GEEKOM A6 Mini PC Review - AMD Ryzen 7 power in a small package

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

GEEKOM has sent over a Mini PC for me to look at; this time, it's the A6, which is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H, which has 8 cores and 16 threads. This 45-watt CPU means business in terms of serious multitasking. For the A6's iGPU power, it's the Radeon 680M, which is armed with RDNA 2.0 to take on any graphical tasks that may come its way. Also equipped with 32GB of SO-DIMM DDR5 RAM running in dual channel mode and clocked at 4800 M/T, the A6 can be upgraded to 64GB in total capacity.

A quick look at the GEEKOM A6 Mini PC

GEEKOM has used an NVME x4 Gen 4 SSD for storage, while a 2.5" SATA slot remains unoccupied. For networking, a single 2.5Gbps RJ45 jack is located on the back. If wireless is more your fancy, an M.2 Wi-Fi 6E card, including Bluetooth 5.2, is pre-installed. The entire A6 measures only 112.4 x 112.4 x 37mm, which is impressive for stuffing that much hardware in such a small space.

The A6 is regularly priced at $499, which is a bit more on the higher side of the market. Why don't we look at this tiny package and take it for a spin?

Packaging

GEEKOM packages the A6 in a standard white box with the product image on the outside.

The backside of the white cardboard box has the Product Name, Regulatory model, CPU, DDR5, and SSD, and, of course, it was made in China. The internal specifications of the EQ14 are:

• AMD Ryzen 7 6800H CPU (8C/16T) and AMD Radeon 680m GPU (768 Cores / 48 Shaders / 32 ROPS)
• 32GB SO-DIMM DDR5-4800 M/T Slot (2x16GB)
• 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (2TB Max Capacity)
• 2.4G & 5G Dual-band WiFi 6E (AW-XB591NF)
• 2.5Gbps LAN Port
• Two USB Type-C ports with DisplayPort - 1 40Gbps and 1 10Gbps
• Bluetooth 5.2
• 112.4x112.4x37mm

When you open the A6 from its cardboard coffin, you can see it is wrapped in plastic to prevent debris from scratching it while in transit.

We can better look at that plastic by removing the A6 from the box.

Also included in the bottom of the box is a 120w (19V) AC adapter, VESA mounting plate, four mounting screws, an HDMI cable, and lastly, the user guide.

I found this lovely note from GEEKOM inside the sleeve with the user guide. Nice touch.

Outside the GEEKOM A6 Mini PC

With all the packaging aside, we can now see the nice finish on the A6. It's almost bronzy but mostly silver, with the GEEKOM branding in the center.

Moving to the front side of the A6, we are greeted with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port with support for Power Delivery and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port. A combo 3.5mm headset/mic jack is between the USB ports and the circular power button.

The right side of the A6 is pretty uneventful, with several small holes acting as ventilation for the hardware inside.

On the left-hand side, continuing with the small holes for ventilation, we also spot a full-size SD card reader, which is very handy for content creators.

Moving around to the rear of the A6, first, we have the DC 19V barrel power connector followed up with a 40 Gbps USB 4 Gen 3 Type-C port. Below the USB 4 Type-C port is a HDMI 2.0 connection. A 2.5G Intel 10/100/1000/2500 Mbps RJ45 jack is nestled in the center. To the right of the RJ45 jack are a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 2.0 Type-A ports. The other left side is an HDMI 2.0 port and a 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port with Power Delivery and Displayport.

Flipping the A6 up so we can view the underbelly, we see the serial number, MAC ID, and the same information we found on the back of the white box. A QR code in the lower left is also present to help customers find GEEKOM's Customer Support more easily.

Inside the GEEKOM A6 Mini PC

Opening up the A6 is pretty easy; just remove the rubber feet, and a small-headed Phillips screw is underneath. Repeat that process three additional times. Then, the plastic bottom should fall right off without much hassle. The A6 can also be VESA mounted with the supplied VESA mounting plate provided in the box.

We can now see the 2.5" HDD/SSD SATA mounting plate with the bottom plastic removed and out of the way.

Getting to the good stuff, the A6 under the hood has the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H CPU paired with the Radeon 680M. A 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVME SSD from Kingston supports the CPU and GPU and two DDR5-4800 M/T sticks of RAM from Crucial. It's nice to see quality name-brand parts being used. Another M.2 slot is located in the center of the motherboard. However, its primary function is SATA, an M.2 to SATA adapter that must be used for a full 2.5" SSD or HDD.

Lastly, the M.2 Wi-Fi 6E wireless card with Bluetooth 5.2 is from MediaTek and sports the MT7922A22M or AW-XB591NF model.

BIOS/Benchmarks

The GEEKOM A6 BIOS configuration is text-based from American Megatrends. Users can change the date and time at the top of the main page, showing hardware information. Chipset, CPU, and storage configuration options are available under the advanced menu. In addition to the conventional security and boot tabs, a hardware monitor is another option.

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a renowned rendering benchmark both Intel and AMD use to highlight their newest platforms during product unveilings. It features two main tests: a single-core test that utilizes one thread (1T) and a multi-threaded test that takes advantage of all the CPU's available threads (nT).

The Geekbench 6 benchmark yielded a score of 2133 for single-core performance and 10547 for multi-core performance.

The Geekbench 6 benchmark yielded a score of 2133 for the single-core performance and 10547 for the multi-core performance.

The Radeon 680 M's OpenCL performance was measured using the Geekbench Windows AVX2 benchmark, which scored 29253.

The overall score for PCMark was 6264, with the essential workload achieving the highest performance.

The CPU Profile provided a single-thread score of 891, which gradually increased to 6358 when all available threads were utilized.

The A6's AMD Ryzen 7 6800H and Radeon 680m were exclusively tested with the Time Spy gaming workload, resulting in a score of 2664 for the A6.

The A6's Kingston PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVME SSD's storage performance was pretty slow for PC game content; however, when moving raw files, the speed increased to about 1.6gbs. This Kingston NVME PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD scored 1909 and had an average bandwidth of 330.32 MB/s.

Final Thoughts

The review for the A6 Mini PC from GEEKOM is pretty impressive, considering how much power can be stuffed in such a small package. Could this end most people's larger, full-size desktop computers? It's possible that most consumers would be pleased with the overall performance of the A6. Having only a footprint of 4 inches by 4 inches and being less than 2 inches tall, you hardly even notice the A6 on your desk, which is not the same thing I can say about a full-fledged desktop PC.

Getting to the A6's pricing, the MSRP is currently $499, but it can be had for $449 on sale, making it an excellent deal for anyone who needs a bit more power than what other Mini PCs offer.