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The AYANEO AM02 is a small desktop computer with a design that’s heavily inspired by vintage Nintendo game consoles. But under the hood it’s a fully modern computer – Ian was impressed with the performance of the model he reviewed earlier this year, if a bit underwhelmed by the door flap that covers the front ports.
Now AYANEO has given the AM02 a modest update: while the mini PC had originally shipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS “Phoenix” processor, the new model comes with a Ryzen 7 8845HS “Hawk Point” processor. Prices start at $529 for the new AYANEO AM02 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, or $629 for a 32GB/1TB model.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 8845HS processor is nearly identical to the older Ryzen 7 7840HS in most respects: they’re both 35-54 watt processors with 8 Zen 4 CPU cores with support for frequencies up to 5.1 GHz, 24MB of total cache, and Radeon 780M graphics with 12 RDNA 3 GPU cores.
The only significant differences? The Ryzen 7 7840HS is a slightly older chip and it has a neural processing unit with up to 10 TOPS of performance, while the Ryzen 7 8845HS has a 16 TOPS NPU. It’s also a year newer, which means it could theoretically be supported for a little longer.
Otherwise, the new AYANEO AM02 is pretty much the same as the original: it has two SODIMM slots for DDR5-5600 memory, an M.2 2280 slot for PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage, and an M.2 2230 slot populated by an Intel AX210 wireless card with support for WiFI 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
The computer supports up to three displays (thanks to HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, and USB4 ports), has two Ethernet ports (one 2.5 GbE and one Gigabit), a 3.5mm audio jack, and a set of USB ports that includes:
- 1 x USB4 Type-C (40 Gbps)
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10 Gbps)
- 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A (480 Mbps)
- 1 x USB Type-C (for power only)
While the USB 2.0 ports might not seem all that useful, it’s worth noting that these should be more than fast enough to handle a pair of wired game controllers if you plan to actually use this console-like mini PC for gaming. The built-in graphics should be good enough to handle many older titles, and the USB4 port opens the option of connecting an external graphics dock if you need more performance.
via @AYANEO_