Hold Sapphire Edge AI Mini-PC Lineup With Ryzen AI APUs From AMD
The new Edge AI series of mini-PCs is Sapphire's first entry into the small form factor market, although the company is best known for graphics cards. These small PCs feature the latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 series APUs for use in providing dedicated 50 TOPS NPU for AI workloads, and offer comprehensive user-upgrade options.
Chassis Design and Features
Edge AI mini PCs reside within a beautiful chassis with measurements of 117 x 111 x 30 mm with black panels and gold accents-in convenience for users, the case has a magnetic top cover that allows easy access to RAM and SSD slots. The other cooling design includes a large bottom opening for fresh air intake and hot air exhausts on three sides.
Performance and APU variants
Sapphire mentioned the three different models, all of which are packed with a 50 TOPS NPU.
- Edge AI 370: The 12-core/24-thread Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU is supplemented with a Radeon 890M iGPU.
- Edge AI 350: The unit contains an 8-core/16-thread Ryzen AI 7 350 APU and a Radeon 860M iGPU.
- Edge AI 340: The 6-core/12-thread Ryzen AI 5 340 APU configuration is paired with a Radeon 840M iGPU.
Comparing these against Intel Lunar Lake by Sapphire internal tests, they mostly found the AMD APUs performing significantly better than their Intel competitors. Reportedly, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is 90% faster in Cinebench R24 compared to Core Ultra 9 288V. The Ryzen AI 7 350 is shown to be as much as 54% quicker than a Core Ultra 7 258V in Cinebench, Handbrake, and Blender. On other benchmarks, the Ryzen AI 5 340 is shown to have a lead of up to 16% against an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V in different tests, including Handbrake and Cinebench R24.
Configuration and Connectivity
Sold as barebone systems, users have the flexibility to define their own processors, memory, and storage, all of which are supported. It can accept glass up to 96 GB of DDR5 RAM through two SO-DIMM slots, while it has two M.2 2280 slots for PCIe 4.0 SSDs.
Port selection goes robust with:
- 2x USB4 (with PD 3.0)
- 3x USB-A 10 Gbps
- 1x USB 2.0
- 2x HDMI 2.1
- 1x Audio Jack
- 1x 2.5 GbE Jack
A Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 card handle the wireless connection. Each model is powered by a 120 W external PSU.
Pricing and Availability
On the product page, prices and availability for the Sapphire Edge AI mini PC series have yet to be provided.
