In the last six years, Shenzen-based Minisforum has become a prolific producer of mini PCs. A glance at the company's webstore reveals a steady succession of tidy and well-specced boxes aimed at home and business users, sporting the best of AMD and Intel's mobile APU armoury.
The lineup features a few gaming-focused units with somewhat spicier designs, but the Venus UM790 Pro isn't necessarily one of these. Housed in a clean, purple-tinged aluminium chassis, it's attractive in a minimalist way, but we're interested in its gaming potential as it represents an affordable way to access the Ryzen 9 7940HS and Radeon 780M CPU/iGPU double-act. Like the Ryzen 7 7840HS, which is a much more common sight in mini-PCs and gaming laptops, this SoC APU is built on the same 4nm Zen 4 architecture as AMD's desktop 7000-series CPUs. It's also the chip of choice for recent Razer Blade 14s laptops, among other premium-price crotch-cookers, and its inclusion in such machines tells us something of its capabilities.
