Gem12 Pro Mini PC uses an amped-up Ryzen 7 8845HS APU, has a built-in mini screen, and OCuLink support

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This Ryzen 7 8845HS Mini PC should be faster than its 7840U and 8840U brethren.

Official render of the Aoostar Gem12 Mini PC in two color configurations.
Official render of the Aoostar Gem12 Mini PC in two color configurations. (Image credit: Tianbao via ITHome.com)

The Tianbao Gem12 Mini PC, with AMD Ryzen Hawk Point APU option, launched on JD.com on March 1, reports ITHome. Among other features, this Mini PC has a nifty little built-in screen with a fingerprint reader, plus configuration options including various mobile Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 CPUs. 

The most attractively powerful of the available CPU options is the newest Ryzen 7 8845HS, which is basically a higher-power version of the Ryzen 7 8840U and 7840U that we've seen become commonplace in other Mini PCs and handheld gaming PCs alike thanks to the built-in Radeon 780M— one of the best 720p/1080p iGPUs on the market, though Intel's competition is definitely heating up. 

Like the 8840U and 7840U, the 8845HS is specced for 8 cores at 16 threads with a maximum boost clock of up to 5.1 GHz...but has a 17 Watt higher default TDP (45W vs 28W), which should help squeeze more performance out of those components. The advertising for this Mini PC states that it can actually cool up to 75 Watts, though we'll have to wait and see whether or not we can actually push TDP that high without causing crashes. With the information available to us, though, this should be one of the most performant Ryzen 7 Hawk Point PCs on the market, period.

Another point in its favor is that it seemingly supports full-power DDR5 RAM at up to 5600 MT/s rather than lower-bandwidth LPDDR5, though you would need to mount "naked" RAM sticks if you were bringing your own, as there definitely isn't room for RAM heatsinks.

Below, we'll be providing some data points for this Mini PC from the original JD.com listing before wrapping things up.

  • All versions come in barebones (no RAM/NVMe), 16GB RAM w/ 512GB NVMe, or 32GB RAM w/ 1TB NVMe configurations.
  • All Secondary Screen versions include the fingerprint sensor.
  • The three APU options are Ryzen 9 6900HX, Ryzen 7 7840HS, and Ryzen 7 8845HS (recommended). The cheapest barebones 8845HS version starts at CNY2699, or roughly $379 USD.

Besides the core specs and unique form factor with the built-in mini screen, this Mini PC boasts most of the usual I/O we've come to expect: Dual Ethernet, an undefined USB Type-C port, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 video ports, four USB 3.2 Gen2 ports, a headphone jack, a USB4 Type-C port, and most interestingly, an OCuLink port. The OCuLink port should allow for the unit to maximize the potential of an attached eGPU, especially compared to the slower Thunderbolt and USB4 standards.

For now, this little mini PC is a China-exclusive that requires some shipping costs to bring elsewhere in the world, but Tianbao may very well end up bringing it stateside via the Aoostar branding, depending on its reception.

Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wakuwaku
    Another point in its favor is that it seemingly supports full-power DDR5 RAM at up to 5600 MT/s rather than lower-bandwidth LPDDR5

    erm..... do you mean con?
    https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-8845hs
    LPDDR5 support is A LOT MORE FASTER than DDR5.
    The pro of using standard DDR5 is that you can add an replace your own RAM. In terms of performance it is alot more slower, especially so when you need the SUPERIOR bandwidth of LPDDR5/X for the iGPU performance.
    Reply
  • Notton
    Most NUC-like mini-PCs use the H/HS variant, meaning the 7840HS/8840HS.

    The U variant is mostly used in thin and light laptops, or the ultra compact mini-PC like the EM780.

    The Gem12 Pro is the former. The 8845HS would be the higher clocked version of a 8840HS.

    That and SODIMM DDR5 5600 has less bandwidth than LPDDR5 6400 to 7500. LPDDR5 suffers in latency compared to SODIMM DDR5, but not enough to make up for the reduction in bandwidth.
    That and most of these mini-PCs don't allow overclocking of SODIMM modules. Some do, but it's rare and it's not as simple as enabling XMP/EXPO, because they tend to have limited BIOS settings.
    Reply
  • digitalgriffin
    wakuwaku said:
    erm..... do you mean con?
    https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-8845hs
    LPDDR5 support is A LOT MORE FASTER than DDR5.
    The pro of using standard DDR5 is that you can add an replace your own RAM. In terms of performance it is alot more slower, especially so when you need the SUPERIOR bandwidth of LPDDR5/X for the iGPU performance.

    Ummm no. LP means Low Power. Hence why it's typically found in laptops. It operates at a lower voltage typically.
    Reply