GMKTech K4 Review - Ryzen 9 7940HS Radeon 780 Mini PC

[@gmk782]

Hi Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to review our K4, and we appreciate your feedback on the device. And of course, our team values your thoughts and will make improvements to the mini pc accordingly.

[@Techtablets]

Glad it was helpful!

[@HansTechTalk]

Seems like a Powerfull Mini PC... I will try to get one as I've been thinking about upgrading my old Mini PC

[@Techtablets]

Like all the 7000 series I've reviewed so far they all seem to have either thermal issues or reboots.

[@HDRPC]

If you can wait for Meteorlake Intel core ULTRA. So wait little bit. Watch comparison of both then decide.

[@HDRPC]

​@@Techtablets100% agreed sir. Amd's 7000 series architecture has some hardware level issues.

[@mohammadzein504]

The form factor is properly awsome! But all that power is causing this mini pc to cook itself! The ease of access is also really nice here as well! Hopefully they are able to implement a better cooling in future iterations, because this mini pc seems to have serious potential! A great detailed review as always Chris Sir✌👍

[@HuntaKiller91]

Undervolt shud help

[@Techtablets]

How with AMD chips? I can do it with Intels.

[@vinyfiny]

​@@Techtabletsthere should be options in the bios to limit boost, short term and long term voltage. I also think there's a program to do it IN Windows.

[@philjtephenson41]

Great timing on the review, filled in some gaps for me as ive been looking at these all week and decided not to bite just yet because theres no option to add an other ssd in into it, small problem but not a massive deal so im still looking around, however for UK peeps buying direct from GMK will give you a lot better pricing than Amazon....

[@saturn2fire]

Agree... there's no option for a second m.2 ssd nor there is support for 2.5" drive. Originally, I was hoping to buy this given its price and mount an external GPU via NVME but won't happen for this one. Good thing the USB-C supports TB3... if the driver works.

[@Techtablets]

Sadly the only option is external drives. If only it had another M.2 slot.

[@S_G_86]

Thank you for the review Chris , always pleasure to watch your videos! I think between all 7940HS mini pc models I have seen so far (GMKTech, Beelink, Minisforum) Minisforum UM790 Pro has the best results. As I remember they have fans both on top and under the motherboard. I think GMKtech overheats because of only 1 fan under the board especially SSD and RAM on top gets so hot but in this case it seems like CPU also overheats which means their cooling solution is not so good. Do you have any plans to review UM790 pro? ETA

[@pkpnyt4711]

I also think for these mini PC models, it's better to use 3.0 SSDs, the speed won't make a difference for what you normally do everyday (even gaming) and it'll result in cooler temps inside that dinky case. I do believe the minisforum is also the best and that has some problems with the SSD heating up a bit. Again, if you just use a 3.0 SSD the problem is solved.

[@Techtablets]

I'm still waiting for Minisforum to send me the UM790 it seems they wanted my review to be late. Worried I might point out overheating issues or something. Or new revision of it that's better? Hopefully get it soon.

[@S_G_86]

@@Techtablets There are so many reviews about UM790 even ETA prime did a few videos about it but nobody talked about temperatures under sustained load. I was waiting for your review actually :) I only saw 1 guy called Jack Stone did a review about it , I guess he is Chinese but he add some English subtitles luckily. It seems that UM790 pro has a much better cooling solution and 7940HS can hold 65W TDP for longer periods of time without any issues. Anyway hope to see your review Chris, take care.

[@wingsfromheaven8788]

And keep in mind that the MinisForum UM690 had thermal throttling problems, no doubt leading to the upgraded cooling solution in the UM790. Apparently, GMKTech didn't learn that lesson on thermals alongside MinisForum. Some of the other shortcomings (HDMI 2.0, no 2.5" drive slot, single NVMe slot) indicate that GMKTech is actually trying to undercut the MiniPC market. So properly engineered solutions are not the priority. That's probably okay up to 35W or so. But folks willing to pay-up for 7940HS performance are just waiting for reviews such as this because they would rather spend 20% less for a full-featured and reliable 7735HS MiniPC, or 10% more for a properly-cooled 7940HS, from Beelink or Minisforum knowing that both will outperform a thermally-throttled device.

[@HDRPC]

Excellent review as always sir. Competition is getting better in mini PC and laptops. Intel core ULTRA Meteorlake is coming in September 2023 and it has faster igpu than 780m for gaming and 3d work. It also has new generation of quick sync with dual encoders(with AV1 encode) and dual decoders just like Arc A380 dGPU. Competition is always great for us. Lets see which will be better, this Amd mini pc or Intel core ULTRA Meteorlake.🥳🥳

[@Techtablets]

Meteorlake when I get them will defiantly be covered. I'm looking forward to the next gen Intel chips should be something.

[@HDRPC]

@@Techtablets thanks sir. Must cover them as soon as possible.🥳🥳🤩🤩

[@nailil5722]

you should start testing Red Dead Redemption 2 instead of Cyberpunk. It's way more stable, has more graphic options and it's more popular. Imo it makes more sense as a benchmark.

[@_GarethRossUK]

is RDR2 cpu heavy? I know cyberpunk is a cpu heavy title.

[@DSTWizz]

Thanks Chris. Great detailed review as always. I'm still using the Beelink Ryzen 9 4900H that you reviewed last year. I have a 2.5 SSD in it too, with an extra backup drive plugged in as well. Even the Beelink shuts down without warning on occasion; fortunately I haven't lost anything though. Seems to be a problem with these mini PCs generally.

[@GodsMemeTV]

impressive price/performance, nice one 👍

[@Techtablets]

Thanks! 👍

[@igrewold]

Thanks for the review, Chris Could please once at least try Chimera OS on one of these 780M tablets It gives an experience some what similar to steamdeck

[@MrLivewire1970]

Im curious if these could handle Visual Pinball or Pinball FX? They would fit in a pinball cab perfectly.

[@patrikpukan]

Please review the new Redmibook Pro 15 with Ryzen processor, as you always reviewed the redmibooks just with intel cpus.

[@TheDaNuker]

I wonder is there a market for taller mini PCs seeing how quickly they reach their thermal limits these days with mobile CPUs. Make it cube shape and give it more room to mount a compact desktop heat sink/fan to reduce all of these thermal issues.

[@Wooksley]

tl;dr: stock thermal interface is hot garbage So I got this unit a couple of weeks ago. Today I figured that I should go disassemble it just for fun, you know. And since I was already in there I figured maybe I’ll go change stock thermal paste and applied some Kryonaut I had on hand. I had no expectations that it would actually change anything . I opened Cinebench and… 74c. 80 after 10 minutes have passed. Before the change in Cinebench temp immediately got to 100c. I had no idea that changing thermal paste can do THAT. About 90c in performance mode in Cinebench by the way.

[@saeed2k23]

Plz give long term review of Poco F4 & do in-depth camera comparison between Poco F4 & Poco F5!

[@justinpatterson5291]

How does a 7940HS compare to a 7840U in productivity?

[@chairman67]

Because of it's poor cooling performance with a locked down BIOS, I think the Morefine M600 Pro or the Minisforum UM790 Pro would be better choices for power users wanting the most performance out of their 7000 series APU. I have the previous M600 R9-6900HX and have gotten 14303 points in R23 and 5575 points in R20 with a Thermalright AXP90-X47 heatsink cooler installed with the fan in a pull config. Tctl sat around 85C running at 75W.

[@panagiotis6019]

Great review. Are you gonna review the Minisforum um790 pro? That has a much better qooling system than this.

[@Techtablets]

I'm still waiting for it, some some reason Minis forum wants me to review it later. Not sure. Hopefully it shows up.

[@guvbun04]

@techtablets I did get this when it was released. but I am somewhat disappointed. Yes a powerful machine for a good price, but it got so hot while running windows 11, that I started to smell strange. Now I am running Regata OS Linux on it. The termals are better but for the cost of some driver incompatibility.

[@akin242002]

Incredibly powerful for a mini-PC and the best integrated GPU on the mini-PC market. I'm worried about the durability and reliability of this brand of Mini-PC.

[@Techtablets]

Shame about the temps it gets rather hot. So could affect the reliability of it.

[@skibbitybebop]

Apologies the vids been up for a while but just curious - how do you feel this compares with the Gtr7 pro? Same processor but maybe difference in performance especially with temperatures?

[@Techtablets]

The same issues, reboots and powering off. However today I should have my review of the SER7 7840HS and it's better than this and the GTR7 Pro. No random reboots or powering off it seems perfect apart from the wifi card is only 6 not 6E and the custom power plug.

[@skibbitybebop]

​@@Techtabletsfantastic, I'll keep my eye out for it!

[@skaterboy1425able]

What if i took off the back panel and just faced a fan to it. It has power, seems to be more than my Alienware M15r3 but this is the first i have heard of how hot it can get. Not sure what to do now as i didn't want to spend near 2k for a better PC

[@_GarethRossUK]

GMKTech give a proper power supply shame beelink do not, we need a barrel supply not that magnetic thingy. I hope this was with the updated AMD 780m drivers because Ratchet & Clank on the Beelink got a big boost in fps on high, very high settings 1080p fsr 2.1 I get a solid stable 40fps min sometimes jumps to 55fps. It's a shame the ram speed is limited to 5600 you can not find faster in this form factor otherwise the graphics would be even better. The do sell this as a barebones kit. Beelink thermals are much better, the new baseplates are available on request and the memory with ratchet and clank 56c one one stick the other stick only got 48c i dont know why the two sticks temps so different. Beelink support is a little all over the place though and GMKTech is better in that regard. Thanks for testing cyberpunk because it is a cpu heavy title, ratchet & clank is a ssd and gpu heavy game that might be worth looking at.

[@IvarBjørnedræberen]

Is it possible to use egpu tru usb 4.0 port in front?

[@jimaxdfreak]

What to do with this if it cant start its display, hardware failure!?!

[@marcelomoura6685]

Steam is compatible?

[@kalsangtashi3040]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@unknown183]

Why is this thing not using LPDDR5-7500Mhz? Kills me. I would have purchased one.

[@Techtablets]

They opted for Sodium instead of soldered on RAM. My guess is due to the cost of that RAM.

[@unknown183]

@@Techtablets Makes sense. However, that 780M IGPU benefits and pairs amazingly well with that specific ram. I would of paid extra for it plus there would be no need to swap out the ram.

[@_GarethRossUK]

@@unknown183 all these mini pcs with the 7840/7940hs series are using laptop format memory but with high watt tdp the difference of the memory provides isnt lost if the memory was directly mounted on the board instead of a slot with the high watt we can use on these then the performance would be even more incredible.

[@Techtablets]

Yes the fast the ram speeds the better the iGPU's perform.

[@unknown183]

@@Techtablets I almost bought one until pre release they emailed me and said this unit won't have 7500MHz. It was rumored to have it in the earlier stages of this device.

[@asan1050]

TechTablets!, Thanks Much !.......

[@Techtablets]

Thanks!

[@Raintiger88]

I hate a locked BIOS. . .not on my shopping list.

[@PeterPain]

just bought an i3-n305 topton! n100 value edition is a bit of a bargain.

[@borderman96]

those things need a vapor chamber cooling solution like there is on some highend smartphones... is it possible to undervolt the new mobile chips with ryzen master?

[@zodiacfml]

I knew more mature brands can do better than this. Even an ASUS ROG Ally has better thermals/throttling than this. Their Ryzen 7 7735HS version looks compelling though, $200 ($580) less than this Ryzen 9.

[@HuntaKiller91]

$499 for the barebone in my country

[@Techtablets]

Yes great price for it.

[@theoneyoudontsee8315]

I would take 1 hdmi 2.1 over 2 hdmi 2.0!

[@Techtablets]

Same here!

[@truesightgrabber]

Thunderbolt?

[@Vinterloft]

OMFG no displayport on the back so you have to use the FRONT?!?! Do they not realize how stupid that will look? FFS these mini PC fabs are boiling my piss

[@Techtablets]

Yes very silly should have one on the back since the HDMI ports aren't 2.1 spec.

[@youp1tralala]

Another minipc whose BIOS will never be updated...

[@Techtablets]

Unlikely.

[@oviandre]

first

[@chadbrick67]

The morfine m600 with same specs is supposed to be better apparently. Runs better I'm told