What if you could replace your huge desktop PC with a mini PC that's a fraction of the size and costs a fraction of the price? That's the question I asked myself when I received the Acemagic K5 mini PC and set it up next to my expensive gaming PC.I wasn't expecting it to match my primary machine, but after using it for my daily work, I was surprised by how little I ended up missing it.Acemagic K5 7.5 Brand Acemagic CPU Intel Core 3 304 Graphics Integrated Intel Graphics Memory 12GB LPDDR5-5600 MT/s The Intel Core 3 304-powered Acemagic K5 packs surprisingly capable everyday performance, rich I/O, and a dedicated AI NPU into a tiny, affordable desktop.
Pros & Cons Capable everyday performance Tiny footprint and low power consumption Strong port selection, including 2.5GbE Dedicated NPU for accelerating AI workloads 12GB of soldered, non-upgradable RAM Integrated GPU isn't best-in-class Budget NVMe SSD raises concerns about long-term durability See at Amazon Expand Collapse SEE OUR PROCESS How We Test and Review Products at How-To Geek We go hands-on with every product to ensure it's worth your time and money.Posts By Justin Duino Price and availability The Intel Core 3 304-powered Acemagic K5 is available on Amazon for $550 for the 12GB RAM/256GB SSD model or $570 for the 512GB variant, which is the configuration Acemagic sent me for review.The MSRP might seem a little high compared to similar Intel Core 3 304 mini PCs from other brands, but frequent sales bring the price down by around 30%.
At the time of writing, the 256GB model is $380, while the 512GB version is $400.Specifications Brand Acemagic CPU Intel Core 3 304 Graphics Integrated Intel Graphics Memory 12GB LPDDR5-5600 MT/s Storage 256GB/512GB M.2 2280 NVMe SSD Ports 2× USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps), 4× USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps), 1× USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) with DisplayPort 1.4 and up to 100W USB-PD, 1× HDMI 2.0, 1× DisplayPort 1.4, 1× 2.5GbE, 1× 3.5mm audio Display Up to three 4K 60Hz external displays Operating System Windows 11 Pro Dimension 5.05 × 5.05 × 1.61 inches Weight 1.98 pounds USB Ports 7 total: 6× USB-A, 1× USB-C Networking Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, 2.5GbE Price $550 CPU Cooling Heatsink and fan PSU External power adapter Fans 1× CPU fan Cables HDMI cable, power cable/adapter Expand Collapse The Acemagic K5 is a tiny, full-fledged desktop PC There's a surprising lot of computer packed into this little box Close Many mini PCs aim to replace full-fledged desktop PCs while taking up a fraction of the space, and the Acemagic K5 is no different.Its footprint is approximately half that of my gaming PC's AMD RX 9070 XT graphics card, yet it manages to pack an impressive amount of hardware and I/O ports (including a 2.5GbE port) on the front and back.
The Acemagic K5 won't impress you with its build quality, thanks to its silver plastic shell, but it has some heft to it and is built reasonably well on the inside, which is where it counts.Taking apart the mini PC reveals a decently sized heatsink and fan that make light work of the Core 3 304's relatively low 15W base TDP and 35W maximum turbo power.The CPU package temperature in HWiNFO64 averaged just 72°C after 10 minutes of stress testing, and it rarely goes above 60°C during my typical work.
Even under a heavy load, the K5 stays cool, with the fan getting audible but remaining far from annoyingly loud.But the real question is whether the Core 3 304 has enough power to make the K5 a worthwhile desktop replacement.I ran it through Geekbench and 7-Zip and compared the results with several laptops we've tested at How-To Geek to put its performance into perspective.
Close Unsurprisingly, the cheapest machine with the lowest-specced processor landed toward the bottom, though the results were much closer than you might expect.The most interesting result was that the Acemagic K5's Core 3 304 actually beat the XPS 13's more powerful Core 5 320 in Geekbench 7's multi-core test by a substantial margin, showing how much more thermal headroom a mini PC can have compared to a thin business laptop.The K5 is surprisingly capable for everyday work Enough power for most office tasks Admittedly, I was a little skeptical at first about ditching the $2,000 gaming PC on my desk and replacing it with the Acemagic K5 for my daily work for the duration of this review.
But that skepticism quickly turned into impressed approval once I connected my two monitors and peripherals and actually started using the machine.At no point during my day-to-day work did I feel like I was making a compromise by “downgrading” to this Core 3 CPU with just one performance core and four low-power efficient cores compared to my Ryzen 7 7700's 8-core, 16-thread setup.After using it for a few days, I eventually stopped obsessing over its hardware capabilities and started thinking about just how much money I could save on my power bill if I replaced my desktop with it.
I used the Acemagic K5 for web browsing, going through documents and spreadsheets, transferring files to and from my NAS, photo editing in GIMP, writing in Obsidian, and a bunch of other miscellaneous desktop tasks, and at no point did it feel sluggish.With 12GB of RAM, I could also keep my usual collection of browser tabs and work apps open and just use the PC as I normally do.Admittedly, I haven't tried any super-heavy workloads that don't pertain to me, like editing 4K video with complex visuals or 3D rendering in Blender, where the processor's limitations would likely start to show.
That said, those kinds of demanding workloads are generally outside a mini PC's intended use case anyway.The Acemagic's Core 3 304 has dedicated AI hardware A cheap entry point to local AI While the Acemagic K5 is primarily oriented toward office workers, we can't overlook a key selling point of the new Intel Wildcat Lake processors—the dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit).The Intel Core 3 304's NPU tops out at 15 TOPS, which can be pushed up to 24 TOPS if combined with the integrated GPU.
Admittedly, it doesn't meet the Copilot+ PC's 40 TOPS minimum requirement (and neither does the 12GB of RAM, which falls short of the required 16GB), so it doesn't qualify as a Copilot+ PC.However, if you just want to dip your toes into locally run AI with a specialized NPU, the Intel Core 3 304 is a solid entry point.It supports OpenVINO, Windows ML, ONNX Runtime, and WebNN, and it's compatible with Intel AI Playground Essentials to get you started.
Interestingly, the NPU could also be useful for machine learning tasks you might want to delegate in a homelab, which is what I might end up doing.The K5 can even handle some light gaming I wasn't expecting it to run games this well The Acemagic K5 isn't a gaming machine by any stretch of the imagination, but I just couldn't resist trying a few games on it to see how they'd run: Game Resolution Settings Average FPS 1920 × 1080 Very Low, no upscaling or AA 17 2560 × 1440 Fast preset 116 2560 × 1440 Default 238 2560 × 1440 Low 38 The K5 is far from a gaming beast, but it can handle lighter games surprisingly well.The Acemagic K5 still has a few budget-PC compromises The hardware isn't perfect While the Acemagic K5 is a fairly complete package and priced competitively, it doesn't come without a few compromises.
The biggest is the 12GB of soldered LPDDR5-5600 MT/s RAM, which isn't upgradeable.16GB would've been nice because of that, though 12GB is still plenty for office work.The NVMe SSD is another small disappointment.
The K5 uses an ultra-budget Colorfire CF620 PCIe Gen 3 x4 SSD from Colorful.That said, file transfers were fast enough to max out my gigabit connection, and the SSD stayed around 50°C thanks to its heatsink.There's also a second empty M.2 NVMe slot for adding more storage later.
Should you buy the Acemagic K5? At its current discounted price of $380, the Acemagic K5 is solid value and often undercuts competing Intel Core 3 304 mini PCs.It's a big step up from older Intel 10th-generation i3 and AMD Ryzen 3/5-based machines using older hardware like LPDDR4 RAM.On the flip side, some older but more powerful AMD machines tend to offer substantially better integrated GPUs and multi-threaded performance for around the same price.
That said, Intel's unique Performance Hybrid Architecture flexes its muscles here: the single performance core handles demanding foreground tasks, while the four low-power efficient cores help with background workloads and multitasking, all while keeping power consumption impressively low.The dedicated NPU makes this mini PC particularly compelling for anyone interested in experimenting with lightweight AI models and other AI-powered workloads.It's a pretty complete package for anyone looking for a Windows 11 mini PC that takes up almost no space on the desk and can be brought almost anywhere with surprisingly few compromises.
Acemagic K5 7.5 Brand Acemagic CPU Intel Core 3 304 Graphics Integrated Intel Graphics Memory 12GB LPDDR5-5600 MT/s The Intel Core 3 304-powered Acemagic K5 packs surprisingly capable everyday performance, rich I/O, and a dedicated AI NPU into a tiny, affordable desktop.See at Amazon Expand Collapse
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