I tested the ACEMAGIC F3A mini PC for gaming and video editing – here’s why I’m impressed

ACEMAGIC F3A Mini PC: 30-second review

The ACEMAGIC F3A AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mini PC is one of a growing number of AI-enhanced PCs, and this one is really focused on the gaming market with high-powered specs that enable you to run the latest games. Obviously, with that type of specification, it also translates well to anyone working in the creative sector. If you are a creator looking to edit video or photo content, and you’re using applications such as Adobe Creative Cloud, then that AI enhancement is going to enable you to access the full range of tools.

What’s interesting about ACEMAGIC’s approach is that, whilst it incorporates the latest CPU and GPU technologies, they’ve also retained a few more traditional approaches such as using SODIMM RAM rather than LPDDR5X. This means that you can upgrade it from the 32 GB that my review sample featured to a massive 96 GB, although it does run at 5600 MHz rather than 7500 MHz or more which is common with LPDDR5X. This does mean that while you can fit in plenty of RAM, which is great for creatives, it won’t give you the speed boost of that newer technology.

Another design feature the ACEMAGIC F3A has is the coloured LED array around the whole edge of the casing. Whilst this is aesthetically pleasing, it can get a little bit annoying, and you need to dip into the BIOS in order to switch it off—again reflecting its gaming pedigree over more standard use.

This mini PC is on the larger side, enabling plenty of airflow for all that internal processing power. Even when I put it through its paces editing high-resolution 4K video from a Canon EOS R5 C, the internal temperature approached nothing close to thermal throttling, whilst all the time retaining just a very low hum of the internal fan helping to keep things cool.

That’s the main theme of the F3A. It seems to be a really nicely refined mini PC and at a relatively decent price. Although it is slightly more expensive than standard non-AI-enhanced machines, it’s well priced and lower than many of the best mini PCs with AI.

While it is fast and can run and process 3D graphics, high-resolution video, and of course be used as a general office machine, it manages to do that all with good balance. There are plenty of connection options, so if you need storage expansion and don’t want to pop in another M.2 drive, then there are two USB4 ports enabling you to connect up to mass storage. Then you have two LAN ports at the back—again, superb if you need to connect into a wired network—and there’s a decent array of more standard Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 x2 ports for keyboard, mouse, and most standard peripherals.

While the ACEMAGIC F3A is very much gaming focused, it is also a great option for anyone looking for a compact HD video editing machine with plenty of potential. The internal storage can be upgraded up to 4 TB, and with 96 GB of potential RAM, there’s plenty of scope and flexibility here.

ACEMAGIC F3A: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From £649 / $649
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Directly from Acemagic.com

Compared to most AI-enhanced mini PCs, the F3A comes in at a great price and is at the lower end of the AI mini PC market price range, mainly due to the fact that it utilises the older SODIMM style of RAM. This also means it offers plenty of upgrade options and is available as a bare-bones machine from $679, going up to a 64 GB RAM with 1TB SSD version for $899. It can be purchased directly through the acemagic.com website.

• Value: 5 / 5

ACEMAGIC F3A: Specs

CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
Graphics: AMD Radeon 890M
RAM: 32GB Dual 16GB DDR5 5600MHz Dual Channel
Storage: 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe3.0
Front Ports: 3.5mm audio, USB3.2 Gen 1×2, USB4 Type-C (40Gbps)
Rear Ports: DC, 3.5mm Audio, USB4 Type-C (40Gbps), DP2.0, HDMI2.1, LANx2, USB3.2 Gen1x2
Connectivity: 2xRJ45 Gigabit, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
Audio: 2×3.5mm audio
Camera: n/a
Size: 147mm×147mm×56mm
OS installed: Windows 11 Pro
Accessories: VESA Mount

ACEMAGIC F3A: Design

Compared with many mini PCs, the ACEMAGIC F3A is slightly larger, measuring in at 147 x 147 x 56 mm. So, it may take up a little more space on your worksurface, it’s still not as large as a standard desktop machine. Weight wise it comes in at a respectable 1,008 g and with that size and weight comes a feeling of real quality. It is all plastic, so it doesn’t have the premium metal finish that many mini PCs now offer, but instead it’s all really good high-quality plastic, and feels solid enough.

On the front, there’s a good number of ports—great if you have this in an office and want to connect peripherals or even headphones. Along the front, you have your power button, 3.5 mm audio socket, two USB Type-A ports (both of which are 3.2 Gen 1 x2), and a USB4 port. This is 40 Gbps and is ideal for connecting ultra-fast SSD storage. Rotated to the back, you have the DC in, another 3.5 mm audio, another USB4 (again 40 Gbps), an HDMI 2.1, a DisplayPort 2.0, two RJ45 gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 x2 Type-A ports, and a Kensington security lock if you need to secure it to a desk.

When it comes to venting for the cooling system, there are slots down each side and on the base of the machine, enabling plenty of airflow. The four rubber feet help lift the base of the machine off the worksurface as well maintain a grip, allowing airflow under the machine as well as around the sides and top. When you take a look at the top, you’ll notice that the top plate is actually slightly elevated, again enabling airflow into the machine from the top as well as the side. This can be removed to gain access to the dual channel slots and dual M.2 slots.

To gain access to the upgrade potential, first you need to undo the single screw at the back of the machine and push the slider switch over to the right. This enables you to lift off the top plate. Under that, you’ll see the fan, which is held in place by four screws. Once this is removed and the connector disconnected, you can then reveal the dual channel RAM and the M.2 slots—all really nicely laid out and exceptionally easy to access and upgrade.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

ACEMAGIC F3A: Features

The big feature here is, of course, that this mini PC features AI enhancements through the inclusion of an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX CPU and an AMD 890M GPU with 16 cores and the ability to support up to a single 8K monitor at 60 Hz. The small machine features four different display connections, which enables monitors in total attached to the HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.0, and the two USB4 ports—making it ideal for gaming, administration, and of course many creative uses.

As part of the AI hardware within this mini PC is third-generation AMD Ryzen AI with XDNA2 architecture supplying up to 50 TOPS. The processing and graphics power is supported by DDR5 dual channel RAM. This runs at 5600 MT/s, and you can put in up to 96 GB. When it comes to storage, the review sample arrived with one terabyte of M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 3.0 1TB, and there are two slots with support for up to 4 TB. One of the features that will really appeal to many working in the creative sector is the fact that there are also two USB4 ports that support up to 40 Gbps.

When it comes to connectivity, features include two RJ45 LAN ports, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.1.

One of the things with these new AI mini PCs is that they do generate quite a bit of heat, and to combat this, ACEMAGIC has ensured that it has a powerful cooling system built in. This uses a combination of fans and copper tubes throughout the various areas and components of the machine so that, even when everything is under a high load and high-demand applications are in use, it should retain a workable temperature and avoid any thermal throttling—which can be an issue with many of these smaller high-powered machines.

One of the interesting additions to this mini PC is hardware-level security protection. It comes equipped with a TPM 2.0 security module, which essentially offers hardware-level encryption protection for your data and privacy. This is something we don’t commonly see in many PCs of this type, so if you are working on sensitive data, then this could be a great option for you and your business.

Alongside the machine comes the usual VESA mount, so if you don’t want this machine to be sat on your desk, you can wall-mount it or mount it behind a monitor.

• Features: 4.5 / 5

ACEMAGIC F3A: Performance

Starting out with the F3A and running through the usual Windows 11 Pro setup process was all fast and smooth enough. Once it loaded into the main OS, I found, as I have done with some of the other AI PCs, that it just needs to be left for a few moments to settle in. If you start doing anything too quickly, it all seems a bit slow, but leave it for five minutes on that first boot and it gives the machine a little time to breathe.

Once I’d done a restart and made sure the machine was fully up to date, I started to download and install applications and a few games. What I did notice was that the speed of the Wi-Fi 6 connection seemed exceptionally fast, with gigabytes of data downloading quickly on this mini PC. Whilst most mini PCs now feature Wi-Fi 6, the actual speed of that connection can vary greatly—possibly due to the size of the machine. It does seem to be a good, robust connection on offer here.

Once all applications were downloaded, I started out by looking at Microsoft Office, specifically Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and as you’d expect for a machine of this era, the overall performance was excellent. After the real-world tests, the benchmark results supported this, with a Geekbench CPU score of 2975 and a PCMark overall of 6798—both good, high scores. The Windows Experience Index came in at 8.2, which is just about average for this type of machine. So overall, when it comes to working on any office admin tasks, including browsing the internet, this machine will give you superb performance all round.

Taking things up a notch and using this machine for the creative sector, I tested Photoshop and Lightroom Classic. It was more than capable of opening multiple images shot on a Sony A7 IV and batch-enhancing those pictures before exporting them. Even when switching over to a new high-resolution camera—the Canon EOS R5—the images were easily handled, and even when launching Adobe Bridge, thumbnail rendering was quick. So if you’re looking at this machine for any type of image enhancement in pretty much any photo application, it would be more than capable of handling it. One of the great things here is that with the data coming in through the CrystalDiskMark benchmark test, with read/write speeds of 4774/4424 respectively, you know you’ll be able to open and save files quickly.

Pushing the creative abilities further into 4K and Full HD video editing, I started to see the limits of this machine. When looking at Full HD footage within Premiere Pro, there were absolutely no issues handling the footage—you can apply effects, enhance, create edits, and produce content of decent length with little to no slowdown. The whole process was smooth, and the machine was more than capable of handling that style of editing.

As the resolution increased to 4K, it remained fine for short edits, especially when not doing heavy grading or using log format footage. However, when using log or RAW 4K, the machine did visibly start to struggle and push the CPU and GPU to their limits. While edits were still possible up to around 15 minutes in length, the process became quite slow. Still, the 3DMark GPU score of 39,208 shows decent GPU performance and reinforces its ability to handle HD and some 4K editing, as long as you’re not doing heavy colour grading.

One of the main focuses for this mini PC is, of course, gaming—especially with the lighting array around the edge, which I did find annoying. Loading up two games in particular—Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Cyberpunk 2077—both played surprisingly well. Benchmark tests showed a Fire Strike graphics score of 9244, with Night Raid reporting back at 21,591. The Time Spy overall score came in at 3696. When checking the quality settings in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I realised I had been playing at low quality settings. While the visuals looked great, some depth of field effects and animations had been reduced. Likewise, for Cyberpunk 2077, the resolution needed to be dropped to 720p for the smoothest gameplay—especially when driving vehicles. Again, low settings were needed, but the games were still perfectly playable and looked good regardless.

Having run the performance tests, the benchmark results showed really good mid-to-high-end performance, especially for a mini PC. Using the Microsoft Office suite, I found that the performance was excellent, and I would highly recommend this for future-proofing workflows and having a machine that handles office work with ease. Likewise, with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, the performance was exceptionally good, with smooth edits and easy handling of multiple large files.

For video editing, if you’re thinking about social media edits in CapCut, then this is perfectly suitable—able to handle HD footage without issue in CapCut, Premiere Pro, and even DaVinci Resolve. If you take things up a notch to 4K video editing, the machine does start to struggle. It’s still able to handle basic edits with relative ease, but as soon as you apply serious grading or effects, you will see the system pushed to its limits.

When it comes to gaming, this is really where the machine is focused. It’s able to handle all the latest games with relative ease, although once you dive into them, all of the settings need to be reduced to low quality. Still, you get good, smooth gameplay—something many other mini PCs would be incapable of.

Overall, when it comes to performance, the F3A does an exceptionally good job all round, making it a great machine for office tasks, a bit of multimedia work, and of course, gaming.

• Performance: 4.5 / 5

ACEMAGIC F3A: Final verdict

The F3A is a well balanced machines that offers a competitive set of features at a relatively low price point. Whilst it is still at the upper end of most mini PCs when it comes to cost, compared with other AI PCs, it is actually a lot lower—and that’s mostly down to the fact that it utilises older SODIMM-style RAM rather than the new LPDDR5X RAM, which is soldered to the board. Whilst the RAM used in the F3A does enable you to upgrade, it is considerably slower the LPDDR5X, so like-for-like, even with mini PCs using a similar chipset, this machine is just marginally slower.

But then you have the ability to upgrade that RAM at a later date which you can’t with those other machines, and with the dual-slot and M.2 options inside as well, you can really bulk up this machine to a massive 4 TB of storage and 96 GB of RAM—when your budget allows.

I also really like the fact that there are so many connectivity options. You’ve got plenty of USB Type-A and Type-C ports dotted around the body, alongside two 3.5 mm audio jacks, so you can either plug it into your audio system or quickly plug in a pair of headphones into the front. It’s really well adapted to different scenarios and uses, and that I really like.

While there is definitely a focus on gaming with that LED array—which is annoying—the power and design, especially the quality of the cooling, make it a great option for anyone looking at multimedia production and wanting a small and compact machine. On all fronts, the F3A is a great all-round machine, relatively well priced and packing a decent feature set with some amount of future-proofing.

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