Geekom AS 6 review: better than a Mac mini?

Mini PCs have long been high on convenience but short on power. The Geekom AS 6 might just reset your expectations about what compact PCs are capable of – and make you think twice if you were set on buying a Mac mini.

The Geekom AS 6 is a tiny little box. Measuring 120 x 130 x 58mm, you barely notice it on a desk. It has a much smaller footprint than a Mac mini (197 x 197mm), although it’s significantly taller (the Mac mini is 36mm high). The AS 6 is small enough to sit unobtrusively on the base of my 27in monitor, effectively taking up no extra desk space, and you can even attach it to the back of some screens with the supplied VESA mount.

Packing power

Despite its diminutive size, this PC is not short on power. The AS 6 comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor, capable of bursting at up to 4.9GHz. There’s no dedicated graphics chip, but the integrated AMD Radeon 680M graphics are more than capable of gaming, as I’ll come to shortly.

Geekom supplies 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM along with a 1TB M.2 SSD. There’s a Wi-Fi 6E chip inside the box, which is very handy if you’ve upgraded your router to Wi-Fi 6E or 7 and can take advantage of the extra bandwidth on offer.

It’s not short of connectivity, either. On the back and front combined there are two USB-C 4 ports that can support 8K displays at up to 60Hz. There’s a further five USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, two HDMI ports (supporting 4K at 60Hz), a DisplayPort (supporting 5K at 60Hz), as well a 2.5Gbit Ethernet port. There’s an audio jack on the front too, not to mention Kensington Lock and padlock rings to stop thieves wandering off with the box in office environments.

In short, it’s a powerful little package, more than capable of flawlessly running the supplied Windows 11 Pro (yes, Pro!) and day-to-day office applications. However, what surprised me most about this little box of tricks was its ability to run demanding games at a decent lick, too.

Gaming performance

Mini PCs with integrated graphics aren’t renowned for their gaming performance, but the AS 6 is definitely worth considering for the casual gamer.

In Fortnite, it was just about capable of playing at 4K resolution. With graphics set to high quality, it ran at around 40 frames per second (fps). That’s not super-smooth, but playable. Dropping down to Full HD resolution made it flawlessly smooth.

It was a similar story in Rocket League. The action felt a little crunchy and stuttering at 4K on high quality settings, once again delivering an average of around 40fps. Dropping to ‘performance’ graphics settings increased the frame rate to a smoother 50fps, while climbing down to Full HD with performance settings ironed out all of the bumps with a consistent 60fps or more.

I ran other titles, such as Death Stranding and Cities Skylines, smoothly at 4K resolution.

Don’t get me wrong: this PC is by no means the pinnacle of gaming performance. If you’re buying a PC predominantly for gaming, look elsewhere. But if you’re after a general purpose PC that’s also capable of gaming, the AS 6 won’t let you down, especially at Full HD resolution.

It’s not going to whine with excessive fan noise while you’re playing, either. The AS 6 is fitted with fans and they are audible, but even after extended 3D gaming sessions they didn’t get much above a gentle whirr. You certainly won’t hear them whilst wearing headphones.

Geekom AS 6 verdict

What about the price? There’s certainly no complaints there. The Ryzen 9 version of the Geekom AS 6 that I reviewed here normally costs £709, but it’s £689 for a limited time when you use the code 20geekAS6 at the checkout.

If you’re in the US, you can buy the Geekom AS 6 here for $749, reduced to $709 with code as640a. 

It’s hard to do a direct comparison with the Mac mini because the architectures are so different, but even the mid-range M2 mini with 8GB of unified memory and 512GB of storage costs £849. The AS 6 has 32GB of memory and 1TB of storage, so it’s more than punching its weight. It’s also worth pointing out it’s easy to get into the case and replace the SSD or memory at a later date.

The biggest question marks are over the company itself. Geekom is part of a Chinese firm called Shenzhen Jiteng Network Technology. Support is only offered via email or WhatsApp, and even then only Monday-Friday during office hours in Central Standard Time. The AS6 comes with a one-year return-to-base warranty, and the company says it will bear the costs of shipping.

There’s no doubt that buying from Geekom is riskier than buying from companies such as Apple, Dell or Lenovo, who have round-the-clock support and the pedigree of huge multinational corporations behind them. But if you’re prepared to take the chance, the Geekom AS 6 is a bargain in a tiny box.