MACO

The AOOSTAR MACO R9 8945HS is $640ish on Amazon. I have one and it runs well sofar. Its also offered in the R7 6850H, the R7 8845HS and the newer R7 255. The 6850H is 24gig LDDR not upgradable. https://www.amazon.com/AOOSTAR-4-70Ghz-6400Mhz-Supports-Quad-Screen/dp/B0G698213Z The rest use DDR5 sodimm

I would say it boils down to if gaming is more important than features. A lower watt CPU should also run much cooler. That 125H was hitting 90C. The GMKtek does look like its built well. I went with a Ryzen 9 Pro 8945HS. Has 2 nvme slots plus Oculink and will smoke the Intel in games. Cost is about

dell/lenovo/hp are most reliable mini/micro pcs since they are backed large companies and easier to find support ( parts/software/compatibility ) , they are long livers if you are looking for specs regardless of the brand or partsminisforum/ aoostar / gmktec / geekom / beelink i have some lil exprie

The absolute best option I've seen for a starter server is the Aoostar Maco R7. You get a decent 8c/16t CPU with an ok integrated GPU, plus 24GB of LPDDR5 6400, all for only $339 USD on Amazon right now. That CPU with that zippy RAM will outperform anything else near that price point. But you'll nee

You can get a Ryzen 7 Pro 8845HS with 32gig and a TB drive for $600 on Amazon. It has all the bells and whistles and nearly as fast as the R9 8945HS. Ive got the MACO with the R9 and its a screamer. https://www.amazon.com/AOOSTAR-PRO-8845HS-OCULINK-HDMI2-1/dp/B0G7DCC2XY?th=1

Light gaming you can do with integrated 780M graphics or higher. Most of those types of Minis will have a spot for an additional NVME drive and USB4. You can pretty much cover all those bases with a Ryzen 7 8845HS or Ryzen 9 8945HS. They often include Oculink too for external video upgrades later. M

It would help to know which i7 8th Gen/8GB RAM laptop you're coming from. As an example a Dell Latitude 7400 with 8GB of RAM can struggle with Windows in 2026, sometimes single (one stick), making additional memory and new thermal grease the next step. Alternately the old NVMe can be moved to a dono

Here's what I've seen recently. Someone in town was looking at N305/N355 minis for a home lab but was concerned about real world performance. Ended up with a $300 (at the time) 24GB Aoostar MACO PRO 6850H from Amazon. Had dual Intel i226V NIC, Intel AX200 Wi-Fi, USB4 and up to 3x Gen4x4 NVMe SSDs us

No need for the "thanks"! I taught everything from elementary school to college students over the years. Patience is a required virtue 😉 To be honest I know people who are who are using the M8 PRO 6650H for console emulation that are completely satisfied! The Radeon 660M are lighter than the 780M bu

The safe bet is the AI 370 as far as CPU goes. It also has about the best iGPU compared to the others. 890M with 16 cores. That should easily stomp the 780M in the 8845 and 8945 CPUs. A R9 or R7 can be found for a couple $100 less than the AI 370 though. If gaming on a iGPU is high on the list, i wo