Qualcomm Snapdragon X octa-core Arm SoC to power $600+ mainstream AI PCs with Copilot+ support

Qualcomm Snapragon X highlights

Qualcomm has unveiled the Snapdragon X octa-core Arm SoC at CES 2025 designed for mainstream AI PCs with Copilot+, which should start at $600 and up. This follows the announcements of the high-end 4.3GHz Snapdragon X Elite 12-core SoC in 2023, and the Snapdragon X Plus 10-/8-core processors last year, and should make AI PCs affordable to a wider range of consumers. The new Snapdragon X is clocked at up to 3.0 GHz, still features a 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU, supports NVMe storage, up to 64GB LPDDR5,  up to 2560 x 1440 built-in displays, up to three external displays at 4Kp60, and a single camera up to 36MP resolution. Systems based on the new octa-core processor can support WiFi 7, WiFi 6E, and/or 5G LTE connectivity. Qualcomm Snapdragon X (X1-26-100) specifications: CPU – Octa-core 64-bit Armv8 Oryon processor clocked at up to 3.0 GHz (2976 MHz) with 30MB cache GPU […]

Khadas Mind Maker Kit review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro on an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V AI mini PC

Khadas Mind Maker Kit Review Windows 11

I’ve already gone through the specifications and an unboxing of the “Khadas Mind 2 AI Maker Kit” powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V “Lunar Lake” processor delivering up to 115 TOPS of AI performance and equipped with 32GB LPDDR5X RAM and a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD in the first part of the review. I’ve now spent time with the mini PC/developer kit which is now simply called “Khadas Mind Maker Kit”, and I will report my experience with the Windows 11 Home 24H2 operating system in the second part of the review testing features, running benchmarks including an AI benchmark, evaluating networking and storage performance, testing the thermal design while under stress, and taking measurements for fan noise and power consumption. It looks like some AI features may finally be usable on Windows, but I’ll test that in a separate post since everything is new and Microsoft Copilot+, […]

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 24.04 on a low-cost mini PC

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite Ubuntu 24.04 review

We have already checked the hardware of the GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite mini PC in the first part of the review, before testing the low-cost Intel Processor N100 mini PC with its 8GB RAM and 256GB SATA SSD running Windows 11 Pro in detail in the second part. We’ve now had time to test the GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite with Ubuntu 24.04 in the third and final part of the review. We’ll test the features in Linux, run some benchmarks, evaluate storage and network performance, play some 4K and 8K videos in YouTube playback, perform a stress test to check its thermal design, and finally measure the mini PC’s fan noise and power consumption. We’ll also compare the results in Linux to the earlier GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC with the same CPU, but better specs and a higher price. A challenging Windows 11 / Ubuntu 24.04.1 dual boot installation […]

GEEKOM GT1 Mega Review – Part 2: An Intel Core Ultra 9 185H Meteor Lake “AI” mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro

GEEKOM GT1 Mega Windows 11 Pro Review

I’ve already gone through the specifications, an unboxing, and a teardown of the GEEKOM GT1 Mega AI mini PC powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H “Meteor Lake” processor with 32GB DDR5 RAM and a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD in the first part of the review. I’ve now had more time to play with the GEEKOM GT1 Mega, so I will report my experience with Windows 11 Pro operating system in the second part of the review testing features, running benchmarks including an AI benchmark, evaluating networking and storage performance, testing the thermal design while under stress, and taking measurements for fan noise and power consumption. Software overview and features testing Going to the System->About window in the Settings confirms we have a GT1-Mega mini PC powered by a 2.50 GHz (base frequency) Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor with 32GB of RAM running Windows 11 Pro 23H2 build […]

Maxtang T0-FP750 review – Part 3: An AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS mini PC tested with Ubuntu 24.04

Maxtang T0-FP750 mini PC Ubuntu 24.04 review

We’ve already checked out the hardware of the Maxtang T0-FP750 mini PC with an unboxing and a teardown in the first part of the review, before thoroughly testing the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS mini PC in Windows 11 Pro. The time has now come to report our experience with Ubuntu 24.04, and more exactly Ubuntu 24.04.1 “dot” release, with the Maxtang T0-FT750 mini PC in the final part of the review. This will include a software overview, feature tests, benchmarks, storage and USB performance evaluation, 2.5Gbps Ethernet and WiFi 6 network performance tests, a stress test to check for thermal and/or power throttling, and fan noise and power consumption measurements. We will also compare the results of the Maxtang T0-FP750 mini PC in Ubuntu 24.04 against the ones for the earlier Maxtang MTN-FP750 mini PC using AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS CPU which we tested with Ubuntu 22.04. Ubuntu 24.04 system […]

MILK-V Jupiter review – A RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard and PC tested with Ubuntu-based Bianbu OS

Milk-V Jupiter RISC-V computer review

In this review or preview of the the Shenzhen Milk-V Jupiter RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard, I’ll assemble the motherboard into a mini-ITX chassis, before installing the Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic-based Bianbu OS optimized for RISC-V platforms, and testing the device to see how much progress has been done on RISC-V since I tested the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC with Debian 12 about 18 months ago. In the first part of the review, we checked out the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX (Rockchip RK3588 Arm) and Jupiter (SpacemIT K1 RISC-V) mini-ITX motherboards with specifications and unboxing, and the Auriga 6-Bay NAS mini-ITX chassis used in this review. I planned to start with the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX, but due to logistics and technical issues, I went ahead testing the RISC-V motherboard first. Installing Bianbu OS to the Jupiter RISC-V motherboard The board does not come with storage, so no operating system is installed. So […]

GEEKOM AE7 Review – An AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS mini PC tested with Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04

GEEKOM AE7 mini PC review Windows 11

Today we’ll review the GEEKOM AE7 mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS octa-core processor with up to 32GB DDR5, a 1TB NVMe SSD, four 4K capable video outputs through HDMI and USB-C ports, 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E connectivity, and six USB ports for expansion. As its name implies the GEEKOM AE7 is an evolution of the earlier GEEKOM A7 with almost identical specifications that we reviewed with Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 earlier this year. So we won’t do our usual three-part review and instead focus on differences between the two Ryzen 9 7840HS mini PCs in terms of features, performance, and cooling ability in a shorter review that covers hardware, Windows 11 Pro, and Ubuntu 24.04 testing. GEEKOM AE7 specifications SoC – AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS 8-core/16-thread processor up to 4.0GHz with 16MB cache, AMD Radeon 780M Graphics; TDP: 35 to 54W System Memory – […]

Cincoze DS-1402 review: Part 3: Ubuntu 24.04 tested on an Intel Core i9-12900E embedded system

Cincoze DS-1402 Ubuntu 24.04 review

In part one of the Cincoze DS-1402 review, I checked out the hardware of the modular rugged computer before testing the Intel Core i9-12900E embedded computer with Windows 11 Pro in the second part, and I’ve now had time to test the Cincoze DS-1402 embedded system with Ubuntu 24.04. I’ve tested most features in Linux, ran some benchmarks, evaluated the gigabit Ethernet performance of some of the ten Ethernet ports, checked CPU temperature under a stress test with and without the fan, measured power consumption, and more. Ubuntu 24.04 system information I installed Ubuntu 24.04 with the official x86_64 ISO in dual boot configuration with Windows 11 Pro. The installation process was smooth, and I have nothing specific to report here. Going to the Settings->About window confirms we have a CINCOZE-DS-1400 system (DS-1402 is part of the DS-1400 family) with a 24-thread 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900E processor and 64GB […]

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