Thunderobot’s newest mini PC skips the gaming flash and goes small. The Mix Neo is a silver box built on Intel’s Lunar Lake platform, it’s on sale now in China through JD.com, and it starts at $674.
A Core Ultra 7 256V runs the show, with 16GB of LPDDR5X-8533 riding inside the processor package and an Arc 140V GPU on graphics. Storage splits two ways: 512GB on the base machine, 1TB if you step up.
Thunderobot Mix Neo
Core Ultra 7 256V · 16GB LPDDR5X-8533 · 512GB or 1TB SSD, dual 2.5 GbE
Price: $674 (512GB) · $749 (1TB)
Where to buy: More details at Thunderobot
The whole thing weighs 480 grams.
Lunar Lake does the lifting
The 256V is an eight-core chip, four Lion Cove performance cores beside four Skymont efficiency cores, and it’s the efficient branch of Intel’s current laptop line rather than the hot one. That choice suits a box cooled by a single small fan: Thunderobot rates noise at 29.5 dB(A) under full load, below the background hum of a typical office.
Graphics come from the Arc 140V, eight Xe2 cores clocked up to 1,950 MHz, fed by that on-package memory. Integrated graphics starve on slow RAM, and LPDDR5X-8533 bandwidth is the quiet reason this one keeps up.
No discrete GPU exists anywhere in the range.
It’s a sharp turn from the original MIX, Thunderobot’s gaming mini PC, which pairs Raptor Lake HX processors with RTX 4060 or 4070 graphics cards in a bigger shell. The Neo trades the graphics card for silence, size and a second network jack, and it’s aimed at a different desk entirely.
The memory decision happens at checkout
Lunar Lake puts the RAM on the processor package, so the Mix Neo’s 16GB is fixed for the life of the machine. No slot waits inside. No upgrade path opens later, and there’s no second chance after you pay.
Storage is where the flexibility went. Two M.2 2280 slots sit inside, and the fitted drive is a 512GB PCIe 3.0 SSD on the base model or a 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive on the step-up. The second slot stays empty for the drive you add later.
Sixteen gigabytes covers office work, browsing and light creative jobs without a fight.
It also caps the size of the local AI models the bundled software wants to run, and that ceiling never moves. Buy the storage you need and accept the memory you’re given.
Ports, wireless and dual 2.5 GbE
The front face carries a 40 Gbps USB-C port, two 10 Gbps USB-A ports, a 3.5 mm audio jack and the power button. Around back sit two USB-A 2.0 ports for a keyboard and mouse, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 for displays, and the pair that changes what this box gets hired to do: two 2.5 GbE Ethernet jacks.
Dual 2.5 GbE turns a mini PC into network gear. Run the Neo as a home server, a router, a firewall or the brain of a NAS, and it keeps working long after the workday ends. The 40 Gbps front port is USB4, so one cable can feed a dock, fast external storage or a display. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 handle the wireless side.
Two interfaces also let the box sit between a modem and the rest of the house, filtering traffic for every device behind it while it serves files on the side. That’s a job most mini PCs can’t take at any price, because the second port simply isn’t there. One jack faces the internet, the other faces the house, and that split is exactly why homelab buyers hunt for twin-port machines.
Local AI software, loaded at the factory
Thunderobot preloads FlowyAIPC with its Herdsman local inference engine, configured to run large language models and image generation on the machine itself. The chip platform behind it is rated at up to 115 TOPS of INT8 AI performance, spread across the CPU, GPU and NPU.
Local is the draw. Your documents stay on your drive, your prompts never leave the room, and the tools keep working with the network cable pulled. Setup is already done, too: the engine ships configured, so the first model answers without a weekend of command-line work.
Size, weight and the monitor mount
The chassis measures 128 by 128 by 53.5 mm, under 0.9 liters in volume, and the box includes a mounting kit that bolts the Mix Neo to the back of a monitor. On a desk it takes less room than the keyboard in front of it. Behind a screen, it disappears.
For a reference point US buyers know, Apple’s M4 Mac mini is 127 mm square and 50.8 mm tall at 670 grams, with one Ethernet port that’s gigabit unless you pay for the 10Gb upgrade. The Mix Neo runs a millimeter wider, a touch taller and about 190 grams lighter, and it fits two 2.5 GbE ports as standard.
Thunderobot Mix Neo specifications
| Processor | Intel Core Ultra 7 256V, 8 cores (4 performance + 4 efficiency) |
| AI performance | Up to 115 TOPS INT8 across CPU, GPU and NPU |
| Graphics | Intel Arc 140V, 8 Xe2 cores, up to 1,950 MHz |
| Memory | 16GB LPDDR5X-8533, on-package, not upgradeable |
| Storage | 512GB PCIe 3.0 SSD or 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD |
| Expansion | 2 × M.2 2280 slots, one fitted and one open |
| Front ports | USB-C (40 Gbps), 2 × USB-A (10 Gbps), 3.5 mm audio jack |
| Rear ports | 2 × USB-A 2.0, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, 2 × 2.5 GbE Ethernet |
| Wireless | Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Noise | 29.5 dB(A) under full load (Thunderobot rating) |
| Dimensions | 128 × 128 × 53.5 mm (5.04 × 5.04 × 2.11 in) |
| Volume | Under 0.9 L |
| Weight | 480 g (1.06 lb) |
| Mounting | VESA monitor mount kit included |
| Price | $674 (512GB) · $749 (1TB) at JD.com, China only |
The Mix Neo sells only in China for now, and Thunderobot hasn’t announced a wider release. The price cuts there run deeper than the sticker, too: the national electronics subsidy takes 15 percent off eligible products at checkout, and it drops the base model to the equivalent of about $573 for qualifying buyers.
Thunderobot Mix Neo
Lunar Lake mini PC · two M.2 2280 slots · 480 g and under 0.9 L
Price: $674 (512GB) · $749 (1TB)
Where to buy: More details at Thunderobot
We last covered Thunderobot when its ZERO Air put an RTX 5070 inside a 1.59 kg gaming laptop, and the Mix Neo works the opposite corner: quiet, tiny and wired twice over. At $674 with dual 2.5 GbE and local AI software loaded, it’s an easy machine to want and, outside China, an impossible one to buy.
