The Beelink SER9 is fascinating. In many regards, it is very good and a solid upgrade over previous generations. Some of the changes in this generation are home runs. Others are either forced by the platform or just plain head-scratchers. All of these make this a system we need to review.
Beelink SER9 Overview
For this one, we have a video:
As always, we suggest opening the video in its own tab, browser, or app for the best viewing experience. Beelink sent us this unit to review, so we have to say it is sponsored. As you will see, Beelink does not get to see the review before it goes live. Also, in the video we showed off the Beelink GTi 12 Ultra with its GPU dock. While Beelink sent those parts, the GPUs we purchased from funds as part of our STH YouTube membership, so we need to say our YouTube viewers also sponsored the video.
The price is perhaps the most exciting aspect of this mini PC. At $999 for the 1TB and 32GB configuration, it is far from a low-cost option—or, better said, it is not in the same zip code as a low-cost option. At the same time, Beelink has some of its newer technology in this edition centered around the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 12-core processor, so it is worth a look.
Here is an Amazon link to check the latest pricing: Beelink SER9 Amazon Affiliate.
Beelink SER9 External Hardware Overview
Looking at the front, the first thing we will note is that it is almost identical to the Beelink SER8. We have a power button, a recessed clear CMOS button, an audio jack, then two USB 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps ports. We really wish Beelink labeled these ports.
Above the ports is a microphone array. It is supposed to be some kind of great AI-enabled microphone array that separates voice from background noise. It is a microphone array; it does pick up my voice, but it also picked up quite a bit of fan noise from the system under load. It was, however, much better than previous attempts.
On the sides, it is metal.
On the top, we get the Beelink logo.
Rear USB ports are rough. The two bottom USB Type-A ports are USB 2.0. The top USB Type-A port is a USB 3.2 Gen2. The Type-C port is USB4. If that sounds like something that should be labeled, it should be. We also get another audio jack in the rear and both HDMI and DisplayPort outputs on the rear. There is a DC input as well as a 2.5GbE NIC port.
On the rear, the top portion is completely dedicated to cooling. While it makes the chassis taller, this is a great feature.
On the bottom, we get large rubber feet. There are then four screws to remove this first cover so we can get inside.
Next, let us take a look inside the system.
I actually like external power supplies for this type of system.
Internal power supply might fail and that’s a pain to replace, where-as an end user with one of these – I ship a new power supply they can plug in. Its not terribly proprietary either, most barrel jacks for 19v are the same one. The internal one will be proprietary enough that I won’t want to replace it, and more likely to just ship a new one.
The mic/speakers, I mean I see why, cuz everyone zoom/teams now, and this is at least possible with this box…I would rather see that as an add-on option. I’d be likely to remove that and the dust filter entirely.
For home-lab use…dual nics, dual 10g sfp+, and ram expansion…. I have thinkcenter p350’s doing that work today with dual 10g nic addons. Wish we had tiered memory on these new onboard ram cpus from AMD/Intel – give us that 32G on-package ram, but give me the option to expand it with slower memory, some simple logic like NUMA extensions but for RAM since some will be DDR5 ~5000 and some will be on-package ~8000. There is a 64GB version of this chip as well I see. The new i9 ultras have similar setup as does the new apple chip.
All in it’s nice, but other than replacing the one-off workstation with one, I don’t think I’d use it in my lab…preferring more ethernet and fewer bells/whistles like the speaker setup.
I appreciate how balanced of a review this and the video were. I’ve watched and read maybe 9 different videos and reviews on this. At least STH has the balls to say what is good (AMD APU and cooling) and what is not good (price, 32GB, speakers, WiFi, dust filter.) I’m still on the fence, but at least I can articulate WHY since it’s all here. I think you’re correct that I’m on the fence because of the price. $699 and I’d have two already.
PS it’s $899 on Amazon using the coupon there
I think you made a mistake here: “That is an AMD thing since co-packaging more LPDDR5X memory is a hit to the margins unless you are able to charge Apple prices for RAM”
AMD’s Strix Point doesn’t co-package RAM, instead it is soldered onto the mainboard. So the decision was made by BeeLink, not by AMD. The amount of RAM doesn’t influence AMD’s margins at all for this kind of device.
I would have like to see some pictures of the other side of the mainboard and the cooling solution, even though there are no RAM slots, just the soldered LPDDR5X chips. And one one hand, I understand their choice to go with LPDDR5X, as that gives the system better signal integrity and they can clock the memory higher at 7500Mhz, which can be useful for the use case they aimed for, which I think is a mini desktop where the integrated graphics may be used for games.
If they made a “server” version of this, then yes, they could remove all the speakers and microphones and give us SODIMM slots instead. Or two USB4 ports. Or a 10G NIC. Or all three. That would be pretty amazing.
MDF – Great points.
Ryan – Thanks.
Stefan – Good point. Updated with Beelink to make it clearer. I had a rough bout of food poisoning Sunday from hotel food and am still not 100%.
Robert – I totally agree.
Bought probably ~10 of SER7 and SER8 for use for technical computing so far, all for export controlled technologies. Built in microphone(s) means I won’t be buying any SER9’s