Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti review: I’m in love

There’s something mesmerizing about mini PCs, so the moment I laid eyes on the AtomMan G7 Ti, I knew I had to try it. It’s one of the smallest gaming desktops I’ve tested, though it’s still packing hardware as powerful as the 24-core Core i9-14900HX and an RTX 4070. And despite the fact that it uses mobile components and barely takes up any space, the AtomMan G7 Ti can go toe-to-toe with the best desktop PCs.

I was impressed with the AtomMan G7 Ti as I unboxed it and started testing, and I assumed that it would come in at some insane price given its tiny size. But that’s why the AtomMan G7 Ti stands out so much. Despite how fast, and how small, it is, the PC is much cheaper than the competition.

Specs and pricing

The AtomMan G7 Ti is truly built like a laptop — just without the screen. Internally, you’re getting all mobile components, including Nvidia’s mobile RTX 4070 with its full power of 140 watts, and either the 16-core Core i7-14650HX or 24-core Core i9-14900HX. You can buy the latter variant preconfigured with 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD, which is the configuration I reviewed. Both models are available as bare-bones kits as well, allowing you to bring your own memory and storage.

I love the bare-bones option. It gives you ways to save some money, and we rarely see mini PCs focused on gaming come with a bare-bones approach. The price here is really good, too. Even fully configured, you’ll spend $1,439 on the Core i9 configuration, and if you opt for the bare-bones option, the price drops to $1,279. The Core i7 configuration is even more attractive considering it still comes with the RTX 4070 — for that, you’ll spend $1,159.

Even the cheapest configuration of the Asus ROG NUC 970 will run you $1,629, and that’s with an RTX 4060. If you want an RTX 4070 in that machine, you’ll spend over $2,000. A full-sized desktop at $1,000 like the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i comes with an RTX 4060, too. It’s a desktop RTX 4060, granted, but Minisforum isn’t charging a big premium for the petite size of the AtomMan G7 Ti.

I would recommend going with the bare-bones option, particularly the Core i7 configuration. The PC accepts two standard 2280 M.2 SSDs, which are extremely easy to install, as well as dual-channel DDR5 (only SODIMM modules). Despite the small form factor, I was even able to cram the Samsung 990 Pro SSD with a heat sink into the machine. Check your clearance, of course, but the AtomMan G7 Ti can pack quite a punch with the hardware you can pack inside.

Surprising build quality (with one problem)

I’m shocked at how well the AtomMan G7 Ti is built. It looks sleek, no doubt, with the tall silver frame mirroring something like a P layStation5 — at just about a third of the size, and way more powerful. To my surprise, the machine uses a mostly aluminum construction. The two silver plates that occupy the sides are both sheets of metal, one of which is perforated with a dust filter for airflow, and the other of which is solid outside of an etched AtomMan logo.

It’s clean, and probably the closest I’ve seen to a desktop that achieves a design that could pass for a game console. Unlike a game console, however, I wouldn’t be scared if the AtomMan G7 Ti fell over. I’m not going to throw it around, but it’s quite a robust little machine. You’re getting a shocking level of quality considering the price.

Outside of the two silver plates, you get a small strip of RGB lighting on the front, organized into several small arrows in a line. With the bundled AtomMan Control Center software, you have a few options for changing the RGB effects, from a solid color to a flash of different colors to a smooth gradient. You can’t go much further, but that’s fine. I left the RGB off most of the time anyway, which is thankfully an option.

The PC itself can’t stand up on its own, so you’ll need to use the included stand to prop it up vertically. There’s no horizontal option, which is definitely a missed opportunity — though, I suppose you could just plop it down on the side that isn’t used for airflow. The stand slots into two large plastic bumps on the bottom of the PC, and it’s secured with two screws. You’re not going to accidently pop off the stand here like you might with a PS5.

Under the stand, you’ll find three screws securing the side panel to the PC. After popping out those screws, you can take off the side panel to get at the internals, but it’s secured pretty tightly even without the screws. I had to use a plastic pry pick on one end to get it unlatched and slide it down to take off the side panel.

Externally, the ports are split among the front and back, with two USB-A ports on the front, along with the SD card reader and 3.5mm headphone jack. More importantly, there’s a dedicated button to switch between the Game and Desktop power modes. I love this inclusion. You can switch the power and fan mode directly from the front of the PC without digging through the bundled software.

Things aren’t as rosy around the back. You only get a single USB-A and USB-C port, along with your HDMI 2.1 output and Ethernet jack. This machine is truly built like a laptop, and that means you don’t have a ton of USB ports to play around with.

Crazy fast

The AtomMan G7 Ti is fast — shockingly fast. You expect compromises with mobile components, and you’ll often see a lower-class desktop GPU outperform a higher-class mobile one, but that’s not the case here. The AtomMan G7 Ti is not only faster than its mini PC counterparts; it’s even faster than some full-sized desktops.

Starting with the CPU, nothing in this class of processor even comes close. The Core i9-14900HX is ahead in the AtomManc G7 Ti in both synthetic benchmarks like Cinebench and real applications like Photoshop and Premiere Pro. That shouldn’t come as a surprise when you have 24 cores at your disposal, but the important thing here is that the AtomMan G7 Ti is able to deliver all of that power without thermal throttling.

The results above are for the Game mode, and toggling to the Desktop mode cuts performance quite a bit. However, even in the Game mode, you have room to go higher. In the AtomMan Control Center app, you have a mode that runs the fans at full speed, which is great if you need to crunch some heavy workloads on the mammoth CPU.

The CPU is impressive, but the AtomMan G7 Ti doesn’t make any compromises when it comes to gaming, either. Starting with 3DMark, it scored the highest result in both Time Spy and the ray tracing-based Port Royal out of my test suite. That’s not too surprising given the more powerful CPU available in the AtomMan G7 Ti.

It’s in real games where the AtomMan G7 Ti really stands out. Even against the watercooled Tecno Megamini G1, the AtomMan G7 Ti is leagues ahead. Perhaps even more impressive is that the AtomMan G7 Ti is able to outpace a full desktop RTX 4060 in the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i. It’s important to remember that the RTX 4070 in this PC is a mobile component, and it shouldn’t be as far ahead of the desktop RTX 4060 as it is.

No bloat

Windows 11 comes preinstalled on the AtomMan G7 Ti, but it’s a fairly stock installation. There’s basically no bloatware here. You get the AtomMan Control Center app, but had I not known about the app before, I probably would’ve never found it. It’s not enabled as a startup app, nor pinned to your taskbar.

With the dedicated button to toggle between your power modes, you never have to interact with the Control Center app. There are a few settings in there, such as the ability to disable the Windows key and adjust the RGB lighting on the front, but I never found myself getting into the app. Compared to a mainstream PC like the Alienware Aurora R16, the lack of bloat here is very refreshing.

How I used the Minisforum AtomMan G7 Ti

You can use the AtomMan G7 Ti as a full PC, and it’s totally capable of delivering that experience. Given the form factor, however, I thought of it more as a console during my review, and it plays that role very well. Credit for that goes to the form factor, but also to the dedicated button for toggling between your fan modes. If you set up the PC right, you’ll never have to go on the Windows desktop if you want to use the AtomMac G7 Ti as some type of Steam Machine.

I used EmuDeck to launch straight into Steam Big Picture mode, along with a few tweaks to Windows to suppress background processes — I wrote about that process in my ReSpec column recently. I’ve been using this setup to play through Metaphor: Refantazio on my couch, and it’s fantastic. There’s no problem using this as a full-fledged gaming PC, but the AtomMan G7 Ti is seriously impressive if you treat it like a supercharged console.

I love this PC

The AtomMan G7 Ti is incredible. I wish it had more ports, and it can get a bit loud with the fans at full speed, but those are the only solid critiques I can muster after spending several weeks with the PC. It’s very small, packed with performance, and it comes in much cheaper than other mini gaming PCs on the market. The fact that you can save even more money with the bare-bones kit is just the cherry on top.

There aren’t a ton of viable alternatives here. Of course, you have the aforementioned Asus ROG NUC 970 if you want to spend more money, or you can pick up an older mini PC like the Intel NUC 11 Extreme if you want to add your own graphics card, but Minisforum has something very compelling with the AtomMan G7 Ti. It’s extremely fast, surprisingly small, and capable of just about any game or app you can throw at it.