GMKtec Desktop Mini PC

Upfront, I am impressed with the GMKtec G2.I have purchased a number of mini/micro PCs recently for various projects (both personal and commercial) so I feel I have some good points of reference for this unit. From a "brand" standpoint, I've tried a few different ones but I find myself coming back to GMKtec. I like their designs, the products are solid and well engineered, and they have a fully open/unlocked BIOS, which allows for some case-specific tweaking on my end.I have a total of 3 comparable units: this GMKtec G2 (Intel N100, 12G DDR5-4800 RAM, 512GB mSATA), the GMKtec KB5 (Intel N5105, 8G DDR4-2933 RAM, 128GB mSATA), Kamrui AK1Plus (Intel N95, 8G DDR4-2933 RAM, 256GB mSATA).Out of the box, the G2 scored 8.7% better than the AK1Plus and 42% better than the KB5 on Passmark PerformanceTest 9 (older version sure, but it's what I have). The N5105 is an older generation CPU, so this difference is understandable, but still bigger than I expected. The KB5 was something I purchased for a remote monitoring PC and a digital signage project, it's extremely capable for those tasks as well as light office type tasks. This G2 with the boost CPU and RAM push it into the range of honest general usage. You're not really going to play any modern games on it, but any web browsing, video streaming, day to day basic usage is easily handled. It would also make a great emulation rig for a home arcade machine project or classic gaming station.The N95 vs N100 is fairly close in overall specs, with the N95 being slightly higher TDP/power and slightly faster graphics (but less execution engines: 16 vs N100's 24), so the main difference maker here is the memory. DDR5 4800 MT/s over the DDR4 2933 MT/s provides a solid boost in both CPU, Memory, and 2D graphics benchmarks and real world performance.2D graphics benchmarks clock in at 628 for G2, 565 for AK1Plus, 458 for KB5; and 3D benchmarks are within 1% across all 3 chips/models (the scores are low, these aren't made for 3D graphics).The CPU benchmarks show the biggest difference with the N100 here coming in at 7881, the N95 in the AK1Plus model scored 7062, and the N5105 in the KB5 model scored 3660.Now there is a tweak I did in the BIOS to boost performance and benchmark scores here to a consistent 8300, which is a 5% boost. I changed the fan settings, adjusted the power limits, and tweaked the core boost values. This does not overclock this CPU at all, but what it does do is allows the CPU to run at full strength. Raising the fan setting here is the most important to help offset heat and thermal throttling. Normal usage doesn't cause it to throttle very often and by default the fan is quite quiet, but if you do anything that pushes all the cores for any length of time, it does heat up and then throttle.I've taken mine apart to see how it fits together and the design is clever and impressive. Taking the bottom panel off shows the CPU cooler (all copper) and is where the LED ring on the bottom plugs into the motherboard. Nothing really accessible there. RAM is soldered on in chiplets, so non-replaceable, but at 12G running DDR5 you likely wouldn't need to anyway. The top panel, which is replaceable with the included red 3D-printed option, reveals the mSATA SSD, and underneath is the WiFi/BT card. If you disconnect either WiFi antenna connection, they are a bit difficult to reconnect but must be done otherwise you'll have terrible WiFi reception. The plastic insert sitting under the WiFi card can only be removed by disconnecting the WiFi antennas and really doesn't reveal anything replaceable or upgradable underneath.The form factor of the unit is nice and small, somewhat impressively so at 3.5"x3.5"x1.6". They make the most use of the size available too, with power button on front, USB on right side, display on left side, and networking & power on the rear. This design works great for being mounted to the back of a monitor or underside of a desk/cabinet. If you're looking for a minimalist and clean cable arrangement, you might find this layout annoying.With dual 1G LAN ports, this box could also be repurposed as a small firewall device if you chose to install PFSense or OPNSense. You could also install Hyper-V on the included Win11 Pro install and have a dedicated port for a VM. I tested each port and got close to line speed on both simultaneously (~800-900mbps). WiFi performance was acceptable too, with an avg of 300-400 mbps on a WiFi5 connection and 600-800 mbps on a WiFi6 connection.I was unable to test the bandwidth of the 3 USB 3.2 ports, but anything I threw at it worked just fine, included an external SSD.Triple display support with 2 HDMI and 1 DP is nice. The DP is v1.4 but doesn't support 8k as a limitation of the CPU itself, but triple 4k displays isn't too shabby!The unit pulled about 8-9W of power at idle and ramped up to about 36W at absolute max, averaging closer to 16W during normal usage. Hooking this up to even a small UPS should allow plenty of runtime in power outages if you want/need to keep this up 24/7.The CPU cooler is well sized and designed for the CPU used. A more powerful CPU (or the ability to overclock this chip) would require a more powerful cooler.My only slight issues with the unit are: it would have been nice to have a USB Type-C on the front near the power button, and the Realtek LAN choice over an Intel (possibly even a 2.5G) option is a bit limiting but an understandable cost measure.As a lightweight office-use PC or Kiosk type machine, it is absolutely sufficient. As a low power, low cost, task specific project PC this is a fantastic choice with enough CPU and RAM power to take more complex tasks. Small on-premise web server or digital signage, custom Arcade emulator or classic console game emulator, running monitoring or automation software, or even lightweight Hypervisor are all fantastic choices for this unit.

This little thing is amazing. I've only had it for a few weeks so far, but I've really put it through its paces and it's kept up like a champ. First, it says triple 4k 60Hz display, and that's no false boast - That's exactly what I'm running and it has no trouble with it. Second, I installed Fedora 38 Linux in a dual-boot configuration, and it picked up on everything. Well, everything except the on-board bluetooth but that seems to be a common problem with Linux, and I was able to remedy that just by connecting a bluetooth USB dongle and it worked fine. I thought the dual LAN port "feature" was redundant and unnecessary, but I even found a use for that; I installed a virtual machine and needed to bridge the network connection (NAT doesn't work for my needs), KVM won't bridge the same physical connection as the host machine but I was able to configure the second port as a network bridge and now the VM is connected as intended. I haven't tried gaming on it yet - don't expect this thing to run the latest 3D platformers (I have a bigger rig for those), but I have a few simple low-graphics games that should play on it easily enough. I also like that it came with a vesa mount bracket so I can mount it behind my monitor and it's out of sight out of mind. Time will tell how well it holds up, but so far it's been a great value for the money, it's doing everything I wanted from it and more.

I am really impressed with the device. I was mainly looking for a device to offload my server and other tasks to a dedicated device other than my gaming laptop and this ended up being the perfect solution.The device is small and compact (see pics) and quiet! The included bracket kit to attach to my monitors is also very convenient for when I get around to re-arranging my setup. The included SSD and 12gb of RAM means anything I need to do I can do quickly without a fuss. Plex runs great and the newer Intel CPU means all my files run without a problem (and it has AV1 decode support for Intel Quick Sync).As the product page says, this comes with two (2) HDMI ports and one (1) Displayport, and just enough USB ports for MY personal use. I would still recommend a USB hub if you have a lot of devices to plug in.The rating for gaming reflects the capabilities for the device. This is NOT for regular gaming, however this may be able to run some older/retro emulators but it is not something I've tried.Overall, I am very happy with this device and would recommend it to anyone looking to purchase a miniPC.

Boots quickly and performs well. However, the USB ports are unable to power some devices such as external disk drives. Problem is easily handled with an externally powered USB hub.

It's a really nice capable Mini PC. It has an Intel N100 (4 core) running at 3.4GHz at a TDP of 6W, 12GB ram and 512GB of NVME storage. I run Ubuntu on it. I haven't tried to run games on it yet. It has a CPUBenchmark of 5,621 so it should run most games on medium quality 720p. I like the led around the base. You can change the color from BIOS. This model is a bit more expensive because it has more storage and the WiFi/Bluetooth card is newer Wifi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. It has (2) 1 Gigabit RJ45's. You can add an m.2 2242 (up to 2 TB) for more storage. There's more but you can see the specs on it's page. I use mine to bring up a web browser and stream media on the big tv. There is so much power in this mini that it makes those android boxes look like baby toys, plus you can display anything you want, watch anything from any site that streams. You can't do that on an android box. I actually bought several different types of GMKtec boxes to use around the house and intend to buy more.

It worked well as long as I didn't try to update the BIOS. A decent machine even for mild gaming once I downloaded Iris graphics drivers from Intel website.