AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Strix Halo Mini PC Breaks Cover And It's Up For Preorder

In our review of ASUS' brilliant ROG Flow z13 tablet, we noted that while we were fond of the system, we were keen to see what Strix Halo could really do when out from under the yoke of the 80W power limit imposed by ASUS. If you feel the same, you're probably excited about HP's Z2 Mini workstation, but that's not the only mini-PC on the way with a sixteen-core Zen 5 CPU. Check out this GMKtec EVO-X2 machine packing the same part inside.

Of course, we've already reported on the Framework desktop that similarly sports the same CPU. That machine is considerably larger, though, coming in around the same size as a Mini-ITX desktop system. The GMKtec EVO-X2 isn't exactly NUC-sized; while we don't have official dimensions for it, judging by the images it appears to be approximately 7.5 x 2.4 inches (19 x 6cm), qualifying it for "mini-PC" status, but only just so.


Despite that, it has quite a bit of connectivity. On the front you get a USB4 port, a pair of USB-A 5Gbps ports, a combo audio jack, and an SD card reader, and then on the back you have an RJ-45 jack, three more USB-A ports (one 5 Gbps and two 2.0s), another USB4 port, an HDMI connector, and a DisplayPort jack. There's also a second combo audio jack, presumably for a speaker out, and a barrel plug for power. We expect that, like the ROG Flow z13, this system can power four monitors using both display connections and both USB4 ports. (That's counting the internal display on the ROG Flow.)

There are also a couple of interesting buttons on the EVO-X2, including a button clearly labeled FAN-MODE that we assume allows you to trade noise for lower temperatures, and then a "P-MODE" button that presumably cycles through a variety of power presets for the machine. It's interesting to see that function as a physical button if that's actually what it does, though.


GMKtec hasn't shared many configuration details for the EVO-X2, but we know that at least initially it will be available with the 16-core Ryzen AI MAX+ 395, a 2TB NVMe SSD, and a whopping 128GB of LPDDR5X memory, the top configuration. That makes this mighty mini a powerhouse for AI, and GMKtec echoes AMD's claim that it can beat an RTX 4090 by a factor of 2.2x in LLM inferencing using Meta's Llama-3 model. It's not that it has more horsepower than an RTX 4090, but the GPU simply doesn't have enough RAM for the whole Llama 3 model, while the Strix Halo part is able to assign up to 96GB of system RAM to the GPU, four times that of the RTX 4090.

The only wrinkle is the price: ¥14999, or about $2,040. You can save $30 off the price if you do a survey on GMKtec's site, putting it right around the same price point as the Framework desktop. Should you buy one? Well, GMKtec is actually going to start taking pre-orders from the US and Europe on April 15th, so head over to the company's site if you're keen to pick up an EVO-X2 (and tell us how it goes!).