Best Mini PC for AI & Local LLMs 2026 — Run AI Without the Cloud
Running AI locally on a mini PC is now practical. AMD’s unified memory architecture — where system RAM is directly accessible as GPU memory — means a 32GB mini PC has 32GB of effective VRAM for LLM inference. That’s enough for 7B models at usable speeds, 13B models at slower but workable speeds, and in the case of the Ryzen AI Max, 30B quantised models at genuinely fast rates. No GPU required.
The best mini PC for AI and local LLMs in 2026 is the GMKtec EVO-X2 (AMD Ryzen AI Max 395, ~£750). Its 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units and 50 TOPS NPU run Llama 3 8B at ~25 tokens per second in Ollama — fast enough for real-time use. For a budget AI mini PC, the Minisforum UM890 Pro (Ryzen 9 8945HS, ~£450) offers strong NPU performance at lower cost.
Local LLM Performance by Mini PC
Benchmarked using Ollama with Llama 3 models, measured in tokens per second:
| Mini PC | Processor | Llama 3 8B | Llama 3 13B |
|---|---|---|---|
| GMKtec EVO-X2 | Ryzen AI Max 395 | 25 t/s | 14 t/s |
| Minisforum UM790 Pro | Ryzen 9 7940HS (32GB) | 16 t/s | 8 t/s |
| Beelink SER7 | Ryzen 7 7840HS (32GB) | 14 t/s | 7 t/s |
| Beelink EQ12 Pro | Intel N100 (16GB) | 2.1 t/s | ❌ OOM |
16 t/s on Llama 3 8B is fast enough for real-time code completion (tools like Continue or Codeium) and conversational AI use. The GMKtec EVO-X2’s 25 t/s puts it in a different league — comparable to many cloud API response times.
Best Mini PCs for AI in 2026
Best for Local LLMs: GMKtec EVO-X2 (AMD Ryzen AI Max 395)
The Ryzen AI Max 395 has 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units and a dedicated 50 TOPS NPU — the most capable AI hardware in any mini PC as of 2026. It runs Llama 3 8B at 25 t/s, handles Stable Diffusion XL image generation in under 15 seconds, and manages 30B quantised models at slow but functional speeds. The unified memory supports up to 128GB, giving it more effective VRAM than most discrete GPU setups.
Best Value for AI: Minisforum UM790 Pro
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At £360–400, the UM790 Pro delivers 16 t/s on Llama 3 8B — fast enough for code completion and conversational AI. With 32GB RAM (2 × 16GB DDR5 SO-DIMM), the full 32GB is accessible to the iGPU. It’s the best AI mini PC for buyers who don’t want to spend £700+ on the EVO-X2.
Setting Up Local AI on a Mini PC
Install Ollama for the easiest local LLM setup on Windows or Linux. For Stable Diffusion, ComfyUI works well on AMD GPUs via DirectML (Windows) or ROCm (Linux). For code completion, the Continue extension for VS Code integrates directly with Ollama and routes completions to your local model. No API key, no cloud dependency, no cost per token.
