I Thought Three Mini PCs Used This Chip — Searching Differently Found Fourteen, Including a NAS and a Laptop

2026年8月18日

7 August 2026

Someone told me there must be other machines with the same chip in them.

The GMKtec EVO-X2 I use (from here on, EVO-X2) is a mini PC built around AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395. Its 128GB of memory is shared between the CPU and the GPU, which is what lets large models run. As for other machines with that chip, I knew of exactly three: the EVO-X2, its successor the EVO-X3, and MINISFORUM’s MS-S1 Max.

I was about to write an article called “three manufacturers now, then."

I changed how I searched and looked again. There are fourteen. And not all of them are mini PCs. (Prices are Japanese retail as of August 2026; ¥1,000 is roughly $6.70.)

How many machines carry this chip?

Here is what I found on 6–7 August 2026.

The three I knew about were a fifth of the total.

And a NAS and a laptop carrying it was something I had not considered at all. I had been comparing mini PC boxes against each other, so those never entered the frame.

Which search turned up what?

I tried three ways of searching. That part may be useful in itself, so here it is.

The first search never surfaced the NAS or the laptops, because I had put the words “mini PC" into it. Put the shape you are expecting into the search terms and everything else disappears.

Treat “one search did not find it" as “it does not exist" and this is what happens. That is what I had been doing.

What can you actually buy?

Checked on Amazon on 7 August 2026, on the Japanese store. Prices are from that day.

The GEEKOM A9 Mega, Framework Desktop and ASRock AI BOX-A395 did not come up on Amazon. That does not mean they are unavailable, only that this particular search did not find them.

Among 128GB mini PCs with the same chip, the spread runs from ¥588,000 to ¥1,178,000. Double.

The cheap ones were cheap for a reason

HP also had one in the ¥390,000 range, under the same Z2 Mini G1a name. Looking inside, it was not the same machine.

Different chip, and a quarter of the memory. Listed under the same product name, but a different machine. For local AI, 32GB will not hold a large model.

The HP models also carry “PRO" in the chip name. Those are business variants with different management features and warranty terms. A similar name does not guarantee the same silicon.

The MINISFORUM NAS has 64GB, too. “Carries the same chip" and “can be used the same way" are separate claims.

Does a form factor other than a mini PC make sense?

This was the most interesting part of the whole exercise.

The NAS form had never occurred to me. Do local AI and the model files swell into hundreds of gigabytes; mine came to 742GB in models alone. Putting the storage and the compute in one box is a reasonable thing to do.

The laptop and tablet difference is more obvious: you can take it out of the house. A machine with 128GB of memory, in a bag. For work where the data must not leave, that counts.

From here on I am working from manufacturers’ specifications and published information. The only place a number I measured myself appears is the EVO-X2 section.

What is the price actually buying?

The same chip spans ¥588,000 to ¥1,178,000. Here is what the money seems to go on.

• Memory and storage. This must be the biggest. 128GB or 64GB, 1TB of SSD or 2TB
• Power and cooling. Putting a 140W-class chip in a small box and cooling it quietly is not trivial
• Networking. Beelink’s GTR9 Pro has two 10-gigabit ports
• Warranty and support. HP’s and ASUS’s business models differ here
• Whether an OS is included. Some come with Windows 11 Pro and some do not

With the same chip, compute speed should not vary much. The price difference is attached to everything except the chip.

Where does my EVO-X2 sit in all this?

Of the fourteen, the EVO-X2 is the only one I have actually used.

After nearly a year with it, the whole value of this chip comes down to having 128GB available as one continuous pool. Buy a graphics card and the model size you can load is set by that card’s memory. A 24GB card gives you 24GB. This chip gives you up to 128GB in one piece.

In exchange, it does not match a graphics card on speed, because the memory bandwidth is different. “Runs something large" and “runs fast" are separate things, and this chip leans towards the former.

One more thing came into play after I chose it: you can bring a graphics card out through the M.2 slot. I add an external GPU over OCuLink. Whether a machine allows that varies by model. On a laptop or tablet it is essentially out of the question.

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What to check if you are buying

• Read the chip name to the end. “Ryzen AI MAX PRO 385" and “Ryzen AI Max+ 395" are different parts. The same product name can hide a different machine
• Check the memory. There are 32GB and 64GB variants. For large models you want 128GB
• Decide the shape first. Mini PC or NAS if it stays put, laptop or tablet if it travels. You cannot change this later
• Check what you can add later. If you plan on an external GPU, is there a free M.2 slot, and can you bring OCuLink out of it
• Know the price range. The same 128GB runs from ¥588,000 to ¥1,178,000. Decide what you are paying for before you choose

In summary

What was going to be “three manufacturers now" turned into fourteen machines. I had been looking only at mini PCs, so neither the NAS nor the laptops were in view.

I had no idea the same chip was being sold in such different shapes. The first thing to settle is not the manufacturer but the form factor. On the desk, on a shelf, or in a bag. Once that is decided, what remains narrows considerably.

Then read the chip name and the memory capacity all the way to the end. There really are listings sharing a product name with different parts inside.

Products covered here

The mini PC shape.

The NAS shape, for a shelf and the whole house.

If it needs to travel.

An honest set of caveats

The measured figures here are from the EVO-X2. The other thirteen machines I put together from manufacturer specifications and published information. No measured speeds are given for them.

Fourteen is what I could confirm. Reporting puts the market at around 30 models, and the other sixteen I have not verified. The handhelds from Chinese manufacturers are not counted either, since I could not tell whether they are purchasable here.

Prices were checked on Amazon on 7 August 2026, on the Japanese store, and product availability differs by country, so the links point to equivalent products. The same product varies by listing and moves over time. For the GEEKOM, Framework and ASRock machines this search found no Japanese sales channel: read that as “not found", not “not available."