Ace Magician AD03 N95 Mini-PC

[crazyeyesreaper]

Ace Magician pulls a rabbit out of their hat with the AD03 N95 mini-PC. It is an ultra-affordable and compact system that offers a great mix of performance and utility without breaking the bank. Making it a stellar option as a home office or general-purpose system.

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[sLowEnd]

Any particular reason why the graphs aren't organized in ascending or descending results?

 

[bonehead123]

Well, not bad looking per se, but for anutha $80-100, you can get several much higher-spec'd mini me boxes with much more powerful & up to date cpu's, gpu's, memory capacity, and m.2 support, so I would have to say this would only be good as a little kiddie machine IMHO....

I know this since I currently own 2 of them (BeeLinks) and have used 4 others from various brands

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Any particular reason why the graphs aren't organized in ascending or descending results?

They are typically listed in the order reviewed and as presented on the Test System page.

Well, not bad looking per se, but for anutha $80-100, you can get several much higher-spec'd mini me boxes with much more powerful & up to date cpu's, gpu's, memory capacity, and m.2 support, so I would have to say this would only be good as a little kiddie machine IMHO....

I know this since I currently own 2 of them (BeeLinks) and have used 4 others from various brands

Well in fairness they did put it on sale on Amazon for $250 something at the moment.

 

[Yukikaze]

You can currently get a N95 mini PC with a 256GB NVMe SSD, albeit with 8GB of RAM for around $150-160 after a coupon.

Examples:

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Desktop-Computer-Support-Ethernet/dp/B0BVLPCDVW

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-3-4GHz-Computer-Support-Display/dp/B0BVFVRDXN

That said, the AD03 is currently $213 after a coupon:

https://www.amazon.com/3-40Ghz-Desktop-Computer-Windows-Computers/dp/B0BSD27SF8

If I were going for a cheap system I'd probably grab the cheaper one with the NVMe drive (even if it only an x1 slot, NVMe is still beter than SATA) instead of the extra 8GB of RAM. A 16GB SODIMM is under $30 on Amazon atm, so if I really needed more memory, that's still cheaper. A 512GB NVMe SSD on Amazon is also under $30, so if I needed more space that's essentially the same price as the AD03, but with NVMe for storage and a few spare parts on the side.

The value is there, but it really isn't all that "great".

 

[Haile Selassie]

Any particular reason why the graphs aren't organized in ascending or descending results?

There's never any good reason for such poor data plots.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

You can currently get a N95 mini PC with a 256GB NVMe SSD, albeit with 8GB of RAM for around $150-160 after a coupon.

Examples:

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Desktop-Computer-Support-Ethernet/dp/B0BVLPCDVW

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-3-4GHz-Computer-Support-Display/dp/B0BVFVRDXN

That said, the AD03 is currently $213 after a coupon:

https://www.amazon.com/3-40Ghz-Desktop-Computer-Windows-Computers/dp/B0BSD27SF8

If I were going for a cheap system I'd probably grab the cheaper one with the NVMe drive (even if it only an x1 slot, NVMe is still beter than SATA) instead of the extra 8GB of RAM. A 16GB SODIMM is under $30 on Amazon atm, so if I really needed more memory, that's still cheaper. A 512GB NVMe SSD on Amazon is also under $30, so if I needed more space that's essentially the same price as the AD03, but with NVMe for storage and a few spare parts on the side.

The value is there, but it really isn't all that "great".

Niether AD03 system uses an NVMe SSD they all use SATA M.2 drives, granted it doesn't matter that much when most files are small and the 4k read / write speeds matter the most and well SATA isn't that far behind PCIe based storage in that regard. But yeah the cheaper option for around $150 to $160 with the memory bumped up to 16 GB is still cheaper overall to go that route and while it may not be a power house mini-PC it still proved adequate and surprisingly snappy. Compared to my aging 8700K + 32 GB of DDR4 with a 250 GB NVMe SSD the AD03 actually felt snappier in day to day tasks. Good system for simple stuff.

 

[Vario]

Well, not bad looking per se, but for anutha $80-100, you can get several much higher-spec'd mini me boxes with much more powerful & up to date cpu's, gpu's, memory capacity, and m.2 support, so I would have to say this would only be good as a little kiddie machine IMHO....

I know this since I currently own 2 of them (BeeLinks) and have used 4 others from various brands

Also hard to beat things like salvaged HP Elite Desk Gx Micro, Dell Optiplex Micro, Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P Tiny, etc.

Are there dimensions listed in the review for the Ace Magician?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Also hard to beat things like salvaged HP Elite Desk Gx Micro, Dell Optiplex Micro, Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P Tiny, etc.

Are there dimensions listed in the review for the Ace Magician?

129 x 137 x 54.5 mm front page table

 

[Sandbo]

It might be useful to consider adding media encoding benchmark for it in the future. While it may not be the primary use case, this new CPU is quite capable of doing transcoding and is a little gem for building Plex/Jellyfin server if one only has a NAS.

 

[iFl]

What kind of screwdriver was needed to unscrew the frame inside with the deep placed screws?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

What kind of screwdriver was needed to unscrew the frame inside with the deep placed screws?

All screws in my review unit were standard Phillips head screws

 

[iFl]

Was the screwdriver a ph00 or ph000?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

If memory serves me right, I used a PH0 for disassembly. But to be fair I just have a screwdriver with multiple tips and said tips are just randomly tossed into a plastic case. But considering I use PH0 and PH2 the most I do remember sizing down to disassemble the system. so again PH0 seems likely. Altho not that it matters can just try different size screwdrivers till one fits properly.

You are probably the first person to ever ask what exact screwdriver size was used which I find somewhat amusing. Not a bad question but certainly unexpected since 99% of screwdrivers I own have no reference to their actual size unless you manually measure the tip.

 

[iFl]

Thanks, got the required informations.
It can be easily explained, my computers so far needed one screwdriver. And that one doesnt fit here. As thats a ph1, i likely go for a ph00 now.

 

[Groch]

Are you certain it only takes an SATA drive? Your photos make it look like an NVME compatible slot and a poster on the AceMagic forum says the bios refers to NVME.

BTW the AD03 is a LOT cheaper on the Acemagic.com deals page right now.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

In my conversations with the company, I was lead to believe SATA M.2 + SATA 2.5 support only, And the BIOs on my review unit had no mention of NVMe at least from what I remember been a hot minute.

 

[Athena]

The AD03 is going for $130 now at their site

so pretty good deal it seems, just add it to cart, coupon auto applies

 

[iFl]

Are you certain it only takes an SATA drive? Your photos make it look like an NVME compatible slot and a poster on the AceMagic forum says the bios refers to NVME.

Thats interesting. The slot indeed looks like having just one bar on the image.
But can a slot be for sata and nvme at once?

 

[Groch]

But can a slot be for sata and nvme at once?

Yes. Physically the NVME slots were designed to be backwards SATA compatible. If either NVME or SATA does not work in the single slit NVME slot its because the motherboard bios does not recognize one or the other.

The Acemagic.com forum (a useful place) has discussion on this concluding NVME drives are not recognized in this model. I am not convinced yet. I have owned other Ace Magician Mini-PCs that did not recognize new blank drive because of some other bios or Win11 security measure. I had to clone the original drive to get it to show up at all.

 

[CTjimmy70]

Thanks for this. I have been searching for an hour on how to take this unit apart.