Expert’s Rating
Pros
- High efficiency for many issues
- Room for extra storage
- Generous connectivity
- Compact design
Cons
- Annoyingly loud cooling
- Not optimum wifi reception
- Somewhat costly
Our Verdict
The design is straightforward and trendy, efficiency surprises positively in a number of methods when it comes to CPU, graphics, and connectivity, and the power to improve the storage. If it wasn’t for the fixed and typically loud hissing, this might have been an unqualified suggestion.
Price When Reviewed
$429
Best Prices Today: Asus Expertcenter PN53-S7103AD
It’s not well-known, as the vast majority of Asus merchandise are geared toward house customers, particular person media professionals, and avid gamers, however Asus additionally makes workplace computer systems primarily for companies, though anybody can purchase them. These include laptops underneath the title Expertbook and desktop computer systems underneath the title Expertcenter. They vary from giant commonplace towers to all-in-one fashions to actually compact mini PCs. An instance of the latter is the Expertcenter PN53.
It’s a extremely compact little field, just a bit over 5 inches extensive and simply as deep, however then a little bit taller than, say, the Mac Mini or HP Pro Mini 400. The outer shell is all black matte plastic with sharp edges and corners, and huge cooling grids on the edges and crowded ports on the again, so it doesn’t look significantly glamorous. But it’s discreet sufficient to face subsequent to a monitor in your desk and never appeal to consideration.
Mattias Inghe
Full-speed or half-speed community
On the entrance is a quick USB 4 port of Type C with DisplayPort help, two common USB 3 of Type A, and a headphone port. The reverse aspect is filled with ports. An equally quick USB-C, additionally with DisplayPort, three USB-A with USB 3 pace, an extra-fast Ethernet port with 2.5Gbit pace and three further display screen outputs: two HDMI 2.1 and a big DisplayPort. That’s greater than most giant laptops, and greater than many giant desktop PCs.
Wireless is just not as quick. It’s Wi-Fi 6 commonplace, however the reception is just not good and I get weaker sign energy the place I place the pc than with different mobiles and laptops, so although in idea it ought to be potential to recover from gigabit pace, I don’t actually land on these ranges. It’s nonetheless steady and quick sufficient for many issues, so it’s laborious to complain.
With the 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS, the pc has constantly excessive efficiency for the whole lot from browsing and workplace work to productiveness and even easy video games. The inbuilt Radeon 680M graphics chip is highly effective sufficient to run much less grueling video games at 1080p decision. At least so long as you’re not strict about 60fps necessities. I run Witcher 3 on it, and might get 40fps with excessive stability.
A really loud hiss
But not peace and quiet. The pc has energetic fan cooling from the primary boot up, and it by no means settles down, leaving you with a relentless and intrusive noise within the background. It additionally shortly ramps as much as much more noise when the processor or graphics get loaded and the slightest bit scorching. I’ve examined many compact laptops, some with pretty much as good efficiency as this pc, and sadly this one is a notch extra noisy than most.
The aggressive cooling does preserve the {hardware} on the proper temperature stage even throughout heavy work, so a video export or a processor-intensive sport gained’t sluggish you down. But is it actually price it? Doubtful. Asus might have used a extra subdued fan mode for low-performance use, and extra subdued fan mechanics on the whole.
Mattias Inghe
Usually in Asus computer systems I can go into the My Asus app and set the fan mode, however that’s not accessible right here. The solely factor My Asus accommodates is settings for sound and microphone. Something the pc doesn’t have, until you plug in analog ones your self through the headset port on the entrance. If there’s any approach to management the cooling, I can’t discover it. Maybe you may go searching within the BIOS for it, but it surely’s not one thing that bizarre folks ought to need to cope with.
The Expert Center PN53 is offered in lots of shops to customers after which with Windows 11 Home, although it’s primarily a enterprise pc. Apart from a trial model of McAfee Livesafe, it’s free from pointless third-party applications. The solely factor put in is Asus’ personal help program and some small applications from AMD and Realtek for {hardware} settings.
Room for extra storage
With 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD, I don’t really feel an instantaneous have to improve, however in fact I elevate the lid to see if it’s potential. And sure, it’s not that troublesome. With 4 screws, the pc opens from the underside and splits in two, with elements of the motherboard in every half, linked by a large information cable. You need to watch out to not loosen it, however the storage and reminiscence are then straightforward to entry.
Mattias Inghe
Both SO-DIMM slots for RAM reminiscence are occupied, so it’s important to improve by changing them. For storage you could have a PCIe M.2 slot accessible and simple to succeed in, and a slot the place you may insert a 2.5-inch SATA SSD. It’s more durable to get to, and also you’ll have to rigorously unscrew different elements after which simply as rigorously reassemble them. But it may be finished.
The Expert Center PN53 is offered in different configurations than this one, some a bit cheaper, others a bit extra highly effective and costly. But it’s the similar sort of processor, albeit not at all times as highly effective, and the identical cooling mechanics in them. So I’m uncertain that selecting a much less highly effective mannequin will assist a lot with the noise drawback.
Specifications
Product title: Asus Expertcenter PN53
Tested: January 2024
Manufacturer: Asus
Tested mannequin: PN53-S7103AD
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS, 8 cores 3.2-4.75GHz
Graphics: AMD Radeon 680M
Memory: 16GB DDR5
Storage: 512GB SSD
Expansion slots: 1st M.2, 1st 2.5 inch SATA
Connections: 2x USB4 40Gbps (1 with DisplayPort), 5x USB-A 5Gbps, 2.5Gbit LAN, DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1, headset
Wireless: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
Operating system: Windows 11 Home
Other: 2-year guarantee
Noise stage: 33- 38dBa
Size: 13 x 13 x 5.7cm
Performance
Cinebench R23, cpu all cores: 12,812 factors
Cinebench R23, cpu single core: 1,558 factors
Geekbench 6, cpu all cores: 10,042 factors
Geekbench 6, cpu single core: 2,129 factors
Geekbench 6, graphics: 29,406 factors
Disk learn: 3,604.06 MB/s
Disk write: 3,372.77 MB/s
This article, which initially appeared on PC för Alla, has been translated from Swedish to English.