Mbps).

The Radeon 780M 2800/2700MHz GPU can support up to four displays from 2 x HDMI 2.0 and USB-C 4.0 and 3.2 or use any USB 4.0, Thunderbolt 3, or 4 dock.

See full benchmarks for the Ryzen 9 8945HS and Ryzen 7 8845HS, and a side-by-side comparison here.

The motherboard is a new 12-layer miniaturisation marvel (most are 6 or 8 layers) made possible by the 4nm SoC.

Video processing – Pass+

It has Ray Tracing and can hardware encode H.264, H.265, and AV1 and decode them, as well as VP9, VC1, and MPEG2.

It supports 8K encode and decode of 10-bit colour and native HDR but does not support Dolby Vision decoding. That affects its use as a media centre.

AI NPU

While they are not specifically AI processors like the new Ryzen AI 9 and 9HX (73/80 TOPS), they have a separate NPU with a total TOPs of 38/37, respectively. That is close to Microsoft’s recommended 40 TOPS for a generative AI PC.

The NPU has up to 16 TOPS, meaning compatible AI apps can use it instead of the GPU. However, few apps currently can use it (most use the GPU).

Microsoft is ensuring that its 365 apps, CoPilot, Bing, and more support AI. AMD is also working to bring more AI apps to its devices.

Our take is that there are no must-have, killer apps yet. AI is not really for now. It is nice to know it can do ‘something’, but future processors will be more powerful and support more AI edge computing.

DaVinci Resolve uses a mix of CPU/GPU and disk for video rendering. Click to enlarge.

Sound processing – no speakers

It has an HDA 6-channel codec—no amp. It natively decodes PCM to 5.1, Dolby Digital (all variants) to 5.1, and downmixed to 2.0. Again, it is not for media centre use.

Gaming – we do not test for games

Geekom A8 Tests

Geekbench

This dramatically demonstrates the power levels. While best performance gives slightly higher results, it is only minimally better than Balanced.

Geekbench	Single-core	Multi-core	OpenCL	Vulkan
Best Power Efficiency	1869	9313	31610	35785
Balanced	2699	13591	33095	38470
Power	2696	13732	33172	38349

PC Mark – Pass+

Best Power Efficiency

Balanced

Power

Pass mark (Power Mode)

Cinebench (Balanced Mode)

SSD

The Acer N7000 ‘Shadow Knight’ 2TB PCIe Gen4x4 has a 12nm MAP1602-I controller from MaxioTech. Theoretically, it supports 7400/6500MBps sequential read/write and 1000K IOPS random read/write. The drive uses a single-sided 232-layer QLC NAND flash made by China’s YMTC. The SSD has no DRAM cache and uses the system RAM as an HMB (Host Memory Buffer) device. This is a 100% Chinese-developed and made SSD.

AS SSD

This is handy as it gives a score to compare with others.

ATTO

Tests whether the SSD cache fills too fast – this is DRAM-less and capable of large file transfers.

Crystal Disk

This is the maximum read/write.

CPDT

This is the sustained read/write.

USB Data transfer rates – Pass+

USB-C 4.0 (40Gbps/5000MBps) – Read/Write speed: 2,205/813 MBps (limited by the external SSD speed)
USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps/1250MBps) – Read/Write speed: 965/954 MBps (excellent and again limited by the external SSD)
USB-A 2.0 (480 Mbps/60MBps half-duplex) – Read/Write speed: 43/35 MB/s (excellent)

Wi-Fi/BT 5.3/Ethernet – Pass+

Wi-Fi 6E connects at the maximum speed of 2402/2402Mbps on the 6GHz channel of our TP-Link Deco BE85 Wi-Fi 7 BE22000 tri-band mesh router.

Bluetooth is 5.3 with the standard SBC codec.

Support/maintenance – Pass+

GEEKOM will have a full downloads page with the latest Windows Drivers, Windows 11 Pro ISO, and a User Guide.

Remove the glued-on rubber feet and remove the base plate’s four retaining screws. Be careful with the WLAN antenna cable. Remove another metal plate to access the RAM or SSD.

CyberShack’s view – Geekom A8 – mini-PC with POP (plenty of power)

Excellent results—either in the top results or close to them. Fast CPU performance, memory and SSD make a huge difference when working on office documents, video editing, and app loading times. I am looking forward to some AI apps to see just how much difference it makes.

Yet again, Geekom redefines how much power you can cram into a mini-PC.

High performance for multitasking and Full HD gaming.
Energy efficiency for low power use with good thermal management.
Good connectivity – USB-C 4.0 does most things Thunderbolt 4 does
Compact for small spaces.
Silent operation except for load.

Geekom A8 rating 84/100

2024 Ratings use a pass mark of 70/100 to allow room to reward excellence and class-leading. Earlier reviews used 80/100 so deduct 10 points from them for reasonable parity.

Features: 85 – decent expansion opportunities and everything a laptop has except a screen and keyboard. It has a USB 4.0 instead of Thunderbolt 4, found on Intel devices. For the most part, it will perform similarly.
Value: 80 – represents good value – more so if you get it on special.
Performance: 90 is excellent for a mobile processor and does not throttle as it is mains powered. Just remember that it has three performance modes.
Ease of Use: 85 – Plug and Play. A three-year warranty is excellent.
Design: 80 – Nice new design but missing any expandability.