AceMagic has made arguably the best-looking mini PC for retro games fans.
The aptly named Retro X5 is styled like a Nintendo Entertainment System console, yet has the PC specs to play modern AAA games too. With pre-order discounts, it starts at £819 / $919.
I recently wrote about my project to turn a mini PC into a retro games console, and I'm still pleased with the end results. After all, the Geekom A5 mini PC I chose for conversion continues to emulate the classics well – including a vast number of PS3 and Nintendo Switch games.
And considering it's just over £300 in Amazon's Spring Deal Days sale, it's great value too. However, if you're willing to spend more, you can not only make sure all retro titles work with zero performance issues and at the highest frame rates, but you can play AAA PC games too.
For example, not only does the recently launched AceMagic Retro X5 mini PC look the part – like a 1980s Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) – it runs on the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12 cores / 24 threads) chipset. That and its integrated Radeon 890M graphics are capable of PC gaming at 1080p and over 100fps. Indeed, you could stretch to 1440p on many titles.
There's 32GB of DDR5 5600MHz RAM and a 1TB SSD on-board, too.
Some have reported Cyberpunk 2077 running at up to 60fps with FSR (AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution) switched on. This upscales images to look sharper while ensuring smooth, stable gameplay, and ensures some of the hardest to run games can still play well on reasonably priced hardware.
That allows the Retro X5 to work more like a console generally, not just a retro one. And while I haven't yet tested the mini PC personally, anecdotal coverage of the AMD architecture suggets that this is amongst the best available in such a small device.
AceMagic Retro X5 – other specs and pricing
The PC also has one HDMI 2.1 output, a USB-C 4.0 port, a single USB-C 3.2 port, and a Display Port (2.0). There's an audio jack and two Gigabit Ethernet ports for good measure.
Wireless connectivity is provided via Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and the machine comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled. AceMagic also provides its own "retro gaming environment" to help get you started, while I'd love to see it running SteamOS (via Bazzite) to find out how that experience also works out.
Needless to say, the specs mean the AceMagic Retro X5 will also be very capable with video rendering, photography work and anything else you need from a powerful desktop. Although all of that comes at a cost, of course, especially at a time when RAM and storage are in such short supply.
The current pre-order price is £859 from RedMagic in the UK, although if you use the code ACERETRO at checkout, you can get an additional £40 off.
A similar deal in the US can get you $40 off the Retro X5's pre-order price of $959 (already knocked down from $1,299). You just need to enter X5PRE40 at checkout.
Shipping is said to start on 20 March 2026.
