Minisforum just dropped a curveball in the compact gaming PC space. Their new AtomMan G1 Pro crams a full desktop Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU into a 3.8-liter tower for $1,440, directly challenging Valve's upcoming Steam Machine with more power and connectivity options at a premium price point.
The compact gaming PC market just got more interesting. Minisforum is taking aim at Valve's upcoming Steam Machine with their AtomMan G1 Pro, a 3.8-liter mini-PC that stuffs a full desktop Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU into an impossibly small form factor.
What makes this machine fascinating isn't just the size – it's the engineering feat of cramming desktop-class components into such tight quarters. The G1 Pro houses what Minisforum calls a "lilliputian" desktop graphics card that sits in the top of the chassis, delivering the full 145W of power you'd expect from a standard desktop RTX 5060. That's significantly more muscle than most mini-PCs can muster.
The timing couldn't be more pointed. While Valve has been teasing their Steam Machine revival with AMD RX 7600 graphics, Minisforum is betting users want the raw performance of Nvidia's latest silicon. The G1 Pro pairs that RTX 5060 with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX CPU that can hit 100W in "Beast Mode" – numbers that would make most laptop users jealous.
But power density comes at a cost. At $1,440 for the 32GB/1TB configuration shipping in mid-January, the G1 Pro is positioning itself as a premium alternative. There's also a barebones version for $1,040, though it's not available for order yet. These prices put serious pressure on Valve to deliver their Steam Machine at a more accessible price point.
The connectivity story is where Minisforum really flexes. The G1 Pro offers five display outputs – two DisplayPort 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4, and two HDMI 2.1 ports – capable of driving four displays simultaneously. Add two M.2 2280 NVMe slots and SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM, and you've got a productivity powerhouse that happens to game exceptionally well.
What's particularly clever is how this plays into current market conditions. With RAM prices spiraling upward due to supply constraints, that $1,440 price tag for a fully loaded system is starting to look reasonable. Building an equivalent system yourself might not save much money in today's component market.
The Linux angle adds another wrinkle to this story. While Valve's Steam Machine will likely ship with SteamOS optimized for AMD hardware, the G1 Pro's Nvidia GPU means users interested in Linux gaming might face driver complexity. However, recent benchmarks from GamersNexus show desktop RTX 5060 performance on Linux distributions like Bazzite, suggesting the gap is narrowing.
