Intel's Meteor Lake Is Here! GMKtec K9 Mini PC Review

[@bryans8656]

Thanks for the honest review. Although I won't be picking up one of these I can vouch for the reliability of GMKtec devices (I have the NUC G3).

[@screenplayhouse4932]

Sir Dude. I know you already knew this but I got that green $140 GMKtec for the wifey and the fan WAS terrible, just as you promised. I switched her to that Ryzen Ser 5er and now life is good. Thanks for being as reliable as you are, I won't doubt you again.

[@Bareego]

Have a Ser5 as well and love it.

[@godnyx117]

Thanks for the review and once again, thanks for testing a Linux distro!

[@brads2041]

Good review. Also thanks for the Linux test. Any improvement in overall performance for an intel platform is good news to maintain competition with amd and force both to keep imoro9

[@BlindWarriorSven]

Hey @robtech , Thank you for this Meteor Lake review. I hope you will be able to test the "Ultra core 7" editions of meteor lake in the nearby future. As far as I understood, the Ultra Core 7 cpus have a better arc gpu integrated in them. A bit similar to the ryzen 7 with 780m and ryzen 5 with 760m graphics. Keep up the great work and if you have the possibility, it would be great to see Street Fighter 6 being tested on meteor lake. p.s. I totally agree with the ridiculous name scheme both intel and amd are using!

[@Robtech]

Hmm, don't have SF6 and looks to still be full price at the moment.

[@BlindWarriorSven]

@@Robtech If you are willing to include it in your tests, I am more than happy to provide you a copy of the game. But, that's up to you of course.

[@Robtech]

That's kind of you, but no need. After doing some research, I see the minimum requirements are a GTX1060 (VRAM 6GB) or Radeon RX 580 (VRAM 4GB). No integrated graphics is up to that minimum yet unfortunately.

[@Deathgazer]

Would it be possible to swap that top fan with a Noctua to quiet it down, or any recommendations?

[@paraagshah4153]

Your suggestion please for a VFM/budget mini PC for these requirements: Can be powered over USB-C and carry a display signal - I have an Asus docking monitor that can supply 65w power over USB-C cable. Would prefer not to carry the separate DC power supply for the PC. Use case: Photoshop and Lightroom in addition to OTT streaming and browsing. Thank you.

[@nadtz]

Benchmarks that specifically test NPU's are in a weird place right now, you could try something like openvino for Intel specific hardware, but last I saw those don't work with AMD NPU's or GPU's and I don't know if something like tensorflow works with NPU's yet (probably does). Wouldnt be suprised to see some kind of NPU specific test soon though. Meteor lake honestly doesn't look bad but Lunar Lake looks more interesting overall. Either way thanks for the review and the Linux check either way!

[@Robtech]

Yeah, I looked into it and didn't seem like there was a good way of testing across both platforms yet. But, more research needed 😅

[@markalot]

I enjoyed the video, I like watching videos like this. That out of the way, I don't understand the audience for this kind of mini PC. For gaming it's cheaper at this point to buy or build a larger box for less and then add dedicated video when one can afford it. Productivity powerhouse in a small box? Is that a needed thing? :)

[@neilquinn]

Nice review - my opinion is all these miniPC's should run in balanced mode - they are just too temperature sensitive in those small chassis and get loud with fan noise.

[@Bareego]

The most impressive bit was the AV1 quicksync, would be a neat machine for transcoding. Good intel is catching up with igpu performance, but that power draw, sheesh. The latest 6.9 linux kernel improves meteorlake performance, but not sure if it helps with the sound issues. There seems to be an intel driver for the graphics but it's not classed "officially stable" by intel yet. If I planned to run linux I'd prolly wait for half a year or so before buying a machine like this, if at all. The AMD chips just run so well already.

[@chromerims]

Your video is excellent

[@ashtonwoodturnings225]

Av1 encoding very interesting

[@kaivaja]

I don't get the criticism around the naming of new processors. Seems simple enough...

[@Robtech]

What do the numbers signify? Doesn't have the generation, the year or the core count. Ultra 5 125H means nothing and the rest of the lineup doesn't have any sense to it either.

[@avidwriter2882]

Could be just driver issues since it's new but it's too early to tell.

[@tadc]

I enjoy watching your reviews regardless of no practical information there for me so far. I have an old Microsoft Surface Pro running i7-4650 CPU with 8GB RAM. Is it worth replacing with a mini PC if I care only about photo editing? Which CPU they use can perform better enough to justify a swap? The last time I played a computer game was the ping-pong under DOS 😜

[@Robtech]

Any recent Intel i5 mini or higher will be much faster than the 4650. But whether you'll notice much of a difference depends if you're experiencing slowdown on the Surface when doing tasks.

[@tadc]

@@Robtech Great to hear from you back so fast and thank you for the info. It makes my happy but what about all those people with a similar question who watch your reviews. All these numbers against benchmark tests may mean something to those who follow them regularly. How about us, ordinary non-gick folk, who do not get all these cryptic 3dmark and such test names. I hope you take these remarks as constructive rather than just critical. Keep up the good work by making it more digestible too. 👍

[@tadc]

Here is one more point: you've said than an i5 in a mini can be better than the i7 on my Surface. An average person looking at the numbers would think the opposite. This is why we need information in plain language.

[@Robtech]

That's only always true for the same generation of processors. The i7-4650 came out in 2013. I don't have the numbers to compare, but it would likely be beaten by even the i3 from a couple years back. An easy way to compare and get an approximate difference is to download Cinebench 23 onto your surface, run the single and multicore test and compare the results to mine. Same with 3Dmark and run Firestrike or Time Spy. That'll be the difference in processing and graphics performance.

[@BlindWarriorSven]

Ah I see. Yeah it would be a bit of a waste then. I am able though to run sf6 on my Beelink SER7 with the ryzen 7840hs. But I have to put the game in 720p to get 60fps. Hopefully the igpus are getting stronger in the nearby future.

[@Robtech]

Right, yeah the minimum would be for 1080P. I doubt the faster ARC will beat the Radeon 780M in your 7840HS.

[@Twiszted]

is your t shirt custom made?

[@Robtech]

No, just a choice off AliExpress

[@Twiszted]

@@Robtech looks good quality

[@ad_fletch]

Is that Shodan? You seem a bit young to have played System Shock when it came out 😄

[@Robtech]

Started with 2 when it released, then played the first 😉

[@mitranoarthur]

@@Robtech I had to search for the quote in the tshirt to confirm it was system shock.

[@dave_r]

Interesting review, but this is one of those units that leaves me wafflling: If both of the nvme slots have 4 lanes then that could trump other issues for some of us. I don't mind the plastic case per se, but somehow GMKtec manages to pick colors that emphasize the fact that they're plastic, and make them look cheap, IMHO.

[@superangrybrit]

Shame Mini PC iGPUs are still an issue. It's also startling how many games are still on DX11. 😞

[@Robtech]

Yeah, DX12 uptake has been poor 🫠

[@geraldh.8047]

Those 2 extra Low-Power-Efficiency cores seem to be a total waste of silicon if Intel wasn’t even able to lower the idle power draw 😢 Meteor Lake is a bit of a disappointment. So much hype, so little actual improvements.

[@tendosingh5682]

They are desperate at this point. Last couple of gens have been a waste. Can't wait for Zen5 and Strix Point.

[@neilquinn]

@@tendosingh5682 AMD is a no-brainer at this point in time unless you need some intel specific software to run (a picky linux distro, certain hardware, etc). Maybe also if you want proper quicksync support in Plex since they don't fully support AMD hardware transcode.

[@Bareego]

@@tendosingh5682 this, since 12th gen I haven't seen much worth talking about. The N100 is an absolute value banger, and if you need more go AMD (in mini PCs).

[@yissnakklives8866]

Gmktec's habit of choking that mem/nvme fan space is ungood.

[@SuperStareGry]

This cost twice as much as 7840hs. Why would one buy intel is just beyond me.

[@user-0341htrs4]

What is the connector under the cover, near the RAM? What are the parameters of the top fan? Is it possible to replace the entire cover with a 120mm fan?

[@MorganEdgy]

It seems Intel focused so much on AI performance it forgot to take uh... the rest of things into account

[@chaiyong7998]

GMK has terrible customer service. I got a lemon, and they are not responding to emails for support. Buyer beware

[@Robtech]

Did you get it from Amazon or the website?

[@TrusteftTech]

Things were going well till we reached the temperatures. Pass!

[@edwald4056]

At that price, this is a hard 'nope!'

[@tendosingh5682]

Utter waste especially at this price.

[@boy_ka84]

What The??? I thought this video are 44 minutes long. Turns out the rest after minute 11 is a blank video. What a disappointment.

[@keithframe3489]

I got that too, but after refresh, it got back to 13 minutes.

[@user-0341htrs4]

What is the distance between the screws holding the cover with the small fan? Is it possible to place a 120mm 5V 4pin fan instead of the cover?

[@user-0341htrs4]

Is it possible to replace thermal paste with liquid metal and perform a performance test and temperature throttling test?

[@lylluzzos]

Liquid metal looks dangerous. There is PTM7950, a phase-changing thermal pad for CPUs that does wonders. I'm using it on my Ryzen 5700X and even when overclocked and stress-tested, the temperatures don't go over 65°C (I'm also using a Thermalright Si-100 as CPU cooler).