Black November Week 2: Six mini PCs on sale, from R6,999

One of the fastest-growing segments in the desktop computing space is that of the Mini PC. Apple pioneered the market for it in 2005 with the PowerPC G4 Mac Mini, and has continued making them ever since. Intel answered in 2012 with their NUC series, shrinking it further and adding more powerful chips. Suddenly, this market had competition.

Mini PCs tend to come in varying shapes and sizes these days, but the original Intel spec called for a little box measuring no more than four by four inches square (roughly 10cm by 10cm). Some could have extra height added to fit in a 2.5" hard drive or SSD.

Most designs today stick to similar dimensions, and they fit neatly into almost any space. You can have it on the desk, mounted under the desk, stuck on to the back of the monitor, or hidden away in a drawer or closet.

Their versatility comes from their small size and efficient use of space for cooling, as well being low maintenance. You can have a Mini PC just for basic productivity at work, as a tiny server in the corner of the office or home to run local services, or a monster AI-Ready workstation that can run state of the art local AI models.

Are you interested in upgrading AND downsizing your setup with a new Mini PC? We have six Black November Week 2 deals for you to look at.

The Week 2 mini PC shortlist

Our Week 2 deals run until Friday, 13 November, so prices shown in the table above and texts below are valid for this week only.

If you're looking for a TL/DR, the NucBox M6 Ultra with 16GB RAM is our pick for an all-rounder. If you're looking to use it as a desktop PC, or a mini server running VMs, a custom internet router, or just for light gaming, we'd recommend picking it up if your needs are simple.

1. PELADN WO5: A capable office PC for less

PELADN WO5 Core 3 304, 16GB, 512GB

If your mini PC's job is email, browsing, documents and video calls, you don't need to spend much to get a reliable computing companion. The PELADN WO5 is the most affordable machine here at R6,999, saving you R3,000, and it covers those tasks comfortably.

Built on the latest-generation Intel Wildcat Lake architecture, the Core 3 304 comes with five cores boosting up to 4.3GHz, sips power with a 15W budget, and includes Intel Xe3 on-board graphics. It comes with all of Intel's innovations in hardware video acceleration, and also includes a lightweight NPU capable of 15 TOPs of AI performance.

The WO5 chips with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 512GB NVMe drive, with a second M.2 slot for adding storage later. There is no skimping on basic connectivity either, as PELADN has included a 40Gbps USB4 port, two HDMI 2.1 ports, 2.5Gb Ethernet and WiFi 6 with Bluetooth networking. A VESA bracket is included, so it can disappear behind your monitor.

Do keep in mind that the memory is soldered to the board; there are no expansion options beyond 16GB. Microsoft is making improvements to Windows 11 to reduce its memory footprint, but you can always opt to run your favourite Linux distribution instead with a lightweight desktop environment.

2. GMKtec NucBox M6 Ultra: Zen 4 and Radeon graphics for R11,999

GMKtec NucBox M6 Ultra Ryzen 5 7640HS, 16GB, 512GB

The GMKtec NucBox M6 Ultra is a step up in every direction compared to the PELADN WO5. Its AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS has six powerful Zen 4 cores, and the integrated Radeon 760M graphics are a lot more capable than you'd think. It is on sale now at R11,999, saving you R5,500.

While the Ryzen 5 7640HS won't replace a gaming setup, it can handle older and less demanding games at modest settings, which makes this a reasonable family or lounge PC. For quick DOTA2 or Fortnite sessions, it is adequate. Put SteamOS on it and it becomes a mini gaming console in its own right.

Connectivity is solid on this unit. GMKtec includes two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, WiFi 6E, a front-panel USB4 port, and both HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. It would be equally at home on a desktop, or in a server closet running microservices for home automation or use as a custom home router.

There is an included NPU capable of 10 TOPs of AI Performance, but it's nothing to write home about. However, unlike the PELADN WO5, the M6 Ultra has two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 64GB of RAM, and two M.2 SSD slots for storage.

There's a 32GB/1TB version on sale too, if you're interested.

3. GEEKOM A8 Max: A workhorse for the masses

GEEKOM A8 Max Ryzen 9 8945HS, 32GB, 1TB

The GEEKOM A8 Max is where mini PCs start to feel like proper desktop replacements. Shipping with AMD's Ryzen 9 8945HS, it has eight cores and 16 threads boosting up to 5.2GHz, paired with Radeon 780M graphics, 32GB of DDR5 and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive. What a machine.

It's also the best-connected Mini PC on this list. There are two USB4 ports, five 10Gbps USB-A ports, two HDMI 2.1 TMDS outputs, a full-size SD card slot reader, and WiFi 6E with Bluetooth 5.2. There are also two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, handy if you want to use it as a home server. GEEKOM backs it with a three-year warranty, whilst the GMKtec options have an optional, paid extension available.

There is one thing to keep in mind, however: the memory it ships with is a single module, not dual-channel. If your work or plans for this machine rely on or hammer the memory bandwidth, you should think about installing a second module for better performance down the line.

Local AI performance across the Zen 4 cores, the NPU, and GPU peaks at 39 TOPS combined. It's approaching useful territory for running local models, but is still shy of being able to run most of the useful open-source models offline.

4. GMKtec NucBox K17 Plus: Power-efficient Lunar Lake in a compact form factor

GMKtec NucBox K17 Plus Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB, 1TB

The K17 Plus uses the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, a chip designed for thin-and-light ultrabooks, which gives it a different character from the others in the list today. This machine is meant to be unobtrusive in most spaces, and the muted design doesn't call much attention to itself.

Intel built Lunar Lake for power efficiency and on-device AI. Being Big Blue's second attempt at designing a heterogeneous architecture, it trades raw power for a low carbon footprint and noise profile to make it attractive for office use. The on-board Arc 140V graphics are among the strongest integrated graphics Intel makes, and the NPU handles AI work easily without loading the main cores.

Local AI performance is also very high, hitting up to 115 TOPs of AI performance across the CPU, NPU, and GPU cores. This is the first machine in this list to really support running local models in any serious capacity, and it supports Intel's AI Playground app.

GMKtec includes 32GB of very fast LPDDR5X-8533 memory in this configuration, and one of the two M.2 slots supports PCIe 5.0 storage. A USB4 port and an HDMI 2.1 output with 8K support round it off for connectivity, while it also ships with WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 for networking.

For everyday work, creative apps and local AI features it's an efficient all-rounder, and we think it should be on your shortlist.

5. GMKtec NucBox EVO-X1 Pro: 12 cores, 64GB and an external GPU port

GMKtec NucBox EVO-X1 Pro Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, 64GB, 1TB

The GMKtec EVO-X1 Pro is the most interesting middle ground here. For R26,999, you're getting a 12-core, 24-thread AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 APU, 64GB of LPDDR5X memory, and a 1TB drive. Given the current pricing of RAM and storage in the market, this is a steal.

The Radeon 890M is AMD's fastest integrated graphics outside its Ryzen AI Max lineup, and the 55 TOPS-capable NPU qualifies it for Windows Copilot+ PC features. It will happily run many local AI models on the GPU or NPU, with plenty of memory left over for the OS and the rest of your work apps.

The standout extra is an OCuLink port, which is just PCI Express by another name. With a compatible OCuLink external graphics dock, you can connect a full desktop graphics card to the EVO-X1, turning a compact work machine into a gaming powerhouse when you need one.

While a cheaper 32GB variant is on the way, we think the 64GB configuration is a good platform for running small local models like Qwen 3.8 27b, keeping everything you do with AI local and private. Or you can slap SteamOS on it and play games, we won't judge.

6. GMKtec NucBox EVO-X2: 128GB for private, frontier-class AI

GMKtec NucBox EVO-X2 Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128GB, 2TB

At R66,999, the EVO-X2 isn't an impulse purchase, and it isn't meant to be. It's built around AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395, with 16 cores and 32 threads, Radeon 8060S graphics, and 128GB of on-board memory. The Black November sale price saves you R13,000 this week.

The 128GB of on-board memory lets you run large AI language models locally, something which would otherwise need a graphics card that costs as much as a brand new Suzuki Swift GLX. Although it's not in the same price class, the AI Max+ 395 is designed to take the fight to NVIDIA's Grace Blackwell GB10 APU, found in the much more expensive DGX Spark devices costing more than R40,000 extra.

While NVIDIA is certainly the darling of the AI world at the moment, this is still a solid machine. AMD has been working out the kinks in the platform, and it's a first-class experience using their Lemonade server to run local AI models that are compatible with the llama.cpp runtime. At the same time, Windows 11 has gotten better at supporting these monster APUs for real work.

The best time to pick one of these up was six months ago. The next best time, we think, is now.

The EVO-X2 with 128GB of RAM is a very strong choice for code compilation, 3D work, and video editing with an AI assistant alongside, and it comes with a 2TB drive, WiFi 7 networking, and two 40Gbps USB-C ports. The cheaper 64GB variant is a great fit too.

If you don't mind the size difference or prefer something with beefier cooling, PELADN's YO2 395 is also in stock and on sale.

These are our six Mini PC picks from Week 2 of our Black November Sale. There are more where that came from in the Week 2 deals, including GMKtec's K8 Plus and K11, and two NEO-X1 models with dedicated GeForce RTX graphics. Great deals are still in stock now, and you're invited to browse the full selection before the next deals arrive on Friday.