Consider it as a NUC from one other identify. We commonly see ultra-small desktops or mini PCs from Intel’s Subsequent Unit of Computing (NUC) collection. The NUCs are often offered as bare-bones kits to which you add reminiscence and storage earlier than deploying the tiny system mounted behind an workplace monitor, in a buyer kiosk, or as a media streamer in your house theater. The Geekom IT8 Mini PC (begins at $439.99; $549.99 as configured) is a bit totally different: it is a full system with RAM and an SSD preinstalled for a diminutive desktop that is a snap to arrange and begin utilizing. Even with an outdated CPU (one in every of Intel’s eighth reasonably than present twelfth Technology CPUs), it is a surprisingly succesful pattern with a helpful array of ports, help for a number of displays, and even a little bit of room inside to broaden. Add an inexpensive worth and quiet operation, and the IT8 is a superb various to an Intel NUC for gentle work, show signage, and different mini PC purposes.
The Design: It is a NUC-Alike
Geekom affords 4 configurations of the IT8 Mini PC, all constructed round an Intel Core i5-8259U cellular processor. This quad-core “Espresso Lake” chip is 4 years outdated and runs at 2.3GHz (3.8GHz turbo), with Intel Iris Plus 655 built-in graphics. The 4 IT8 variations have totally different combos of 8GB or 16GB of reminiscence and a 256GB or 512GB SSD; we examined the highest mannequin with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB drive, priced at $549.99 with Home windows 11 Professional. (You had been anticipating Home windows Vista?)
(Picture: Molly Flores)
The Geekom is kind of related in dimension, form, and look to the Intel NUC 11 Professional Equipment we reviewed final yr, with the identical 4.6-by-4.4-inch footprint however standing barely taller (1.8 inches versus 1.45 inches). Just like the NUC, it features a VESA mount for attaching the system to a wall, the again of your monitor, or the underside of your desk. The mount will increase your placement choices, however the IT8 Mini is so small that you should not have any hassle discovering a spot for it in your desk or home-theater shelf.
For its dimension, the IT8 Mini has a beneficiant allotment of ports on the entrance, rear, and one facet. Up entrance, you will discover a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-A port, a data-only USB Kind-C port, and a headphone jack in addition to the ability button.
(Picture: Molly Flores)
A knowledge-and-display USB-C port and two extra USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports are positioned on the again panel, together with a Gigabit Ethernet port, the ability connector, and each HDMI 2.0 and mini DisplayPort video outputs. Geekom says the IT8 Mini helps as much as 4 shows; I attempted a dual-monitor setup with out difficulty.
(Picture: Molly Flores)
Space for storing will be tight with a mini PC, so I used to be happy to see a full-size SD card slot on the Geekom’s left facet. On the appropriate is a Kensington lock slot to stop somebody from pocketing the pocket-size PC. The facet panels are vented to let air go by means of the system.
(Picture: Molly Flores)
The IT8 Mini additionally helps 802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2, which get the job carried out however are each behind the present requirements of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.
Room to Develop
Now that we have toured the skin of the IT8 Mini, let’s take a peek contained in the case. The 4 rubber toes on the underside double as screws to maintain the panel in place. Loosen them and also you achieve quick access to reminiscence and storage growth.
(Picture: Molly Flores)
To be particular, there are two SO-DIMM reminiscence slots. Even in our 16GB check configuration, there’s one slot free if you would like to double the RAM allotment to 32GB. As for storage, our system’s 512GB solid-state drive occupied the lone M.2 slot, however there’s additionally a SATA connection for including a second storage machine.
(Picture: Matthew Elliott)
Geekom routed the SATA cable to the underside of the underside panel and added a bracket to carry a 2.5-inch SATA drive there. It is spectacular that in such a tiny PC you’ll be able to nonetheless broaden the reminiscence and storage with no need to interchange what’s already put in.
(Picture: Matthew Elliott)
As you’ll be able to think about, we have not reviewed a PC with an eighth Technology Intel CPU in fairly a while, with twelfth Gen “Alder Lake” and eleventh Gen “Tiger Lake” chips hottest as of late although a couple of finances methods nonetheless characteristic tenth Gen “Comet Lake” components. Not surprisingly, you will see within the efficiency benchmarks beneath that the Geekom trailed a equally configured Intel NUC Professional with an eleventh Gen Core i5 processor, although to be honest it prices lower than the NUC (if you think about the price of including reminiscence and an SSD to complete the latter) and did ship aggressive outcomes.
For a lot of mini PC situations, one thing extra vital than uncooked processing velocity is acoustics: a system that requires a loud fan to maintain cool is just not a welcome visitor in my TV room or sitting subsequent to me on my desk. The IT8 Mini is not a fanless design and subsequently is not silent, however the whir of its cooling fan is not fixed. It was audible throughout intensive graphics duties comparable to our Adobe Photoshop benchmark and sport simulations, however at different occasions, together with whereas streaming HD video,the Geekom operated quietly.
The file ought to present that whereas the IT8 Mini is not a bare-bones equipment lacking RAM and a storage drive, it does lack the keyboard and mouse included with many desktops. You may want to supply your personal.
Testing the Geekom IT8 Mini PC
As mini PCs go, the Geekom IT8 is a midrange unit that matches between cheap, underpowered fashions just like the ECS Liva Z3 made principally for streaming or easy net looking and far bigger, pricier powerhouses just like the NZXT H1 Mini Plus. It is joined on this center territory by the aforementioned Intel NUC 11 Professional Equipment and Asus ExpertCenter D500. You’ll be able to see their core parts within the chart beneath:
Although they arrive from broadly totally different generations, the Core i5s within the Geekom and Intel are each quad-core cellular CPUs, whereas the Asus and NZXT boast desktop processors, a six-core Core i5 and eight-core Core i7 respectively. On the backside finish, the ECS Liva Z3 contains a quad-core Pentium Silver finances CPU with out Hyper-Threading. Each the ExpertCenter and H1 Mini Plus are small-form-factor desktops, however a lot bigger than the ECS, Intel, and Geekom machines.
Productiveness Assessments
The primary benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates a wide range of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure general efficiency for office-centric duties comparable to phrase processing, spreadsheeting, net looking, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive check to evaluate the load time and throughput of a PC’s storage.
Three benchmarks deal with the CPU, utilizing all out there cores and threads, to fee a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Professional simulates in style apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease occasions are higher).
Our final productiveness check is Puget Techniques’ PugetBench for Photoshop(Opens in a brand new window), which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to fee a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes a wide range of basic and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Geekom IT8 Mini trailed the opposite two Core i5 methods, the Intel NUC 11 Professional Equipment and Asus ExpertCenter D500, in PCMark 10 nevertheless it wasn’t too far behind, clearing the 4,000-point hurdle that signifies good productiveness for on a regular basis apps like Microsoft Workplace. It predictably trailed all however the ECS in our processor benchmarks, however did surprisingly effectively in Photoshop, ending second solely to the mighty Core i7 NZXT.
Graphics Assessments
We check Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).
We additionally run two exams from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses each low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like picture rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Automotive Chase exams, rendered offscreen to accommodate totally different show resolutions, train graphics and compute shaders utilizing the OpenGL programming interface and {hardware} tessellation respectively. The extra frames per second (fps), the higher.
The Geekom IT8 Mini is about so far as you will get from a full-tower gaming PC, however its Intel built-in graphics are ample for easily working Home windows 11 and streaming HD video. The scores of the NZXT H1 Mini Plus with its GeForce RTX 3060 GPU present the colossal hole in graphics efficiency between a game-worthy system and a kiosk or streamer just like the Geekom.
An Reasonably priced, Prepared-To-Go NUC Different
If you happen to’ve been intrigued by Intel’s NUC compacts however don’t need the trouble or value of acquiring and putting in your personal RAM and solid-state drive (and ponying up for Home windows, too), the Geekom IT8 Mini PC is an alternate effectively price contemplating. It is roughly able to rock out of the field and prices lower than a comparable Intel NUC when you think about the additional funding of buying 16GB of reminiscence and a 512GB SSD.
Our solely actual gripe with the Geekom is an vintage Core i5 CPU. It is able to offering a easy Home windows 11 expertise and streaming HD video, however we nonetheless want the system had a extra trendy processor. If you happen to can wait, the corporate tells us that up to date fashions are within the pipeline, although it hasn’t shared any particulars or pricing, so this IT8 Mini would possibly nonetheless be a wise worth.
Geekom IT8 Mini PC 4.0 (Opens in a brand new window) Examine Inventory $399.99 at Amazon (Opens in a brand new window) Base Configuration Value $439.99 Execs Full system that features RAM and storage
Quiet operation
Multi-monitor help
Loads of ports, and even some room for inner growth View Extra Cons Outdated CPU
Peripherals not included The Backside Line A turnkey, reasonably than bare-bones, mini PC, the Geekom IT8 is a completely assembled light-duty Home windows 11 system in a tiny package deal at an awesome worth.