Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470 AI mini PC review: A powerful and stylish mini desktop computer, but upgrade the RAM first to unlock its full potential

Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470: 30-second review

The Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470 looks and feels very different from most mini PCs, with the premium quality brushed metal exterior giving it a similar look to the Mac Mini. This size and, for that matter, weight does make it larger and heavier than many of the Mini PC’s that I’ve looked at recently.

However, it’s still far smaller than your average desktop tower. At 1.5kg with a 195 x 195mm footprint, it may be larger than most, but at the same time, that additional size incorporates a 135W power supply internally. The slightly larger size also means that there’s plenty of cooling even when the machine is under load, and the ports on the back are well spread out. The machine has two position options: either flat or with the stand, vertical.

The main casing is full metal, with a clean, modern finish, similar to a Mac Mini, although larger with the accent black plastic of the base. It’s one of the more stylish of the best mini PCs I've tested. Unlike the MS-02 Ultra, also from Minisforum, which is more traditionally workstation in form, the AI X1 Pro-470 has a distinctly consumer aesthetic that will have greater appeal.

In reality, like the Mac mini, it wouldn’t look out of place on a designer's desk. Everything about the build, from the metal finish to the port spacing on the rear and the fingerprint sensor and CoPilot button, all reflect how this machine has been aimed at office workers over creatives and developers.

In use, the fingerprint sensor provides fast access to the Windows Hello login and essentially works in the same way as a fingerprint sensor on a laptop. While this feature might seem like a gimmick, if you have one on your laptop, you’ll be aware of how useful it is not only for logging into the machine but also for authorisation in all sorts of usage.

The other dedicated button is for Copilot and, with a single press, gives you direct access to Windows AI functions across any open application. In practice, the integration feels well thought out and genuinely works rather than something added on. As ever, once activated and using Copilot in an application such as Excel, I was able to build and explain formulas, and when switching to Word, it could help draft and refine lesson plans.

Powering the small machine is an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, which is a 12-core Zen 5 processor with 86 TOPS of combined AI performance, which puts it at the higher end of AI ability for this style of machine. In use, the machine was able to handle the full range of creative and productivity applications without too many issues.

Microsoft Office, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve all ran well. As usual, I connected the machine up to two 4K BenQ monitors, and again, while the GPU is integrated, there’s more than enough power there to handle these two monitors for creative work in Photoshop.

Pushing the system a little more and gaming at 1080p with mid-range settings in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Dirt Rally ran well, but you could see where plugging in an eGPU to the OCuLink port would be a benefit.

One issue that I did have was that video timeline rendering did seem a little slower than expected, and this could be down to the 32GB review configuration. On opening up the machine I noted that there was only a single RAM module running in single-channel mode.

This may have resulted in a constraint on the memory bandwidth in GPU-intensive tasks. Upgrading to a dual-channel configuration would instantly make a difference, as would having 64GB of RAM as standard. To install RAM or additional SSDs requires accessing the innards through the base, unscrewing the fan assembly, and carefully manoeuvring the cooling hardware to access the SODIMM slots. It is manageable with patience, but it should not be a requirement on a machine at this price point.

Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From $1179 / £1079
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Directly from Minisforum or Amazon

The Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470 is available direct from the Minisforum website in the US, where at the time of review the barebones model has a discounted starting price of $759 (was $949). Fully-specced configurations are also available at Amazon.com and Newegg.

In the UK, it's priced at £695 from Minisforum, and a full-spec model for £1229.99 at Amazon.co.uk.

So options then. There's a barebones configuration, a 32GB RAM model with 1TB SSD (reviewed here), a 64GB RAM with 1TB SSD variant, and a 96GB with 2TB SSD. The machine carries a three-year warranty from delivery.

• Value: 4.5 / 5

Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470: Specs

CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470
GPU: AMD Radeon 890M
AI Performance: 86 TOPS total (55 TOPS NPU)
Memory: 32GB DDR5 SODIMM, up to 128GB DDR5-5600
Storage: 3x M.2 2280 NVMe: SSD0/SSD1 PCIe 4.0 x4 (6,700-7,300 MB/s); SSD2 PCIe 4.0 x1 (1,500-1,900 MB/s); up to 12TB total
Front I/O: 1x USB4 (40Gbps, PD Out 15W); 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A; 3.5mm combo jack; Copilot button; 2x DMIC
Rear I/O: 1x USB4 (40Gbps, PD In 100W / PD Out 15W); 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL (8K@60Hz); 1x DP 2.0 (8K@60Hz); 2x 2.5GbE RJ45; 1x OCuLink (PCIe 4.0 x4); 1x USB 2.0; Kensington lock
Top: Fingerprint sensor (Windows Hello)
Side: SD card slot
Wireless: Wi-Fi 7 (Intel BE200); Bluetooth 5.4
Audio: 2x built-in speakers; dual DMIC with AI noise reduction; 3.5mm combo jack
Power: Built-in 135W adapter (19V / 7.1A)
Display output: Up to 4 simultaneous displays (HDMI + DP + 2x USB4)
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Dimensions: 195 x 195 x 47.5mm
Weight: 1.5kg

Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470: Design

The AI X1 Pro-470 takes on a slightly different form factor than the majority of mini PCs that I’ve looked at recently. Firstly, it’s larger and heavier, but still smaller than a conventional tower. It has a reasonable footprint of 195 x 195 x 47.5mm and weighs in at 1.5kg.

This additional size and weight can be attributed to the fact that the power supply is built into 135W, and the cooling system, which is also sizable within the unit, has been designed to sustain 54W processor loads. While the machine is larger than most Mini PCs, unlike its smaller competitors, there’s only a single power cable to deal with and no power adapter brick, which does make things far neater when it comes to cabling.

The exterior build quality is excellent, with the mixed use of materials giving it a premium look and feel. The main top and sides are metal, while the base is a high-quality plastic that feels good and solid. When it comes to positioning the machine works equally well in a flat desktop orientation or vertical, using the stand included in the box. Putting the machine on its side takes up considerably less desk space and is a good option if desk space is limited.

As the machine itself is slightly larger, there’s more space for ports at the back and front. The front panel offers a USB4 port, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port, a 3.5mm combo jack, a Copilot button, and dual DMIC microphones, which should suit most office workers who need to plug in an assortment of accessories, including headphones and USB keys.

On a machine at this level, I do think it’s a shame that there’s only a single USB4 port on the front, and these days, with the majority of accessories now adopting USB-C, it would have seemed natural to go for two USB-C rather than two USB-A, especially when there’s only one USB-A at the back.

The rear panel is again well spec’d, with dual 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.0, USB4, OCuLink, and USB 2.0 and due to the machine size, there’s plenty of space for access.

Around the casing, there are two other notable direct access features: the fingerprint sensor and the Copilot button. On the side of the machine, there’s an SD card slot, which is a great addition, especially for photographers, although the transition to CFexpress Type-A and B in higher-end cameras means its usefulness will vary depending on your kit.

Finally, on the inside of the machine, there’s plenty of upgrade potential for RAM and storage. Access is gained through the base, and then the module that contains the fan. The process is easy, but you do have to be careful about the wires as you move parts around.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

Minisforum X1 Pro-470: Features

The AI X1 Pro-470 is one of a new breed of AI-enhanced mini PCs, and at its heart is the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor. What differentiates it from previous generations is a dedicated 55 TOPS NPU built into the chip, which, combined with the CPU and GPU, delivers a total of 86 TOPS of AI performance, enabling Copilot and other AI tasks to run locally rather than in the cloud.

TOPS for context stands for Tera Operations Per Second, and this is a measure of how many trillion mathematical operations a processor can perform every second. In the context of AI, these operations are the calculations involved in running machine learning models, such as language for Copilot, analysing images, reducing noise in audio, or running a local AI inference, such as Llama. The more TOPS a chip has, the faster it can handle those tasks.

The Copilot button provides instant access to AI assistance in any application, and that accessibility just makes it easier to access. In Excel, tapping the button enables you to ask Copilot to build or explain a calculation, and if you’re looking for data, then it’s there to assist with a more detailed explanation than a simple search. Likewise, in word, using it to draft, restructure, or check lesson plans worked smoothly with the processing handled in part locally.

Pushing the AI potential and using a variety of Adobe applications, the AI-powered features, including Photoshop's generative expand and Premiere Pro's clip extension tools, all utilised local processing rather than cloud, which made them noticeably more responsive, especially when using a mobile tethered connection.

Moving away from the AI and the storage potential of this small machine is impressive, with a triple M.2 storage configuration. Two of the three slots run at full PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds of 6,700–7,300 MB/s, and the third at PCIe 4.0 x1. During the test, I installed a Samsung 4TB NVMe alongside the supplied 1TB SSD, bringing total internal storage to 5 TB. Maxing out all slots would give you 12TB of SSD storage, 8 at top speed and the other at a slightly lesser speed, but still more than adequate for running Windows. If you really want a maximum speed boost, then those two PCIe 4.0 slots can be configured in a soft RAID to enable maximum speed and redundancy.

Another interesting feature is the OCuLink port, which is becoming more common on these higher-end Mini PCs, especially those with AI potential. This connection enables you to link to an external GPU, helping to enhance gaming, video rendering, and, in the case of this machine, AI acceleration.

Wired networking is handled by the dual 2.5 GbE ports with Wi-Fi 7. During the test, I connected primarily via Wi-Fi with an Eero 6 router, which does not fully support Wi-Fi 7 but delivered consistent speeds, and via a direct wired connection to a UGREEN NAS for archive file access. The dual LAN ports are once again useful for a studio or home lab setup where a direct NAS connection alongside a network uplink is handy.

On the display front, all that power means that there’s support for up to four simultaneous 4K displays across HDMI, DP, and the two USB4 ports.

• Features: 5 / 5

Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470: Performance

The Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470 is a great-looking machine, and despite its slightly larger size compared to most Mini PC’s, it still fitted neatly on my desktop, taking up a small amount of room. Getting started was simple enough, with a run-through of the final stages of the Windows 11 setup process before installing all the benchmarking applications. During setup, the wireless connection speed was instantly impressive, and general operation, as well as copying and installing files, worked quickly. The machine felt responsive.

As I started to delve into the test, it was obvious that the machine performed well across the board, even on graphic tasks, with the integrated GPU enabling relatively decent gameplay. The benchmarks showed good results, with a PCMark overall score of 8,099 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 11,480, highlighting that this small machine was well equipped for everyday tasks and some quite heavy processing. The Geekbench GPU score of 30,222 really just highlights how powerful the Radeon 890M is, even without an external GPU.

For the real world tests I started with the Microsoft Office suit of applications, which all loaded quickly Running Word, Excel, and PowerPoint simultaneously while transferring images between Photoshop and PowerPoint produced no noticeable lag, and the Copilot integration across all three applications was well handled, and now its the language that I use to instruct how CoPilot interacts that effects how well it’s able to carry out tasks. The Windows Experience Index of 8.1 backs up the general use, and I was a little surprised that this score wasn’t higher, given how quickly I was able to navigate Windows.

After looking at productivity, I moved on to creative applications, including Lightroom Classic, which managed large raw files from both the Canon EOS R5 C and the Hasselblad X2D II 100C without difficulty, and Photoshop handled complex layered files and the generative expand AI tool well.

Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve both performed well for rough cuts and colour grading of 4K footage from the EOS R5 C, though timeline rendering showed some slowdown, which could have been due to the single-channel RAM configuration. With only one SODIMM installed, the Radeon 890M is working with roughly half the memory bandwidth it would have in a dual-channel setup, and GPU-dependent rendering is why I think there is a slight slowdown. Upgrading to a matched pair of memory modules should have an impact on video render speeds.

While editing video the speed at which files were loaded and saved seemed almost instantaneous, and checking the SSD performance highlighted why. CrystalDiskMark returned read speeds of 6,154 MB/s and write speeds of 5,301 MB/s, comfortably within the PCIe 4.0 x4 specification range.

With the additional Samsung 4TB drive installed, the combined 5TB of internal fast storage provided much more headroom for importing large raw files directly from an SD card to the internal SSD. This transfer process was quick, and having project files, media, and archive storage all housed internally, without external drives, kept my physical desktop a little cleaner.

To really test the integrated GPU, I ran Indiana Jones, The Great Circle, and Dirt Rally; each ran well, though Indiana Jones took quite a while to load initially. Once it had the gameplay at 1080p, it was surprisingly good, with the Radeon 890M handling the graphics without issue. Adding an external GPU via OCuLink would just let you boost the resolution while keeping smooth gameplay.

While gaming and video editing, the system did come under load, and the fan noise remained low, quieter than most mini PCs. Whether you’re looking for a powerful machine for the office, for content creation, use with 3D printers or as a homelab to test out what’s possible with the latest AI models the AI X1 Pro proved to be a powerful solution throughout the duration of this test.

• Performance: 4.5 / 5

Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470: Final verdict

The Minisforum AI X1 Pro-470 is a compact AI workstation that takes full advantage of the technology as it currently stands and provides a physical quick-access shortcut to CoPilot.

The entire feature set from AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, Copilot integration, triple M.2 storage, dual 2.5GbE networking, OCuLink expansion, and almost full-metal build is genuinely impressive, and the machine handles everything from daily office work to creative video editing and mid-weight gaming.

The sleek and stylish design gives plenty of room for ports, making it easy to connect multiple accessories, and the fact that there’s plenty of upgrade potential with the RAM, SSDs, and eGPU means this machine has a lot of potential.

If you’re looking for a powerful machine for the office, then the 32GB version will more than suffice for most work, especially Microsoft Office and all the applications in the suite. It will also handle mid-weight video and photography editing in Photoshop and Premiere Pro without any issues.

While Premiere Pro and DaVinci both run fine, I couldn’t help but feel a little more RAM would have boosted timeline renders and the performance for some of the more advanced effects; however, even with this base configuration of my review machine, it still has massive potential.

Considering the price, the quality of the build and processing inside, this all comes in at a well-balanced price, making it a great option for power users in the office, content creators, home lab enthusiasts and anyone dabbling in the world of localised AI.

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