Today I got a Retro Mini-PC from AYANEO – this AM01. To be honest, I was curious to see what kind of Mini-PC would be like from a manufacturer who specializes in Windows handheld gaming devices. First of all, the version I got is powered by Ryzen7 5700U 32G memory and 1TB SSD.

Unbox

The colors on the packaging is quite retro, and the text and graphics have been designed in a pixel style. When I opened the package, I must say that the unique retro design really caught my eye.

Other than the PC itself, there is also a set of pixel art style stickers, that can be attached to any place you want to decorate. In addition to that, there is a power adapter with wide input and AC power adapters of various sizes.

Surprisingly, it also comes with a disassembly tool and accessories for installing the hard disk. The box is so full of accessories, it’s like AYANEO would even love to have an engineer in the box!

Design

The AYANEO AM01 is a real eye-catcher. The appearance is a clear homage to the Macintosh, the legendary PC launched by Apple in 1984. Although the size is completely different from the real Macintosh, many details are still very much the same, such as the location of the Macintosh floppy drive. However, the floppy drive portal is cleverly designed as an on/off switch. AYANEO’s logo has been magnetized and can work with the magneitc decorative pieces included in the package, to create your own look with the stickers also. All I can say is that AYANEO has done a great job in design.

The outer case is made of plastic, and the color is a kind of oxidized plastic beige, which can also be called “APPLE beige”. Personally, I like this color very much, it’s classic and good looking. I have to say, it’s definitely the most eye-catching device on the desk. Meanwhile, there is an extensive amount of hollowing on the case, in cooling tests, the AM01 did perform very well.

My only complaint about the appearance is the layout, when I place the unit horizontally on my desk, I can’t see the delicate front. If I put it up vertically, the cables brake the harmony, I am torn, but let me know in the comment section if you have the perfect solution.

I/O

In terms of IO ports, there’s a Type-C 5Gbps connector on the front and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the rear gets a full complement of ports, which are more than enough for everyday use.

Performance

Ryzen7 5700U is a chip that many people are familiar with, Zen3 architecture, 8 Cores and 16 Threads, 8MB L3 cache. It can provide strong performance. I first ran the CPUZ test and the scores were very close to the i7-10700 which also has 8 cores,good performance.

in the more stressful Cinebench 2024, the Ryzen7 5700U still performed well.

In the 10 minute stress test, this chip stayed at 35W all along, running at 3.3Ghz, temperatures at around 80°C, The CPU still managed to run at around 3Ghz during the combined CPU and GPU stress test, nice performance.

The 5700U is equipped with a Vega8 core graphics card, and in time spy tests this Vega8 performance is roughly comparable to the MX350, and if you run games with low graphics requirements, the Vega8 still performs well.

Overall, the Ryzen7 5700U is great for everyday use, providing great CPU performance, and decent GPU performance.

In terms of noise, the fan barely spins during daily use, and during stress tests there is noise that can be noticed, but it is very minimal.

I must say that the rest of the configuration is also very good, the 32GB dual channel memory provides a very good read/write performance, while the 32GB memory is also enough to deal with all kinds of complex tasks.

In terms of storage, it uses a Lexar NM620 1T SSD, I also did some tests on this hard drive. Although this is a PCIE3.0 hard disk, surprisingly it almost reached the upper limit of PCIE3.0 in terms of read-and-write performance, very good. At the same time, I tested the large files read and write performance, it is also very good.

Game

I first tested this PC in Genshin Impact and it achieved 45fps at 1080p medium graphics preset, it’s worth noting that I did the test in the much more stressful Fontaine area.

In Counterstrike 2, with the graphics set at 1080p minimum, the average fps was around 100 in death match.In a casual game like Civilization, there’s no doubt that it runs at 60fps all along, a very good gaming experience.

So if you’re not a heavy user, this GPU performance is more than enough to be your gaming PC, and as for the CPU, you can trust the 8 ZEN3 cores.

Software

Like all AYANEO handheld gaming devices, the AM01 comes with AYAspace, which makes it very easy to set up the TDP, fan speed and manage my games, etc. It also allows you to monitor performance and personalize your game. Performance monitoring and personalized settings are also possible. For a mini-PC device, AYAspace is clearly a plus.

Conclusion

Overall, the AYANEO Retro AM01 mini-PC has an impressive look, and very nice little design on other things that allows for easy DIY. If you are attracted by the great look, you will also be pleasantly surprised by the good CPU performance.

Check out the unique Retro MINI PC here.

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