Over the past few months, I have been exploring the world of Mini PCs. Something portable that packs enough computing power to do daily tasks and perhaps even some light gaming. With AMD now leading much of the APU realm, their 5000G series has been particularly interesting. During the wave of hyper pricing on GPUs, APUs were also a possible solution towards building a reasonable system without a dedicated GPU at HD resolution. I followed this for a few months with the intention to perhaps build my own miniature rig or even a prebuilt system. Something small enough to take with me if I needed to move around with a minimal footprint.
In short, APUs are very capable and open the doors to minimal computing devices that can deliver substantial computing power. Small factor form computing has never been better and I can’t say that it comes at an unreasonable price either. It’s very affordable. Yet with the GPU market falling back to normality, people may not be as interested in APUs as before but these chips will continue to be at forefront of portable computing. I feel products that achieve great performance at aggressive pricing like Steam Deck will continue to trickle in and a wider market may be looking for the great performance and battery saving down the line.
Laptops will also be pushed to new boundaries with lightweight designs achieving even better performance/thermals. It’s a great time in mobile computing and will continue to offer alternatives for customers who want value and certain performance. With the semiconductor shortage still looming, chip availability is seeing steady improvement. I think its wise to continue to pay close attention to the APU market and see what the next release brings.
