Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT review

Quite how AMD classes the Ryzen 9 7945HX as a mobile chip is beyond me. The clue's in that HX-suffix: H stands for 'high-performance mobile APU', and X stands for 'Extreme', which broadly signifies higher clock speeds and greater power consumption than your common-or-garden Ryzen APU.

What this translates to is 16 cores, 32 execution-threads and a max turbo clock speed of 5.4GHz. AMD rates this little hellion to run at 45-75 W, but apparently, that isn't quite enough for Minisforum. Set to Performance Mode, the AtomMan G7 PT shovels a hefty 85 W into the 7945HX. 

Does that make sense in a mini-PC? Those sorts of figures would send any self-respecting laptop manufacturer running for the hills, wailing «kill the TDP! Kill it or WE'RE ALL DOOOOMED!» But the AtomMan G7 PT is a desktop machine, so mobility isn't a factor. It has its own 300 W external PSU, there's no battery to run down, and the chip gets Minisforum's proprietary, NASA-grade cooling to keep it in line. So why the hell not, I guess? 

Running in tandem is AMD's Radeon RX 7600M XT, a discrete RDNA3 mobile GPU most commonly found improving frame rates in notebooks and portable eGPU boxes such as the OneXGPU. It features 2048 shader units, 32 CUs, an aggregated memory bus of 128-bit, clocks up to 2600 MHz and comes with 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM. It's a solid step-up from its predecessor, the RX 6600M, and a major leap from the Radeon 780M iGPU, which many APU-driven micro-machines lean on for gaming. However, it can't quite match the wellie of the mobile RTX 4070, which we see powering other offerings in this discrete-GPU-packing branch of the mini-PC family tree.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX
GPU: Radeon RX 7600M XT
Memory: Up to 96 GB DDR5 5200MHz SODIMM
Storage:  1x PCIe 5 port, 1x PCIe 4 port
Wireless: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.3
I/O: front: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 3.5mm combo jack
I/O rear: 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 2.0, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2.5G LAN, 3.5mm