GMKtec K8 Review: Buy a Mac Mini
Everything seems perfect until the moment they take your money and disappear
I pulled the trigger for one of those Mini PC that everyone seems to be aiming for their desktop computing purposes. Instead of a great experience, everything turned very awry in mere days of trying to use the unit.
Summary
As of today, the Mini PC market is not mature. It doesn’t have the same quality, care, support and reputation as the desktop products from Acer, Apple, ASUS, Dell, Intel, Gigabyte, Lenovo, MSI, HP, and many other more trustful competitors. Until there is a drastic change in perspective, the Mini PC space will remain as unreliable toys to tinker with, or products to farm for YouTube views.
These are not the dependable machines you should buy for daily use.
Below is the review-in-progress, cut down until a BIOS update bricked the Mini PC and left me with an expensive paperweight without manufacturer support.
The full story, from the beginning
In case you have not realized by now, the “Mini PC” market has grown in size these last years. Long time ago, this form factor was specifically made for companies that would buy these in bulk for small offices or single-task appliances. Today, a Mini PC can be a viable option for those who need to work with a giant monitor, a keyboard and a mouse, but without either the footprint of a giant box, nor the power required to run it.
The classic desktop PC, on the other hand, has been relegated to a specific market space where high computational performance is required: audiovisual workflows, 3D modeling, scientific research, data analysis, and hardcore gaming. Its mainstream appeal has been lost by smartphones, consoles, handled, tablets, and laptops.
It’s anyone guess if the Mini PC will fill the void of mainstream desktop computing in the near future, but you can’t deny they entice consumers given their low price, acceptable performance, and small footprint. So, what’s the catch? There are plenty.
The small realm of Mini PC
I remember years ago when the smallest form factor you could find was a ITX case with no room for a GPU, or a custom-built shoe box that had a soldered Intel Celeron so weak that would choke opening Microsoft Excel. These felt more like inventory clearance from a B2B sale instead of viable consumer-grade products. Luckily, things have gotten better.
In a nutshell, the new brood of Mini PC are laptop hardware on a desktop. These are start from a small custom motherboard, without the usual assortment of ports and slots you would find on desktop-grade ATX motherboards. The main ingredients are a soldered system-on-chip (SoC), some expansion ports, and a small cooling solution sometimes also laptop-grade. You will also find a power brick accompanying these boxes, just like a laptop.
Since the hardware is built to be very energy efficient, you can expect lower consumption compared to full desktop PC. By not having the constraints of battery, some models will happily consume slightly more than their native laptop counterparts. Their performance is acceptable, but nowhere near compared to what you can get from a full, but pricier, desktop PC.
In terms of memory size and storage, the Mini PC offers a big advantage, far below what Apple will charge for the same specifications.
Mini PCs will often be compared to the Mac Mini, their ultimate nemesis. Apple’s compact line have been the pioneer in size since G4 launched in 2005. You will see both being put side-by-side across all the media, including this article. The current model being sold by Apple contains an M2 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It works fine for all office tasks and occasional audiovisual workflows, and it starts at $600.
That price is where the Mini PC starts to lose competitiveness, and that’s why the market has proliferated below that markup. You may find basic machines for around $100, to more performant ones at $500. I’m not going to deny the existence of models that sell at $800 or even $1,400 but these higher prices do not make any sense. They lose hands-down when compared to the aforementioned Mac Mini, or any desktop PC. If you really need a portable office with proven battery life, the MacBook is the first on anyone’s list, followed by the Chromebook and the rest of laptops.
The Mini PC I’m reviewing now is a GMKtec K8, which costs around $450, give or take. The model I bought is “barebones” (no RAM nor storage), mainly because I already had 64GB of DDR5 RAM and a NVMe drive of 2TB I got fully working on a clearance sale. In terms of memory size and storage, the Mini PC offers a big advantage, far below what Apple will charge for the same specifications.
Where the Ryzen 8845HS lands in all of this
I said before that a Mini PC would happily include some laptop-grade hardware, and the GMKtec K8 is no exception to the rule.
This machine runs with an AMD Ryzen 8845HS, which sounds like a leap ahead compared to the prior Ryzen 7000 series, but it is not. Despite AMD’s awful name scheme, this piece of silicon is the same Ryzen 7845HS from early 2023, slightly optimized, with the same impressive Radeon RX 780M integrated graphics, but including a XDNA NPU of 16 TOPS.
About that XDNA NPU, this ain’t it chief. Contrary to what Apple has been doing since the iPhone 8 to the point of platform ubiquity, embedded AI/ML accelerators are still new to the PC space, so there is no software that takes advantage except for some Adobe and Blackmagic applications. I would consider it more like an anecdote than a piece of hardware to be wary about. Apple has an already a mature platform for consumer AI/ML apps, and heavy development software is still on the NVIDIA turf, local or in the cloud. The PC is some years away from having an NPU as standard hardware. Until that happens, developers will still prefer the Apple or renting servers with NVIDIA GPUs for making money.
(…) The RX 780M will handle almost all modern games as long you accept the compromises.
Some folks with the latest handled on their hands, like the Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme, will note that the specifications are almost the same than the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, and they would be correct. The main big difference is the aggressive efficiency, at the cost of performance.
Comparing it to the Apple M2, you will see a similar core count. The Apple M2 has four efficiency cores, and four performance cores, which gives it an efficiency edge on small tasks, something great on laptops. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 8845HS has eight “performance cores” with SMT, virtually doubling its thread capabilities.
You would assume that the Ryzen 8845HS would be substantially better than Apple’s base offering, but it only trade blows in terms of raw performance as seen in some benchmarks. If it were worse, I would seriously doubt the competitiveness of this Mini PC model given how close is from the base Mac Mini price. Apple’s offering may not be very tempting when you complete the build with enough RAM and storage, but there is an inherent platform maturity, support, efficiency, and availability, without the upgradeability.
Graphically, the RX 780M is one of the best available iGPU in the market, but it doesn’t dethrone even the weakest mobile GPUs from 5 years ago, like the Radeon RX 5300M or GeForce RTX 2050M. In other words, the RX 780M will handle almost all modern games as long you accept the compromises.
In terms of competition, the Intel Core Ultra 5/7/9 can also be found with the Arc 8-core iGPU (Xe LPG), with a similar performance, but in a package that consumes more and does less, making the Ryzen option more logical if found at the same price.
It’s difficult to find a comparable desktop GPU given that its performance is very hit-or-miss, but the RX 580 from 2017 would be the closest. Some games will run fine, some others will be slower, and some will be victim of hiccups. The latter is due to the (expected) lack of memory bandwidth found in full-fledged graphic cards with their own memory pool.
Either way, you will be surprised how this iGPU manages to show some modern titles fluidly. To prove my point, here is someone playing Helldivers II with the same iGPU on a similar machine at 60fps, but with all graphic settings at their lowest, and some minor manageable drops in performance. For a platform not near what could be considered “for gaming”, I consider that a win.
You may think this iGPU is similar to the base Apple M3 8-core iGPU, but it’s like comparing apples to potatoes. There are inherent differences in operative system, processor architecture, and API (Vulkan & Direct3D vs Metal) that can make one game built for Apple Silicon and Metal perform better than a port from Windows and Direct3D/Vulkan, and viceversa.
Either way, Windows is still the king in library size alone, putting Linux as a close second place mostly thanks to Valve efforts (the Steam Deck, Proton). Apple has still a long way to go in this regard, but there are games, nonetheless.
The GMKtec K8 is good, only on paper
I honestly think this GMKtec K8 is good on paper, given the inclusion of the Ryzen 8845HS. The problem is that there are important caveats in this model to take into account.
Opening the case is tricky, but the included spatula helps. For some reason, there is a secondary top cover holding a 9mm fan. The gap between these two covers is used for its intake, making its efficiency very debatible in terms of cooling a pair of NVMe, RAM and the wireless card M.2 2230 slot.
In terms of storage, it’s great to have two slots instead of one in such small form factor. They’re easily accessible, but one slot sits on top of the network card. If you put an SSD that likes to get hot, you risk throttling/disabling the wireless card, so consider it a minor annoyance.
The blower fan is a disappointment on itself. Noisy by nature, the fan cannot be changed for anything quieter with an aftermarket solution.
Having a removable wireless card means that you can swap it for a third NVMe 2230 to max out at 10TB of total storage, at least in theory. There is an unused 4-PIN LED connector, and traces for a MIC input that seems didn’t make the cut into the device itself. Even if it had one, wireless headsets with microphones are so accessible now that it doesn’t matter.
That’s where the self-service part of the GMKtec K8 ends.
Trying to remove the motherboard from the case it’s literally a pain, which is aggravated by the antenna cables being glued to the case walls, interfering with the removal process. Those who can pass the test on patience and carefulness will find the board ARB19D produced by IP3 Technology. This company also makes other boards for other ODM, as seen in Geekbench, like Chuwi, Beelink, Acute, and probably many others. Note that their official site doesn’t work, so who knows if they still exist or not.
Below the motherboard is the blower fan responsable of cooling the CPU through some copper heat pipes, and a shy aluminum plate for the VRM connected to it. There are no jumpers to force a BIOS/UEFI reset to factory defaults, and there is no integrated LED or documentation to visualize the POST diagnostics.
The blower fan is a disappointment on itself. Noisy by nature, the fan cannot be changed for anything quieter with an aftermarket solution, unless you want to go the DIY route and create one, which sounds fun for a $100 weekend project to make Matt proud.
Blower fans are great dust collectors too, which only adds insult to injury when trying to pull out the motherboard from the case for the scheduled spring cleaning. If you prefer to blow air from the outside to clean the dust, ensure you lock the fan with a paper clip from the outside, because it’s very common to short circuit the board while blowing air— when the fan rotates fast enough, it creates an electric field that is fed back into the motherboard, frying whatever it finds in its path.
Cooling aside, wireless signals are handled by a MediaTek MT7922 network card co-developed with AMD, known as AMD RZ616. It supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. Don’t ask me for benchmarks.
Digging for other embedded chips, I found a Winbond W25R256JVEQ, a 256MB flash memory in a WSON-8 package where supposedly the UEFI is stored. Alongside it, a GigaDeviceGD25D10CTIG, a 128KB ROM in SOP-8 package, that I suppose tells the CPU to read the contents from the Winbond chip at boot.
Overall, physical connectivity on this machine is average, not decent.
On the positive side, you have access to three USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 on the rear. There is one HDMI 2.0 (4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz) port handled by the ITE Tech. IT66318FN chip, and a DisplayPort 2.1. If you have a high-end monitor, you will have to use the DisplayPort given its bandwidth. Finally, you will find the front headphone jack and the Senary SN6140 codec chip for audio handling duties.
Having a single USB 4.0, let alone the only USB-C port available, is missed opportunity.
Besides all that, the most criticable part in the connectivity area is the inclusion of dual LAN 2.5GE. Each port is managed by their own Realtek RTL8125GB chip. These may pose some performance problems on old Linux kernels, but it can be fixed.
Having one 2.5GE is a great feature for a Mini PC, or any PC at all, when you have something to connect via 2.5GE. Having two 2.5GE ports is totally unnecessary given its price point and features. Even then, you will need Linux and a very good router or switch at the other end to combine both ports into a single 5GE connection, something known as Link Aggregation.
One LAN port could have been sacrificed for external antennas, USB 3.0 ports, USB-C ports, or even an additional USB 4.0 port given the 8845HS platform support. I wouldn’t mind if the power brick had to be 250W to support two USB 4.0 ports delivering 100W each, as the standard imposes. Having a single USB 4.0, let alone the only USB-C port available, is missed opportunity.
At least that single USB 4.0 port on the front, handled by the Parade Tech ps88330 controller, may be used for high-speed devices or a monitor display. In other words, this device able to drive three monitors at once, as long you have the correct cables or dongles. It’s laughable that Apple will let you do the same as long as you pay $1,300 for a M2 Pro model.
Contrary to desktops, the BIOS/UEFI (APTIO) v1.05 is very restricted out of the box. (…) However, the biggest offenders are CPU and RAM performance configuration.
Visually, this is a boring machine to look at, not ugly but not pretty either. Given the price, the case is entirely plastic, except for the aluminum black grills on the sides for cooling purposes. A single LED illuminates the power button when it’s on, and that’s it. It comes with a VESA mount, ready to be hidden behind a monitor.
If you really want graphical power, given the total price and relative immaturity of the eGPU platform, you’re far better off buying a console or handled. For reference, someone decided to test eGPU performance over some Thunderbolt 3 connection and there is a noticeable performance loss up to 50% depending on the game, compared to a desktop PC.
Going into the BIOS is a nightmare because GMKTec doesn’t document how to get into the BIOS, anywhere. After some button smashing, I found that constantly pressing DEL in the keyboard at boot time would do the trick.
Contrary to desktops, the BIOS/UEFI (APTIO) v1.05 is very restricted out of the box, but less restricted than laptops. You will find the usual boot order, chipset and ports features, virtualization, and other knobs. However, the biggest offenders are CPU and RAM performance configuration.
In any case, I queued a BIOS update for later, just to be sure, which would become a great mistake.
The CPU configuration is dumbed down to enable or disable Core Boost, and three TDP configurations: 35W, 54W and 65W. These are not energy consumption numbers, but heat dissipation, as the machine can get consume almost 100W if you push it to the limit. The RAM configuration is just an auto or manual Mega Transfers (MT) speed, so you won’t be able to fine-tune any timings.
After changing the BIOS configuration to 5600MT manually, I booted Windows and saw that CPU-Z reported 5600MHz, but the BIOS showed 4800MT. I guess the changes take effects after the BIOS hands-off the hardware to the operative system, or is just bugged out. In any case, I queued a BIOS update for later, just to be sure, which would become a great mistake.
Someone got bait and switch’ed
While writing this review, someone gave me a tip in form of a Japanese review of the GMKtec K8. It’s curious that we coincide a lot, and we even point out the unused traces for a microphone. Compared to this article, it goes in-depth with some benchmarks and a lot of more photos and screenshots.
From that review, I noticed that the author unit didn’t come with a Lexar SSD or Crucial RAM. Instead, he received sweatshop quality components. A clear case of bait and switch.
The review unit sent to YouTubers and other media is different than what is sold to consumers. They purposedly hide what you’re going to get except for the macro specifications. I think I dodged a bullet by not overpaying for included SSD and RAM, and instead using my own hardware, but that deceptive practice is just awful for the consumers who believe will receive what is advertised.
The is no excuse for a bait-and-switch on the industry. How you can be sure that what is shown by the press or media is the same thing you’re going to receive? If not, then why play the “Techie Russian Roulette” when you can go for other, more trustful alternatives?
The problem of Chinese and Taiwanese companies is that most of these are ODM, so it’s very common for them to pop in and out from the market from time to time. Since products change only their logo, this justifies consumers to grouping all of them together on the same basket. If GMKTec gets bad publicity, even by their own machinations, then all similar companies in the basket will. This case is no exception.
The BIOS update that sold me a Mac Mini
I told you I queued up a BIOS update for this machine, preparing to make some benchmarks afterward. That was the worst decision ever made.
The golden rule for a BIOS (or “Firmware”) update is to do it when you need a fix to any hardware problem, or you need better memory support. Because a BIOS update can be fatal when incomplete or done wrong, all serious manufacturers offer all releases to download as a way to roll back to a prior well-working version. They also thoroughly document the update procedure, in all languages possible.
That’s where GMKtec failed, and then some.
It’s even more insulting that even cheap Ryzen motherboards support BIOS Recovery mechanisms while this custom motherboard does not.
In my defense, I decided to update the BIOS to see if the incorrect memory speed reporting was fixed. I was presented with an amateurish, unprofessional, borderline sketchy Google Drive share masquerading as a support page, which included a mix of insufficient and badly translated documentation in a Microsoft Word document. 🚩
I decided to let GMKtec the benefit of the doubt regardless, so I downloaded the aforementioned files. I booted into Windows 11, ensured nothing was running in the background, followed the instructions, waited until shutdown, turned it on, and then I was presented with a black screen. The system couldn’t boot at all, and after all possible efforts to diagnose the problem, I concluded the BIOS update failed, the Mini PC was bricked, and there was no way to recover the unit.
Adding insult to injury, the update procedure didn’t make a backup of the original BIOS, nor logged what went wrong, anywhere, even to make a second attempt while the computer was still working.
What made everything more infuriating was absence of POST, so I’m left to assume the worst. These kind of self-diagnostic tools helps both the manufacturer and the consumer to know what to repair. Both win.
In 2024, it’s unacceptable not to have a method to restore a bad BIOS, like from USB drive or through a fallback BIOS, especially when the procedure is so unstable and unsecure. It’s not that these BIOS chips cost thousands of dollars either, but it cost the company the shipping back and forth, and time to user. It’s even more insulting that even cheap Ryzen motherboards support BIOS Recovery mechanisms while this custom motherboard does not. I consider this just laziness.
What I learned from this is experience is simple: I should have bought a Mac Mini M2 with 16GB of RAM.
As things couldn’t get any worse, GMKtec support doesn’t exist. They ghosted my email for a full week. That means that if the machine fails, you’re on your own. If that’s the name of the game, I recommend any buyer to make the paperwork needed for full refund, or a chargeback from your credit card issuer, before you regret not doing so.
Luckily, or disgracefully depending on the point of view, a local PC repair shop presented me a quote to resuscitate the unit for a grand total of $300, mainly because the motherboard is “not commercially available” and may require soldering skills. That’s equivalent to more than half of the device itself, without taking into account the cost of the rest of the hardware.
What I learned from this is experience is simple: I should have bought a Mac Mini M2 with 16GB of RAM. That’s precisely what I will do once I sell this Mini PC if the repair is successful.
Conclusion: Don’t buy a Mini PC
Given what happened, and the state of Mini PC manufacturers, I cannot recommend this Mini PC model at this point, or any Mini PC that doesn’t come from a trusted company with extensive post-sale support. You’re far better off squeezing your credit card for something else.
Make no mistake, the GMKtec K8 looks great on paper, but it’s a shame that GMKtec sells it with such oversights. On top of that, they send consumer units with lower-quality components compared to the review units and offers zero support. Getting tickets to Hong Kong and knock their door shouldn’t be a requisite to get proper help.
Having other Mini PC companies alongside them selling computers with data-stealing malware doesn’t help. Also, I’m not the only one that bricks their unit, it happens with other manufacturers too.
That kind of deceitfulness and amateurism only brings consumer rejection. That common perception of “Chinese brands have lower standards” and “Chinese brands forget you after you pay” is only reinforced when the products they sell have those lower standards and do forget you after the sale.
As of today, the Mini PC market is not mature. It doesn’t have the same quality, care, support and reputation as the desktop products from Acer, Apple, ASUS, Dell, Intel, Gigabyte, Lenovo, MSI, HP, and many other more trustful competitors. Until there is a drastic change in perspective, the Mini PC will remain as unreliable toys to tinker with, or products to farm for YouTube views.
These are not the dependable machines you should buy for daily use.
The good
👍️ The 8840HS is comparable to the base Apple M2
👍 Two M.2 2280 ports at PCIe 4.0
👍 One USB 4.0 port
👍 No RGB lights
👍 Triple monitor setup
👍 Can be found around $450 on some retailers
The bad
❎ AMD NPU mostly useless
❎ Extremely difficult motherboard removal
❎ Only one USB-C port
❎ No POST
❎ No BIOS Recovery
❎ No documentation
❎ Blower fan noisy and not serviceable
❎ Very poor RAM and CPU configuration
❎ Debatable utility of dual 2.5G ethernet
The ugly
😡 The latest BIOS update bricked the machine
😡 No support
😡 Repair cost near $300
Rating: 2/10 — Abysmal
Slightly better than a total failure, but barely works. It lacks essential features, suffers from frequent malfunctions, or offers an overall infuriating experience. A regrettable purchase that should be transformed into a refund, when possible.
