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In conclusion, the fact our ASUS PN50 system is barebones may seem like a negative to some but it can actually be seen as a positive as the user can decide exactly what components to install themselves for their specific usage, which may also bring the overall cost down if Person A wanted a simple compact system at home, whereas Person B wanted a more powerful system for business use.
Taking another look at the price our barebones system costs £370, plus approximately £100 for 16GB of G-Skill Ripjaws 3200MHz RAM and another £90 for our WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD, plus Windows 10 home if you’re a standard user will cost around £120 from Microsoft, you’re looking at a total cost of approximately £680. Or If you’re a business user you’ll no doubt opt for Windows 10 Pro, which retails for £220 from Microsoft, you’re looking at a total cost of £780.
You are paying a premium for such a powerful system in a tiny unit but at just under £700 for home use or just under £800 for business use for a system with this many I/O connectivity options, 8K support, 4 x 4K display support and so much more all in a box just larger than your wallet… I think this is an option worth considering for those that have specific needs in mind.
Our review of the PN50 has been solely based on the barebones system and as easy as it is to install/upgrade components we know this won’t appeal to everyone. For example, a business user that may be looking at purchasing 10 of these is probably not going to want to buy extra components to then sit and install everything 10 times over. Luckily, ASUS let us know that PCSpecialist sell complete PN50 systems that require no extra components whatsoever. For many this is going to be the preferred way of buying an ASUS PN50 system so let me go over them.
Bear in mind these systems will vary in price compared to our barebones system total cost because we chose to add a 1TB NVMe SSD and 16GB 3200MHz RAM, along with Windows as an added expense. PCSpecialist offers 4 different PN50 configurations, and while these come fully assembled upon purchase, you can configure the memory and storage options to suit your needs via the PCSpecialist configurator.
Where each of these prebuilt systems differ is with the APU. This is where you’ll really need to think about what you are going to use your PN50 for, if you’re wanting a small system just to type word documents then maybe the cheapest will do fine, whereas if you’re after a home entertainment system you might want to opt for the more powerful and more expensive choices. All of the data in this review was collected using the Ryzen 7-4700U.
Starting at £421 you get an AMD Ryzen 3-4300U, with 4 cores, 4 threads at 2.7GHz with a max boost clock of 3.7GHz and an AMD Radeon RX Vega 5 graphics. You can configure this model from PCSpecialist, HERE!
Starting at £466 you get an AMD Ryzen 5-4500U, 6 cores, 6 threads at 2.3GHz with a max boost of 4.0GHz and an AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 graphics. You can configure this model from PCSpecialist, HERE!
Starting at £536 you get an AMD Ryzen 7-4700U, just like our barebones model with 8 cores, 8 threads at 2.0GHz with a max boost of 4.1GHz and an AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 graphics. You can configure this model from PCSpecialist, HERE!
Starting at £646 you get an AMD Ryzen 7-4800U, 8 cores, 16 threads at 1.8GHz with a max boost of 4.2GHz and an AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics. You can configure this model from PCSpecialist, HERE!
Finally, for £369.99, if you'd prefer the barebones system like the one that we have reviewed here, so you can choose your own specifications, you can purchase the barebones ASUS PN50 Mini PC, HERE!
With great scores across the board from our test results I think the PN50 by ASUS paired with the Ryzen R7-4700U with integrated Vega 7 graphics is a very competent little machine that will definitely suit the purposes of the users this system is aimed at.
The barebones system we reviewed is available for £369.99 from Ebuyer HERE.
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Pros:
- Super compact.
- Excellent performance results throughout.
- Very easy to install SSD/HDD & RAM.
- NVMe support and up to 64GB RAM supported.
- Excellent array of connectivity options and I/O.
- IR sensors & dual microphones.
- Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 support.
- Excellent choice for home entertainment setups.
- Excellent choice for business users.
Cons:
- No full-sized SD card reader.
- Integrated AMD Radeon graphics cannot compare to discrete graphics cards.
KitGuru says: With an array of external connections, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth support, the ease of SSD/RAM upgradability, the included VESA mount and Kensington lock, the PN50 should appeal to both business users and home users.
