This is a series of articles looking at the Minisforum AI X1 Pro running Linux. In this series, I examine every aspect of this Mini PC in detail from a Linux perspective. I’ll compare the machine with desktop PC counterparts along the way.
The Minisforum AI X1 Pro is a powerful mini PC based on an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with integrated Radeon 890M graphics. This is no ordinary processor and no ordinary integrated GPU. The machine can handle extremely demanding tasks. With 64GB of RAM and 1TB NVMe this configuration retails for £929.
For this article in the series, I’m looking at the power consumption of the Minisforum AI X1 Pro (“Ryzen AI 9 HX 370”). I’ll see how it compares to three other mini PCs and a couple of desktop processors. Specifically, the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-255H with an Intel (“Core Ultra 7 255H”), the Intel NUC i7-1360P (“i7-1360P”), DreamQuest Intel N100 (“N100”), and desktop machines with “i5-10400” and “i5-12400F” processors.
Let’s begin with the power consumption of the machine when they are idling.
I’m very impressed with the frugality of the Minisforum AI X1 Pro machine. Its power consumption is only very slightly higher than a bog standard N100 machine. More significantly, it also uses less power than machines which are not as well specified.
The machine’s 12 cores run at a mere 605 MHz when the machine is idle.
- The chart measures the power consumption of each system (not just the CPU).
- The i5-12400F machine hosts a dedicated graphics card, whereas the other machines all have onboard graphics. Power consumption even at idle is much higher with a dedicated graphics card, in this case an NVIDIA Asus RTX 3060 Ti. That graphics card, itself, consumes 11W with the machine at idle with two screens off, 21W idle with two screens on, as reported by nvidia-smi.
- The Minisforum AI X1 Pro, i5-12400F and i5-10400 machines offer BIOS power management options. This power management is enabled. The other machines don’t offer power management functionality.
- For the i5-10400 machine, the BIOS offers options to enable Asus Performance Enhancement as well as a Performance Mode. With both these options enabled, the PC idles at 22.2W and 24.9W with both screens off and on respectively. Having the power functionality disabled therefore makes a significant difference.
- The Power Saver CPU governor is used.
- The machines are running Ubuntu 25.04 with the exception of the Minisforum machine which is running Manjaro (an Arch-based distribution).
Next page: Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light usage
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Power Consumption With System Idle
Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light Usage
Page 3 – Power Consumption With CPU Stressed
Page 4 – Electricity Costs
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Minisforum AI X1 Pro | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Introduction to the series and interrogation of the Minisforum AI X1 Pro |
| Benchmarks | Benchmarking the Minisforum AI X1 Pro |
| Power | Testing and comparing the power consumption under various workloads |