I tested the Geekom A7 Max - a mini PC built around a punchy platform, but the installed memory is an issue
SOURCE:TechRadar|BY: Mark Pickavance
The Geekom A7 Max is a high-quality NUC that needs some extra expenditure on memory to truly shine.
If this machine had an easily removable underside and it came with dual SODIMMs, I’d be scoring it a 4.5, not a 3.5. Given the lovely engineering of the enclosure, that Geekom didn’t realise a single memory module's impact on performance is worrying.
Pros
Powerful platform
Metal enclosure
Dual 2.5GbE LAN ports
Dual USB4 ports
Cons
-
Single memory SODIMM halves GPU performance
-
No second 2280 M.2 slot
-
Difficult internal access
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Geekom A7 Max: 30-second review
Geekom have an excellent reputation for the quality of their mini PC lineup, and the A7 Max is the new AMD flagship design.
It comes with 16GB of DDR5 memory that can be expanded to 64GB and a 1TB NVMe drive installed, making it adequately specified for running pre-installed Windows 11 Pro.
A strength of this design is port selection with dual 2.5GbE LAN, dual USB4 40gbps ports and dual HDMI outputs. That connectivity makes it perfect for use with docking stations for desktop use, and flexible in the embedded role.
I have only a few reservations about this design, one being that internal access isn’t straightforward and is frankly annoying. Once inside, it's disappointing to discover that there is no second 2280 M.2 slot for storage, so adding more internal drive space will require the cloning of the existing drive using an external USB4 caddie. And the final caveat is that Geekom delivered the 16GB of RAM in a single module, and not as 8GB x 2.
That final issue can be resolved by the purchaser, but adding another module will bump the price up, taking it from being reasonable to slightly expensive.
The missing M.2 slot probably scuppers it from being on our best mini PC selection, although if one slot is enough for you, and you can find a spare 16GB DDR5 SODIMM, this could be a good choice for those who want an efficient mini PC for coding and Office applications.
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That makes it a great deal for Americans, and less wonderful for Europeans. There is a 5% off deal currently happening, but how long that will last is unknown.
The price without the deal is matched by Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, if you want to trade 5% off for next-day delivery.
Other NUC hardware that uses the same platform includes the Minisforum Venus UM790 Pro, BOSGAME Mini Gaming PC M2 and Geekom AX7 Pro.
Of these, the cheapest is the Bosgame M2, which sells for $560.08/£416/€479.52 direct from the makers.
The Minisforum Venus UM790 Pro can be bought from Amazon.com for $695, but that’s a system with 32GB pre-installed. You can get that same system without any memory or storage for only $367.
The Geekom AX7 Pro from the same brand has officially been discontinued, but some stock may still be available from a less mainstream retailer.
These prices don’t make the A7 Max look the most cost-effective way to get this platform, but as ever, Geekom's availability is excellent.
Value: 3.5 / 5
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Geekom A7 Max: Specs
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Item
Spec
CPU:
AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS Processors( 8C/16T, up to 5.2GHz)
GPU:
AMD Radeon 780M, up to 2.8 GHz
RAM:
16GB DDR5-5600 (16GB x 1) expandable to 64GB
Storage:
1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4
Expansion:
N/A
Ports:
2x USB4 Type-C, 5x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 2.0, 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x 3.5mm Audio, SD Card Reader
Networking:
2x 2,5GbE, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
OS:
Windows 11 Pro (pre-installed)
Base Power:
35-54W
PSU:
19V 6.32A 120W
Dimensions:
135 x 132 x 46.9 mm
Geekom A7 Max: Design
Great build quality
Annoying internal access
Limited upgrades
The quality of Geekom’s build quality is exceptional, and right from the box the largely metal construction of the A7 Max is a delight.
With such a recent CPU, I was expecting a good port selection, and other than it lacking Oculink, this NUC has a comprehensive collection of external ports. These include five USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, dual USB4, dual 2.5GbE LAN ports, and two HDMI 2.0 video ports.
Combining the HDMI and the USB4, this system could drive four monitors, if that’s a facility you could use.
The USB4 40Gbps ports are perfect for external RAID enclosures or connecting to a docking station. An extra port on the side is a SD card reader, and there is a 3.5 mm audio jack on the front. My only complaint about the port arrangement is that neither of the USB4 is on the front, and four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the front is overkill, but I’m sure someone will love it.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
What I didn’t like at all was gaining internal access to see how straightforward upgrades might be. For starters, to remove the underside requires removing four rubber feet, because someone at Geekom hid the screws under them. But when inside, there is another metal shield protecting the memory and storage that requires a further four screws to be removed, before you can get to the RAM slots and the SSD.
And this is where my first major disappointments arrived with the A7 Max, the first of those being that this machine only has 16GB of RAM. To be clear, that’s a perfectly good amount of memory for a Windows 11 PC, but it should be in two 8GB modules, not one 16GB stick.
I’ll get into the implications of that poor choice later, but the other regret was that there is only a single M.2 2280 slot in this NUC, making it more challenging to add storage internally.
As I’ll talk about soon, those are both engineering decisions Geekom made, since the AMD platform this PC uses has more than enough PCIe lanes for another M.2 slot, and the memory issue is merely sourcing dual 8GB modules, not single 16GB ones.
While it's hard to fault the finish and style of this NUC enclosure, the issues here mostly stem from how hard it is to get inside. And that might not matter for most customers, if the makers hadn’t made a classic error with the installed memory, which will force most owners to do just that.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this mistake, looking at you GMKtec, but it's something all potential customers should be aware of.
Design: 3 / 5
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Geekom A7 Max: Hardware
AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
Unused PCIe lanes
USB4 does heavy lifting
The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS was released in mid-2023, being the flagship of the 7040 series that used the codename Phoenix. If you look at the specifications, this silicon looks practically identical to the Hawk Point Ryzen 9 8945HS in terms of cores, threads, clock speeds and cache.
However, there are a few differences in the AI components, which means that the Ryzen 9 7940HS is rated at 10 TOPS, whereas the Ryzen 9 8945HS is rated at 16 TOPS. For those developing AI models, that might be something useful to know, but for most users, it's unlikely to make any significant impact.
What they share is the Radeon 780M GPU, which is good enough for video decoding and light graphics use, but not something you would want to run CAD or games using.
It’s better than the Radeon Vega 7 and 8 integrated GPUs, but it doesn’t compare with anything discrete or even the latest Radeon 8060S integrated silicon.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The biggest issue I have with the hardware in the A7 Max is that it leaves plenty of PCIe lanes unused from the 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes at this processor's disposal. There should be enough for at least another M.2 Gen 4x4 slot, but that wasn’t built into this system.
It could be that the mainboard layout didn’t easily have space for the extra slot, but many other designs manage it, some using the same platform, so it's possible.
What Geekom did get right was that it provides ports for the two USB4 channels that are inherent to this CPU. With USB4, the internal limitations of a single M.2 SSD can be mitigated somewhat with external USB storage, although transfer speeds will be capped at about 4,000MB/s.
If you don’t use USB4 or have the devices to exploit it, then you are stuck having to expand the internal storage by cloning the existing drive to one with a larger capacity. The issue with doing that is how the cost of large SSDs is skyrocketing currently, making it an excessively costly exercise.
The cheapest way to get significant storage and decent performance is to invest in a conventional drive array with enough drives to get the transfer speeds up to 500MB/s or better.
Features: 3 / 5
Geekom A7 Max: Performance
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Mini PC
Header Cell - Column 1
Geekom A7 Max 16GB
Geekom A7 Max 32GB
CPU
Row 0 - Cell 1
AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
Cores/Threads
Row 1 - Cell 1
8C 16T
8C 16T
RAM
Row 2 - Cell 1
16GB DDR5 (1x16GB)
32GB DDR5 (2x16GB)
Storage
Row 3 - Cell 1
1TB NVMe
1TB NVMe
Graphics
Row 4 - Cell 1
Radeon 780M
Radeon 780M
3DMark
WildLife
10426
19499
Row 6 - Cell 0
FireStrike
4611
8005
Row 7 - Cell 0
TimeSpy
1903
3371
Row 8 - Cell 0
Steel Nom Lt.
1646
2855
CineBench24
Single
107
108
Row 10 - Cell 0
Multi
849
921
Row 11 - Cell 0
Ratio
7.97
8.52
GeekBench 6
Single
2638
2702
Row 13 - Cell 0
Multi
10163
13418
Row 14 - Cell 0
OpenCL
27512
33517
Row 15 - Cell 0
Vulkan
27137
40649
CrystalDisk
Read MB/s
6907
7092
Row 17 - Cell 0
Write MB/s
6171
6152
PCMark 10
Office
7900
8669
WEI
Row 19 - Cell 1
8
8.2
I did this once before with the GMKtec NucBox K1, I recall, where I compared a mini PC to itself.
If that sounds bonkers, it is slightly, but finding that Geekom had scuppered the performance of this machine by supplying it with a single SODIMM didn’t tell the whole story.
Therefore, after I completed my benchmarking tests, I borrowed two 16GB DDR5 modules from the Alliwava GH8 put them in the A7 Max, and started all over again.
The results you must admit are radically different, since running with just dual memory channels and not quad appears to reduce performance in some tests by up to 86%. Obviously, that’s the best case, and graphics test range from a 21.8% improvement in the GeekBench 6 OpenGL benchmark, to the 86% improvement in the 3DMark Wildlife bench.
The reason the graphics performance got such a significant boost was that with integrated graphics, the GPU shares main memory, and any bandwidth enhancements enable the GPU to run dramatically quicker.
But what I find more fascinating is that even on things that shouldn’t see much of an improvement, like the pure CPU benchmarks, there is a difference, even if it's smaller. Single-core processing was impacted in GeekBench, but hardly at all in the CineBench24, but multi-core operations did get a significant boost. That ranged from 8.5% in CineBench24 to 32% in Geekbench 6.
And, even those homogenised tests, like PCMark 10 and WEI, showed a difference, with a 10% improvement in PCMark.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
For those wondering, I’m pretty confident that what is revealed here is due to the increased bandwidth, not the extra memory. Had this system been delivered with two 8GB SODIMMs, still totalling 16GB, I believe it would produce similar numbers to my 32GB tests with dual 16GB modules.
As I remember, when I did something similar previously, the maker pointed out that one of the available SKUs had a dual configuration, leaving it up to the customer to decide which they wanted.
But sadly, Geekom can’t pull that particular rabbit out of the hat, because this is the only SKU they currently offer.
The obvious conclusion of these tests is that, despite it being exceptionally awkward to get inside, anyone buying one of these needs to open it up and add another module, or replace the single 16GB with two 8GB SODIMMs.
Those who don’t could be negating a small or large amount of their performance, depending on what they use that system for.
Performance: 4 / 5
Geekom A7 Max: Final verdict
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
I went through the full emotional gamut with this system because initially, it looked like a classy design with excellent engineering.
And then I discovered the hidden screws, and then the single SODIMM and the one M.2 slot, and my dove of peace was hit by an air-to-air missile.
If we can forget that it has unused PCIe lanes and no second M.2 slot, the rest of this system is decent, especially when you supply it with two memory modules, and not try to save a couple of dollars on the time for manufacturing to install it.
Geekom went to the extent of putting a great Gen 4 SSD in this machine and also used a branded Crucial DDR5 module, but that turned into a mistake.
For my own sanity, I priced the module, a Crucial (Micron) CT16G56C46S5, and incredibly, Crucial is asking £185.99 for those in the UK. They also have a note on their site saying that Micron has withdrawn from the retail market, and they will continue to ship products through February 2026.
Therefore, if you got this machine and wanted a matching module, it would cost plenty, and they won’t be around for long. Cheaper brands exist, but then you need to buy two modules, and even dual 8GB sticks can set you back at least $130. Given the spike in memory prices, all computers are about to get much more expensive in the coming year.
As for this NUC, Geekom needs to switch the memory brand rapidly and also use dual modules.
If they do that, and they can somehow maintain the price, then this is a useful system, but with a single stick of Micro-branded memory inside, it's not something I’d be recommending.
In defence of Geekom, if this review had been written a few months ago, when the extra modules for this system were much cheaper, then this might have been less of an issue. But with current pricing that is still rising, the era when affordable NUCs came with 32GB or even 16GB of RAM might be coming to an end.
Should I buy a Geekom A7 Max?
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Value
Not the best value option for this platform
3.5/5
Design
Poor internal access and limited upgrades
3/5
Features
Powerful CPU but unused PCIe lanes
4/5
Performance
Without a seond SODIMM this system is kneecapped
3.5/5
Overalls
Lovely case, but poor access and a single memory mistake
3.5/5
Mark is an expert on 3D printers, drones and phones. He also covers storage, including SSDs, NAS drives and portable hard drives. He started writing in 1986 and has contributed to MicroMart, PC Format, 3D World, among others.
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