The A9 Max: The Mini Gaming PC Your Mac Mini Setup Needed!

So then guys, as we all know, the Mac Mini is one of the best value Macs you can buy right now. Tiny little box, incredible power. Plug it into any monitor and off you go. But what if you want that same mini magic only for Windows? Or if you hate Windows, maybe something a little bit more flexible like Linux or let's say Steam OS. If you want a tiny mini PC underneath your TV to play some gaming on, as we all know, the Mac Mini can play games if you can find any of the ones that you love to actually play on it without doing any kind of jiggory pokery with say Crossover or any other kind of software out there. Well, this right here is the GeekCom A9 Max. And honestly, for what you're getting, it might be one of the best mini PCs available right now that doesn't run MacOss. Inside the box, you get the A9 Max itself, a surprisingly compact power supply, a HDMI cable, and also a stand also that you can apply to, say, the back of a monitor. And the moment that you pick this up, it feels premium. a solid metal chassis, great airflow around the sides, and the footprint small enough to disappear behind your monitor or sit it next to your Mac Mini without it looking out of place. And even having a look right here, you could even see it's around about the same size as a Mac Mini, too. And like I said, if you put say Steam OS on this, you could hide this, you know, underneath your TV and it would blend in very well. But let's talk about the specs of this. So, the A9 Max is running AMD's new Ryzen AI 9 HX370 with Zen 5 cores, an upgraded XDNA NPU, and the Radeon 890M integrated GPU. Now, I'm not going to do a versus kind of comparison fully on here, even though the thumbnail kind of might have shown you that, but my point is is that you get this one right here with the 14 core CPU inside, or up to a 14 core CPU and up to a 20 core GPU. And also, you get Apple's unified memory architecture. And this is really, really great, but it's a different kind of approach to what AMD is doing here. Both of these are extremely capable in their fields. On the Geekcom side though, everything is also upgradable. You can swap out the RAM, replace the SSD, expand the storage if you wanted to do that, or expand the RAM up to 128 GB in this if you wanted to do that. Whereas the Mac Mini, well, you have to buy everything on the actual go straight away. You cannot do really any kind of upgrades on this. And to be deadly honest, even with this Mac Mini with say the 12 core CPU inside of it and then also having say just 24 GB of RAM and then pushing us up to 2 terab, this is $2,000 for this. Whereas with this GeekCom here, we can have 2 terb of storage, 32 GB of RAM, and also that standard chip inside of this. Well, that's half that price. This is $1,000. And the great thing, what I also do love about this, if you did decide to stick with Windows 11, god help me. But the great thing is you don't get any kind of bloatware on this. And like I said, if you really wanted to, you could just wipe off Windows 11 and put Steam OS. But the point is, if you do stick with Windows 11, GeekCom don't put any bloatware on it. What's really, really awesome to have. But next of all, let's talk about ports because as you can see right here, this thing is stacked with them. We have two HDMI 2.1 ports for highresolution multi-dis setups. And in fact, you can actually plug in up to four 4K displays into this. was incredible. You also get two USB C ports with USB 4 offering 40 GB transfers, a display port alternative mode, and even direct eGPU support if you want to plug in an eGPU for this too, if you want to push out the graphics even further. We've also got USBA 3.2 Gem ports here on the back. We've also got one USBA 2.0 port and dual 2 GB Ethernet ports. But then on the front of this, we've also got four 3.2 USB ports here. So, USBA ports and also a 3.5 mm headphone jack too. And like I said, it does come with a power brick, but to be honest, it's not the biggest one in the world. It is even smaller than this actual say GeekCom PC. And this is quite small like I said compared to even say like to a Mac Mini. It's a very similar speed. Now, after this, then let's talk about performance, cuz this is where AMD's new integrated graphics starts to shine. Here in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p, with FSR completely off, you can get a comfortable over 30 frames pers on the A9 Max and switch on FSR 3.0 with frame generation and suddenly you're jumping over 90 frames per second. And this is still running on the integrated Radian 8090M inside this tiny chassis right here. And just to show you a comparison chart here, this is it compared to say the Mac Mini. Now, some of you have just skipped to this chart. I really encourage you just to rewind what I just said here about this actual mini geekcom PC cuz I know some of you guys will be doing that. And to be honest, those scores what you just saw there, well, that was running Windows 11. So if even if I installed say Steam OS on this, this is going to probably end up a little bit better there. So like I said, this is a great kind of mini PC what you could have for Windows or like I said, put Steam OS on it, have it on your PC desk, you know, next to your Mac mini or you can stick it underneath your TV. It's definitely really great for that. So with that, here's the conclusion, and I'm going to see how many of you people have completely skipped this part out in the comments cuz I'll refer you back to this point. And that is this. For productivity wise, I think the Mac Mini M4 Pro hands down wins here. And also fantastic value for productivity. Now, because Apple are not going too much into the gaming world, there is a few games. I'm going to admit that. I would strongly suggest getting one of these instead if you want to do kind of more gaming and things like that in just having a small factor build very similar to the likes of the Mac Mini. I know we've got like the Steam Machine coming out in the near future, but this is a great option too to have and it does look very similar and it looks awesome on your desk next to your Mac Mini or like I said, you could have this underneath your TV and put Steam OS on it and it would be absolutely incredible for your needs. And like I said, for the price, performance, and upgradability, for a thousand US dollars, this is definitely a great buy for this. But on that note then, what do you guys think? Like I said, I'm not doing a comparison. Which one is better here? I'm more giving you an alternative, something next to say your Mac Mini. Is this something that you would consider getting yourself and maybe putting say Steam OS on it or keeping it on Windows 11? Well, let me know in the comments below. And on that note as well guys, it's time to wrap up this video too. So if you have enjoyed watching it, please do press the like button. As always, you want to hear the latest Apple news, reviews, and comparisons, make sure you subscribe to the channel and also hit that notification bell, too. Until next time, guys. I'll see you really soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Looking for a powerful Mini PC that can sit next to your Mac Mini rather than replace it? The GEEKOM A9 Max might be the perfect companion desktop — especially if you want a compact gaming system or a flexible workstation that can run Windows, Linux or even SteamOS. This is NOT a VS Video. In this video I take a look at the A9 Max, powered by AMD’s new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Zen 5 CPU cores, a Radeon 890M iGPU and fast USB4 ports. It’s small, quiet, completely upgradable, and works brilliantly as a dedicated mini gaming PC, a Windows box for extra apps, or even a SteamOS console under your TV if you don’t want to stick with Windows 11. Alongside it, I also compare it to my Mac Mini M4 Pro — which is still my main desktop in the Apple ecosystem. These two machines don’t compete… they actually make a great pair. One handles all the macOS work, the other takes care of Windows gaming and flexibility. If you’ve been looking for a tiny system that complements a Mac setup, runs multiple displays, and even plays Cyberpunk 2077 at over 90 FPS with FSR + Frame Generation, the A9 Max might be exactly what you’re after. Check the GEEKOM A9 Max here 👇 Buy GEEKOM A9 Max AI 9 HX 370 here: UK Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FHWDVNN7?maas=maas_adg_F395FA61D8B726F8501A1B2E873ADF62_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas UK Official: https://www.geekom.co.uk/geekom-a9-max-mini-pc?mtm_campaign=YT_A9Max&mtm_kwd=MTT US Official; https://www.geekompc.com/geekom-a9-max-mini-pc?mtm_campaign=YT_A9Max&mtm_kwd=MTT Black Friday Promotion: https://www.geekom.co.uk/black-friday?mtm_campaign=YT_A9Max&mtm_kwd=M