Beelink SER9 review: AMD's Strix Point is its most powerful PC APU to date - but how does it game?

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 versus the 7840U and the Steam Deck.

It's fair to say that AMD is now leading the mobile x86 processor market, with its APUs particularly potent in powering the Steam Deck, ROG Ally and other PC handhelds. Following on from the Z1 Extreme and similar 7840U/8840U processors, there are two next-gen series: the upcoming Z2 lineup and the currently-available Strix Point AI SoCs. We're looking at the latter today - and it's the top-spec Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.

Rather than a power-constrained PC handheld or even a gaming laptop though, we're testing a mini PC that can juice the APU up to 65W. That ought to deliver excellent gaming results, but how does the HX 370 compare to the Steam Deck at matched power levels? And how much extra do you get by ramping all the way up to 65W? We've put the tiny Beelink SER9 through its paces to find out.

First off, we should cover the SER9 itself. This unit is absolutely tiny, with a total volume of 0.59L - for context, even small form factor gaming PC cases tend to be around the 10L mark. The 100W power supply delivers up to 65W of power to the processor alone, while the full metal chassis is replete with ports: four USB-A and two USB-C, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a, two 3.5mm and 2.5-gig ethernet. (There's sadly no Thunderbolt or USB 4, which would have been useful for eGPU experimentation.) The units storage can also be upgraded with two PCIe 4.0 slots on the underside of the unit. All this power in such a small space doesn't come cheap - the solitary 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD model comes to $999 - but the machine is certainly powerful enough to justify the expense, while running cool and quiet.

As with most PCs, you can also trade off between performance and power/thermals. There are no BIOS controls to lower the TDP, annoyingly, but a customised version of the RyzenAdj tool (many thanks to Cary from The Phawx for the assist here) lets you do so via the command line. Running at 30W turns a very quiet PC into a virtually silent one, for example, and it also opens the door to our testing at set power levels, allowing for like-for-like testing against various mobile offerings.

We started with testing at 15W, where the SER9's HX 370 can face off against the Ryzen 7 7840U (in the AyaNeo Kun), the Deck LCD and the Deck OLED. Remember that the SER9 and AyaNeo Kun are running games natively in Windows, while the Steam Decks are running the games on Linux via the Proton translation layer.

In Cyberpunk, the SER9 is the only member of the pack to really distinguish itself, with a 37 percent lead over the Steam Deck LCD and a 32 percent margin over the AyaNeo Kun. There's more differentation in Forza Horizon 5, where the AyaNeo Kun beats the Deck LCD by 36.5 percent, and the SER9 beats the Kun by a further 28 percent. However, the octa-core 7840U shows the most stable performance, and it's possible that the four large cores on the SER9 are being overwhelmed - or perhaps 15W simply isn't enough power for an APU of this size.

Here's a selection of game benchmarks running at 15W. The HX 370 is the fastest contender - but at 15W, the advantage is perhaps more limited than you'd expect given the spec differential. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

The differences in A Plague Tale: Requiem are also interesting, with smaller margins that point to a memory bandwidth limitation - that's one of the few specs that doesn't see a huge lift with the HX 370. Finally, Marvel's Spider-Man again sees a big lead for Strix Point, with a 34 to 44 point advantage versus the Steam Deck models and the AyaNeo Kun.

Of course, there's little point in running the HX 370 at 15W if you actually want to maximise frame-rates, so let's ramp up the power levels and see how much extra performance we can unlock. As well as 15W runs to compare against the Steam Deck, we have 25W and 30W results for parity against the ROG Ally in its unplugged/plugged power modes and then 65W for the full-fat SER9 experience.

In short, we see a relatively close grouping at the highest power levels, with 15W falling way behind. In Cyberpunk 2077, that translates into a 32 percent frame-rate improvement from 15W to 25W, 38 percent going from 15W to 30W, and 45 percent going from 15W to 65W. That brings the diminishing returns into focus - we're more than doubling power from 30W to 65W, but only unlocking an extra five percent performance.

We see a big boost going from 15W to 25W or 30W - no wonder AMD recommends 28W for this chip in gaming laptops. There are further advantages at 65W, though the overall story is of diminishing returns.

Beyond the canned benchmarks, we also had some time to actually sit down and play some games on the SER9 in its default 65W mode. Cyberpunk 2077 played quite well, even at a 1080p output resolution, high settings and FSR 2 quality mode upscaling, with frame-rates above 30fps even through the Cherry Blossom Market that represents one of the most CPU-intensive areas of the game - and that's with full crowds enabled, something you don't see on consoles. We see similar results in our other streaming tests, going into 40fps territory, which suggests that FSR 3 frame generation might be a starter - and indeed, the tech works well to lift frame-rates into a 50-70fps window without deleterious levels of input lag.

The same basic setup works well in Marvel's Spider-Man too. 1080p, high settings, XeSS 1.3 quality upscaling and FSR 3 frame generation combine for frame-rates up to 120fps, allowing you to take good advantage of a high refresh rate monitor.

Older and less demanding games run well even without frame generation. For example, Control runs happily at 720p upscaled to 1080p via TAAU at console-equivalent settings, mostly at a locked 60fps. Switching over to a native 1080p presentation, the demanding Corridor of Doom from our old benchmarking suite reveals results in the 40s, which is pretty good going for one of the most challenging areas of the game. Of course, Control is best known for its RT implementation, and this also is doable on the SER9 - 720p, TAAU up to 1080p with RT medium for ray-traced reflections and transparency reflections. With results north of 30fps, this is hugely impressive for a device of this size!

That doesn't mean that you can play literally any game though. Alan Wake 2's chapter two forest scenes are a huge ask for integrated graphics, and even at 1080p FSR 2 performance and lowest settings, the SER9 falls under 30fps. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is similar, with borderline 30fps performance at nearly lowest settings.

Ultimately though, it's hard not to be charmed by the Beelink mini PC. It's handily capable, the form factor is irresistible, and it's very quiet - quite the combination.

I do have to wonder about the future of PC handhelds though. The Ryzen 7 7840U and its equivalent Z1 Extreme delivered a good - but not game-changing - bump over Steam Deck, requiring the use of a lot more power. Strix Point offers another iterative bump, even though we're now looking at twice the amount of compute units and more frequency than the Deck. There's still potential for a healthy bump to performance, but it can vary drastically between games - and it perhaps underlines why the likes of Valve and Microsoft are waiting for a truly generational leap in capabilities before delivering their next-gen handhelds.