AMD's very powerful Ryzen 9-5900HX flagship notebook CPU is making its way to small form factor desktop PCs. The recently released Beelink GTR5 is not the first mini PC to feature this SoC., but it might just be the best one yet!
Beelink GTR5 Main Specs
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen9-5900HX
CPU: 8 cores, 16 threads @3.3-4.6GHz, 7nm process
GPU: Radeon RX Vega 8 @2100MHz
RAM: up to 64GB DDR4 RAM (32GB in my review unit)
Storage: up to 2TB m.2 NVMe SSD (500GB in my review unit)
Wireless: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Ports: USB-A 3.0 *3, USB-A 2.0*2, USB-C*1, HDMI 2.0*1, DP 1.2*1, 3.5mm Audio Jack*1, 2.5Gbps Ethernet * 2, DC-in*1, m2. SATA slot*1, 2.5-inch HDD connector*1
Special features: Fingerprint unlock
Dimensions: 165*119*39mm
Weight: 678g
Retail packaging
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The GTR5 comes with very cool packaging, the dragon on the front side of the box perfectly illustrates the amount of power packed inside.
Besides the GTR5 mini PC, you will also find a relatively bulky 90W power adapter, a user manual, two HDMI cables (0.2m & 1m), a mounting bracket, as well as a bag of screws after unboxing.
Design: simply stunning
Until last year’s SER, I hadn’t really been that impressed with Beelink’s design, but the Chinese brand seems to have finally outdone itself! The GTR5 simply looks stunning, in fact it is one of the best-looking mini PCs in the market right now. The carved finish on the top side gives it an extremely stylish and premium look. With its sturdy metal chassis, it should also be able to take a fair amount of reasonable office abuse you throw at it.
Besides the relatively subtle branding, the top side also sports a fingerprint scanner, which has decent size and makes logging into the operating system a lot easier than any type of passwords. The recognition success rate is also quite high, I haven’t had any failed attempts in my two weeks with this device.
The AMD logo and “Let’s Start” catchphrase on the top side will light up after booting up, giving the device a more interesting look.
The chassis has ventilation holes on 4 sides (top, left, right, rear) for heat dissipation. There are dual cooling fans and dual copper pipes under the hood to make sure that the system never gets overheated.
Beelink products have always been quite generous with I/O, and the GTR5 is no exception. On the front side you will find a USB 3.0 port, a multi-function type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack with mic support. There are also two buttons: a power button which has status LED built in, and a green button for clearing the CMOS.
More I/O are packed on the rear side, including two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, 2 RJ45 2.5GB/s ethernet jacks, 1 HDMI port, 1 DisplayPort and a DC-in port. Some features are missing, namely a storage card slot, but since you have as many as 6 USB ports, mounting a card reader shouldn’t be that much of an effort. As with other systems powered by AMD, there’s no thunderbolt port, either. The multi-function USB-C port does support fast USB 3.2 Gen1 data transmission and [email protected] video output, but it still pales in comparison with a Thunderbolt 3/4.
The expandability does not stop here. After removing the four screws on the underlying base, you can easily lift the bottom panel and get access to the internals. There are two SO-DIMM DDR4 memory slots, two m2. slots (1 NVMe and 1 SATA3), as well as a 1 SATA3 port on GTR5’s very compact motherboard. If dual-channel memory is somewhat a must-have to ensure solid performance, having the option to install as many as 3 hard drives in such a small computer is simply amazing. All internal hardware and components are neatly arranged, the unit in my hands comes with two 16GB-3200MHz Crucial memory sticks and a 500GB Kingston NVme drive, but Beelink offers other configurations for consumers to choose from.
The GTR5 measures 165*119*39mm, and weighs only 678g. It’s so small that it easily fits on any kind of desk, or under a monitor stand if you have one. It can also seamlessly attach to the back of a display with the included bracket, but please bear in mind that mounting the GTR5 on to the back of a monitor could make fingerprint unlock less convenient than it should be.
System & Apps
Most mini PCs and laptops run on the Home Edition of Windows OS, but the Beelink GTR5 ships with licensed Windows 11 Pro, Average consumers will probably see no difference, but for power users, Windows 11 Pro offers some extra features, the most important of which is being able to join a domain, including Azure Active Directory for single sign-on to cloud services (and have group policy applied as part of that).
You also get Hyper-V for virtualization, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode Internet Explorer, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business, Enterprise Data Protection containers (a feature that comes later in the year) and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Pro users can get updates from Windows Update for Business, which includes options for scheduling updates, so they don't reboot PCs at important business times.
Fortunately, the Windows 11 Pro here is a completely clean version, with no pre-installed 3rd party applications or bloatware. I don’t feel like digging into the main features Windows 11 offers. For those who just switch from MAC OS or Linux to Windows, I highly recommend that you watch some tutorial videos on YouTube.
Performance: incredible horsepower
At the very core of the Beelink GTR5 is an AMD Ryzen9-5900HX processor, which ranks only behind the Ryzen9-5980HS and Ryzen9-5980HX in terms of performance in the world of mobile computer SoC., and it is also the fastest chip to ever power a mini PC. My unit comes with 32GB dual-channel DDR4 memory and 512GB NVMe SSD, but you can have as much as 64GB memory and 5TB of internal storage at most.
In the Maxon Cinebench R23 and Cinebench R20 test, the GTR5 simply has no competition in the world of Windows-based mini PCs, and even gives the Apple M1 powered Mac Mini a run for its money. Until models featuring the next-gen processors come out, the GTR5 will probably stay on top of the chart.
Geekbench 5 provides further evidence of the GTR5’s strength, even though the gap here is a little bit smaller between it and the Apple Mac Mini. Still, the CPU single core and multi-core scores are impressive.
PCMark 10 is a holistic performance suite developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark), it simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We often use this benchmark to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and video conferencing. The GTR5 notched an incredible score of 6345 points in the standard PCMark 10 test, ranking above the ASUS Mini PC PN50 and the i7-1165G7 powered Intel NUC 11 Pro.
Even though there’s no discrete graphics on board, you can still expect a fair amount of performance out of the Radeon Vega 8 GPU, which is clocked at 2.1GHz. In the 3DMark Sky Diver, Fire Strike, and Time Spy tests, the GTR5 scored 15097, 4019, 1615 points respectively.
The NVMe drive inside this computer is not the fastest we’ve seen, but it is a lot faster than cheaper SATA SSDs. The GTR5 scored 2545 in the AS SSD benchmark and got decent numbers in CrystalDiskMark.
There are two memory slots on the SER’s motherboard for dual-channel setup, which guarantees high overall bandwidth and throughput speed. The performance of the GPU also benefits immensely from dual-channel memory, as the GTR5 was returned very decent scores in the AIDA64 memory&cache, and GPU benchmarks.
In the real-world use, the GTR5 is a do-it-all kind of PC. You can open 20 or extra image-heavy webpages in Microsoft Edge and run a few other big apps side by side without seeing the system slow down.
In terms of media playback, the GTR5 has no problem decoding any video formats I played on it, including a few [email protected] and [email protected] clips. Streaming 8K YouTube Videos in Chrome, this mini PC does not skip a bit, either.
This machine could take care of all my creative projects as well. Rendering complex 3D images in photoshop, or editing 4K videos in Power Director, the GTR5 has been consistently fast.
No mini PC this size is designed for intense gaming, yet still people asked me questions about gaming all the time. The Radeon RX Vega 8, with a high 2.1GHz clock speed, is one of the most powerful integrated GPUs. As a result, the GTR5 can run most AAA titles in moderate settings.
Non-resource intensive games were smooth in 1080P and high graphics settings. In “League of Legend”, the average frame rate was 162 FPS. Even after I switched to 4K, the GTR still delivered an average frame rate of 75FPS, which is quite amazing.
More graphics-intense titles such as “Spell Break” and “Genshin Impact” were also smooth in 1080P and medium settings. The former stayed at 60FPS consistently during the 30 minutes’ session, while the latter recorded an average frame rate of 46 FPS.
Some of the most demanding titles were also playable on the GTR5. Conqueror’s Blade was generally smooth with an average frame rate of 32FPS in 1080P and medium settings, even though the frame rate could drop to 28 FPS in intense battle scenes.
As powerful as the AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 might be, there is still a fairly large gap between it and top PCle GPUs. If you want to game in the highest settings possible and still get the upper hand in competition against other players on the internet, you will need a more traditional gaming setup than the GTR5.
The system is also quite stable, thanks to the efficient cooling. In the 3DMark Time Spy stress test, the GTR5 scored 99.99%, which is the best number I have ever seen.
Power Consumption and noise
With such a beefy processor inside, the GTR5 is not technically a low-power system. Still, it should be more energy-conservative than a full-sized desktop PC. In terms of power consumption, we saw some fairly solid figures.
The system stays fairly quiet under light loads, but if you run heavy CPU/ GPU workloads the fans spin up and it certainly gets louder. However, the noise is never too much of an issue, and easily gets drown out by other sound in your surroundings.
Connectivity
The GTR5 supports the latest WiFi 6E technology, also known as WiFi 6 Extended. It allows the PC to use the 6GHz band, which in return brings more bandwidth, faster speeds, and lower latency, opening up resources for future innovations like AR/VR, 8K streaming, and more. In additon, you also have two 2.5Gbps ethernet jacks, which offer all kinds of internet possibilities.
The HDMI, DP and Type-C ports all support video output up to [email protected], so you can connect the GTR5 to as many as 3 displays at the same time. This can be very helpful if you have some complex productivity tasks at hand.
Verdict
The Beelink GTR5 is a powerhouse in a tiny package. It has a beefy processor, packs a slew of I/O, and offers a broad range of features such as fingerprint unlock and superb networking. The tiny case is beautiful and rock-solid, the vast array of designs improves value and versatility.
However, it is not cheap. The 32GB/500GB model retails for $799, while the 64GB/1TB version will cost you even more. In the same price range, you can get a base model of the Apple M1 powered MAC mini, or a complete Intel NUC 11 system with memory, storage, and an OS. The GTR5 is obviously more feature-packed than the other two, but you cannot overlook Apple and Intel’s brand power.
If size doesn’t matter that much to you, a large DIY system of similar performance can save you quite a fortune yet give you more expansion room for later upgrades. But if you want the tiniest computer possible for all the computing you may need, there aren’t many SFF PCs more qualified than the Beelink GTR5 out there.
You can check the screenshots of those benchmarks here:
Hey, nice review, but what about the constant stuttering while doing nothing on the pc ?
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The good:
Beautiful, neat and compact design.
Solid build.
Licensed Windows 10 Pro OS.
Decent performance.
Lots of connectivity options.
The bad:
No SD card slot.
No WiFi6.
Bottom Line:
The Beelink GKmini is a mini PC designed for basic office workloads, media consumption and light creativity tasks, and it works as designed.
If you have considered buying a mini PC, you must have heard of Beelink, a Chinese brand known for making quality mini PCs and TV boxes with afforable price tags. The all new Beelink GKmini comes with the Intel Gemini Lake Celeron J4125 processor, 8GB DDR4 RAM, up to 512GB built-in SSD, an attractive new design, and a moderate price tag. it is set out to be a strong contender in the race of affordable mini PCs.
Main specs of the Beelink GKmini
Processor: Intel Gemini Lake Celeron J4125
CPU: Quad Core 2.0-2.7GHz CPU
GPU Intel HD Graphics 600
Process technique: 14nm
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64bit
RAM: 8GB DDR4 2400MHz
Storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB SSD (256GB in our review)
Network: WiFi5 + BT 4.2 / Ethernet Gigabit
Ports: 4x USB 3.0 / 2x HDMI 1.4 / 3.5mm audio jack / Kensington lock
Accessories: 12V-2A DC adapter/ 2x HDMI Cable (1m & 0.3m) / User Manual
Retail Packaging
The GKmini ships with a very simple retail packaging, with illustration image on the front, and specs of on the back of the box.
As we can see in the specs, the mini PC is powered by the Intel Celeron J4125 quad-core processor, coupled with 8GB RAM. The unit that I received has a 256GB SSD inside of it, but Beelink offers other storage options.
Inside the box we have found a mini PC, a bracket for mounting the mini PC onto the back of a monitor, a 24-watt power adapter, two HDMI cables, a bag of screws, and a user manual.
The GKmini is about the size of a TV box, with a footprint smaller than my already small palm. It'll take up next to no room on your desk. If there’s literally no room for even the GKmini on your desk, you can also choose to mount it onto the back of your monitor with the provided bracket and screws.
The GKmini’s design doesn’t stray too far from previous Beelink mini PC models. It looks almost identical to the Gemini J45, which was released in 2019.
The housing of the GK mini is a combination of plastic and metal, The top side is acrylic plastic, which is, in our opinion, an elegant touch as it gives the GKmini’s top a glossy and reflective look, although it is also more prone to collecting all your fingerprints. There’s a Beelink logo sitting comfortably in the middle. The other sides of the chassis are all made of aluminum.
The front of the mini PC sports a reset hole, two USB 3.0 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack with mic support, as well as a power button which has a status LED built in.
The rear side of the GK mini plays host to some vents, two USB 3.0 ports, a full-size Ethernet, two HDMI 1.4a ports, and a DC-in port.
As the mini PC has an active cooling system under the hood, there are quite a number of vents on the left and right sides of the machine.
There are four rubber feet on the bottom side of the GK mini, each one has a screw in it.
Getting access to the internals is quite easy, just remove these screws and you will be able to upgrade the RAM and SSD.
The GK mini weighs only 256g, not much heavier than some of the latest smartphones. Moving it around in the house is quite easy. The build quality is solid and definitely well above average, as the mini PC looks particularly refined, with no ugly mold lines on the surface. It also feels reasonably robust and sturdy, you won’t really break it without some serious force.
Setting it up
As tiny as it is, the GKmini is still a Windows-based personal computer, and needs to be connected to a monitor (or TV, or projector), a keyboard and a mouse to work as one, and that’s how you should set it up.
During first-time start-up, you will need to go through some of the Microsoft Windows initialization protocols (choosing your region and language, connecting to the network, logging into your Microsoft account, etc), which is easy but definitely takes some time. After that, you are good to go.
System & apps
Most mini PCs run on Windows 10 Home, but the Beelink GKmini ships with licensed Windows 10 Pro, For average consumers, you will probably see no difference, but for power users, Windows 10 Pro offers lots of extra features, the most important of which is being able to join a domain, including Azure Active Directory for single sign-on to cloud services (and have group policy applied as part of that).
You also get Hyper-V for virtualization, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode Internet Explorer, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business, Enterprise Data Protection containers (a feature that comes later in the year) and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Pro users can get updates from Windows Update for Business, which includes options for scheduling updates so they don't reboot PCs at important business times.
Fortunately, the Windows 10 Pro here is a completely clean version, with no pre-installed 3rd party applications or bloatware. I don’t feel like digging into the main features Windows 10 offers. For those who is still unfamiliar and curious with this dominant PC operating system, we highly recommend you to watch some tutorial videos on YouTube.
Performance
The GKmini is powered by the Intel Gemini Lake Celeron J4125 quad core processor (2.0-2.7GHz). This chip isn’t a powerhouse and won’t match the latest Intel Core processors found in mainstream laptops and desktop PCs in terms of performance, but it is still capable of dealing with normal everyday tasks with ease. There is 8GB DDR4 RAM under the hood to take care of multi-tasking.
First, we ran Maxon's latest CPU-crunching Cinebench R23 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. The GK mini scored 447 in single core, 1442 in multi-core.
We also ran the Cinebench R20 test on the GKmini, and it scored 170 in single core, and 556 in multi-core. These scores are by no means impressive, but still way ahead of the Pentium N4200 powered Chuwi Gbox, or Beelink’s very own Gemini J45, which comes with an older Apollo Lake Pentium J4205 processor.
In the cross platform Geekbench 5 test, the GKmini scored 460 in CPU single core, 1479 in multi-core, and 1590 in OpenGL.
The GKmini did relatively well in the Fritz Chess Benchmark, acheiving 5342 kilo nodes per second.
PCMark simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and video conferencing. 1791 is the score the GKmini notched in the standard PCMark 10 test.
In the more graphics-focused 3DMark, the GKmini scored 1446 in Sky Diver, 425 in Fire Strike, and 141 in Time Spy.
The GKmini offers a SATA-standard m.2 SSD, which definitely lags behind those NVMe drives found in mainstream laptops, but is still faster than the eMMc or HDD found in more basic models. In CrystalDiskMark test, the sequential read and write speed are 451.39mb/s and 456.58mb/s respectively, not impressive, but still decent.
In the real world use, the GKmini provides ample oomph for basic office tasks and even for a bit of light media editing. I experienced no lags or delays editing my review materials or work presentations in Microsoft Office apps.
Doing some relatively complex video editing in Power Director is also surprisingly smooth, although filters and animations may take longer to be applied to all layers of clips.
As for multimedia entertainment, the mini PC has no problem streaming 4K YouTube videos in Microsoft Edge, or decoding different formats of local video clips. I streamed an entire season of the Spanish sitcom “The Innocent” on the GK mini, with it connecting to my 75-inch TV.
The Intel UHD600 Graphics in the GKmini is definitely not designed for AAA titles, but it is capable of running older titles in moderate settings, and almost all games installed from Microsoft Store without issues. “Asphalt 9” and “Battle Tanks” (Microsoft Store Variant) are both quite smooth, but the graphics are simply not comparable with their desktop variant.
Also important for a mini PC that sits on your desk or behind your monitor (where it's nearer to your ears), the GKmini runs fairly quietly. It's not a completely silent, fanless design, but I almost never felt distracted by its noise. The computer is also amazingly stable, as it passed the 3DMark stress test with flying colors.
When the GKmini is running in full load in the AIDA64 stress test, the temperature of its four CPU cores was always quite stable. Once we stopped the test, the temperature dropped immediately.
Connectivity
The GKmini supports 2.4GHz/5.8GHz dual-band WiFi, but not the latest WiFi6. It also has Bluetooth 4.2 on board, thus can connect to wireless input devices and audio systems. It would have been nice to see Bluetooth 5.0 instead of 4.2, but that’s not going to add much the overall experience.
As there are two HDMI ports, you can hook the GKmini up with two monitors at the same time, this can be extremely useful if you have some serious producitivity tasks at hand.
Verdict
Creative pros and enthusiastic gamers will need to look elsewhere for a larger PC with dedicated graphics, but office workers who mainly rely on everyday creativity apps, or consumers who need an HTPC for media consumption, or shop owners who want a smaller computer for illustration of their products, will find a lot to like in the Beelink GKmini.
Nice review! Kudos
galaxys said:
Nice review! Kudos
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for reading it.
Can i upgrade the M2 SSD ?
What about Win10 Pro, how can i transfer that to the new SSD ?
machinamew said:
Can i upgrade the M2 SSD ?
What about Win10 Pro, how can i transfer that to the new SSD ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you can add another SATA3 SSD and transfer the OS to that first, and then transfer it back to the new m.2 SSD. There are plenty of tools and tutorials online to help you do that.
If you do not have a SATA3 SSD, you will need to reinstall Windows OS, which get the license automatically once the PC is connected to the internet.
Desktop PCs nowadays come in all shapes and sizes. You can get the full-sized 25 or 30L chassis all the way down to the compact small form factor variety. The new Beelink SER is a small-form-factor PC kitted out for the business set. It packs an AMD Ryzen7-3750H quad-core processor inside a compact chassis for space-constrained offices and cubicles.
Specifications
The Beelink SER mini PC comes with following features and specifications (some of them configurable when ordering):
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7-3750H
CPU: 4 cores, 8 threads @2.3-4GHz, 12nm process
GPU: Radeon RX Vega 10 @1400MHz
RAM: up to 16GB DDR4 RAM
Storage: up to 512GB m.2 NVMe SSD
Wireless: WiFi 5 (Dual Band), Bluetooth 4.0
Ports: USB Type-A 3.0 *4, USB-C*1, HDMI*2, 3.5mm Audio Jack*1, 1000M Ethernet * 1, DC*1
Dimensions: 126*113*40mm
Weight: 477g
What’s in the box
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Beelink SER Mini PC * 1
57W Power Adapter * 1
User Guide * 1
Wall Mount Bracket * 1
HDMI Cable * 2 (1m and 0.2m)
Design: she’s finally got the look
Beelink mini PCs were never really known for their designs. Don’t get me wrong, most of them look fine, but they somehow lack a little bit of character. The SER may very well be the game changer. The carved finish on the top gives the machine an extremely classy and premium look. With its sturdy metal chassis, it should also be able to take any reasonable office abuse you throw at it.
With a small form factor, the SER measures only 5 inches wide, 4.4 inches deep, and just 1 and a half inches in height. It easily fits on desks or even under a monitor stand if you have one, without taking up too much space with its small footprint. If you literally have no room on your desk, the bracket included in the retail box can also help you mount the mini PC onto the back of the monitor, making it completely disappear from the surroundings.
As compact as it is, the SER still packs in I/O. The front side host two full-sized USB 3.0 ports, a multi-function Type-C port, as well as a 3.5mm audio jack with mic support. There are also a CMOS reset hole and power/standby key with LED indicator built in.
On the back side of the machine you will find two more USB 3.0 ports, a 1000M ethernet jack, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a DC-in port. The only missing item you might need is a flash-memory-card slot.
With an active cooling system inside, the mini PC also features quite a number of ventilation grilles on the top, left, right and back sides.
The bottom of the SER is pretty non-descript. There are indications in the middle on how to enter BIOS setup and boot menu. There are two rubber strips to elevate the computer for ventilation while sitting on your desk.
The SER weighs only 477g, coupled with its compact size, moving it around or taking it on a journey won’t be much of an effort.
Getting inside the system is easy, as long as you have a screwdriver. After removing the 4 screws from the back panel, you are able to lift the cover to get to the SER's internals. Unless you need to make a repair, though, you won't have much cause to go in, because there isn't much expansion room.
The chassis has a bracket for a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive or SSD, and an extra memeory slot for dual-channel memory setup, but nothing more. Still, even having the ability to add more storage is an impressive feature given the system's trim dimensions.
Software: Windows 11 is coming soon
Most mini PCs run on the Home Edition of Windows OS, but the Beelink SER ships with licensed Windows 10 Pro, Average consumers will probably see no difference, but for power users, Windows 10 Pro offers a few extra features, the most important of which is being able to join a domain, including Azure Active Directory for single sign-on to cloud services (and have group policy applied as part of that).
You also get Hyper-V for virtualization, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode Internet Explorer, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business, Enterprise Data Protection containers (a feature that comes later in the year) and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Pro users can get updates from Windows Update for Business, which includes options for scheduling updates so they don't reboot PCs at important business times.
Fortunately, the Windows 10 Pro here is a completely clean version, with no pre-installed 3rd party applications or bloatware. I don’t feel like digging into the main features Windows 10 offers. For those who is still unfamiliar and curious with this dominant PC operating system, I highly recommend you to watch some tutorial videos on YouTube.
The SER also comes with a TPM 2.0 chip, so it will get the Windows 11 upgrade once it is available in your region. Soon you will be able to enjoy those cool features of Windows 11 and even run your favorite Android applications without an emulator.
Performance: Quiet power
The unit I have on hand features an AMD Ryzen7-3750H CPU, integrated Radeon RX Vega 10 GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and a 512GB m.2 NVMe SSD. Although the quad-core Ryzen7-3750H is a mobile chip used in compact systems, it still has a relatively high base clock of 2.3GHz, and can turbo up to 4.0GHz when tasks are loaded.
Benchmarks are do not always translate into real world power, but they are the most objective ways to measure a PC’s performance. To help you better understand the SER’s benchmark scores. I compared the it to other budget and midrange mini PCs in the charts.
First, I ran Maxon's latest CPU-crunching Cinebench R23 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. The SER got a fairly decent score here.
I also ran the older Cinebench R20 test on the SER in order to compare it to other models I have tested before. The scores were by no means impressive, but still edged out Lenovo Thinkcentre M720q, and were way ahead of the results fetched by the Intel NUC BXNUC10i3FNHN1 Mini, or Beelink’s very own GK mini.
In the cross platform Geekbench 5 test, the SER scored 923 in CPU single core, 2957 in multi-core, and 8818 in OpenCL. Again, solid, but not impressive.
PCMark 8 and 10 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). PCMark 10 simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. people use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and video conferencing. SER notched 3681 in the standard PCMark 10 test, ranking above the i5-8400T powered Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q.
AMD are known for integrating better GPUs in their processors than its major rival Intel. The Radeon RX Vega 10 GPU found in the SER may not match discrete graphics in mainstream desktop PCs or gaming laptops, but it does offer ample oomph for day-to-day office tasks and even a little bit gaming. In the graphics-focused 3DMark, the SER easily outpaced models featuring Intel UHD series graphics, and was only slightly edged by the Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7BEH, which comes with a new-generation Iris Plus Graphics 655 GPU.
The SER features a m.2 NVMe SSD, which is much faster than the mSATA SSD found in more basic mini PCs. Results of the CrystalDiskMark test told the story. The storage is also expandable with a SATA3 HDD or SSD of up to 1TB.
There are two memory slots on the SER’s motherboard, so the system is able to have dual-channel memory if you insert two memory sticks. But the model I am testing comes with a single 16GB memory stick. This single-channel memory results in lower overall bandwidth and throughput speed. Certain 3D games may suffer immensely in smoothness when running on a single-channel memory. But in most applications, the performance difference between single-channel and dual-channel RAM may vary from subtle to unnoticeable.
In the AIDA64 cache & memory benchmark, the read, write and copy speeds of the 16GB memory are not impressive, but still solid. The 101.2ns latency isn’t too bad, either. For those who want to squeeze more power out of the integrated GPU, I highly recommend buying the 8GB version instead, and inserting an extra 8GB memory stick for dual-channel memory setup.
Real World Use: More than Decent
In the real-world use, the SER handled everything I threw at it with ease. I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it was. Opening 20 or extra image-heavy webpages in Microsoft Edge and running a few other apps side by side wouldn’t slow the system down.
There’s also no frame skip at all while streaming 8K YouTube Videos in Chrome.
I encountered no problem editing videos in Power Director, either. Even when I was adding some heavy filters and animations to the clips, there were never hiccups or delays. The SER felt almost as smooth as my main workstation PC, which features a Ryzen7-4800 CPU and RTX1660 Super GPU.
Gaming is not impossible
Mini PCs are never designed for gaming, but the SER is able to run most 3D games at moderate settings. Fortnite was pretyy smooth under 1080P and low visual effects, with average frame rates at 59 FPS.
War Frame and CS:GO were also generally smooth.
Conqueror’s Blade was a different story, though. Even at 720P and low settings, frame skips constantly happened in intense fighting scenes. GamePP reported an average frame rate of only 22 FPS, which means that the title is playable on the SER, but you will probably not enjoy the experience.
To sum it up, the Beelink SER may not knock it out of the park when it comes to performance, it probably won’t see you through difficult workloads like complex artistic design and graphics-intense gaming. Nonetheless, it ought to be greater than sufficient for most computing duties.
Noise, Stability and Power Consumption
There’s an active cooling system in SER’s slim body, and it is audible when the computer is under heavy workloads. Fortunately, the noise won’t be a constant distraction from what you are working on as it never gets too loud for comfort.
Thanks to the efficient cooling, the SER’s performance is quite stable, it passed the 3DMark Sky Diver Stress test with flying colors.
In the AIDA64 Stress test, the CPU was running at full load for 25 minutes, but its temperature stayed well under 45 ℃ all the time.
With a TDP of 35W, the SER is by no means as power-saving as systems equipped with 10-15W Celeron or Atom processors, but it is still much more energy-conservative than most desktop PCs and powerhouse laptops.
Connectivity: triple display output, but no WiFi 6
Besides a wealth of ports, Beelink SER also comes with WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.0. For a mini PC released in late 2021, the fact that it doesn’t support WiFi 6 is somewhat disappointing. Average consumers may not tell the difference for now, but it will become a problem sooner or later as the bandwidths of our home network keep upgrading. Fortunately, the SER still has an RJ45 jack for wired internet access. And if you really want WiFi 6 at some point, the NetCard is also replaceable.
The SER has two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a multi-function Type-C port which also supports DisplayPort 1.4 video output. You can connect it to as many as 3 monitors (or projectors/TVs) at the same time, and set all video output to [email protected]
Verdict
For consumers who are less concerned about saving space and energy, a normal-sized desktop PC may still be a more sensible choice as it will offer better performance and richer connectivity options. But priced at $489 (8+256GB), the fetching and feature-packed Beelink SER is perfect for those who want a neat and clean desktop yet still need the power for serious computing. It is also arguably one of the best bang-for-the-buck small-form-factor computers the market is offering right now.
Specifications
The Beelink SER mini PC comes with following features and specifications (some of them configurable when ordering):
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7-3750H
CPU: 4 cores, 8 threads @2.3-4GHz, 12nm process
GPU: Radeon RX Vega 10 @1400MHz
RAM: up to 16GB DDR4 RAM
Storage: up to 512GB m.2 NVMe SSD
Wireless: WiFi 5 (Dual Band), Bluetooth 4.0
Ports: USB Type-A 3.0 *4, USB-C*1, HDMI*2, 3.5mm Audio Jack*1, 1000M Ethernet * 1, DC*1
Dimensions: 126*113*40mm
Weight: 477g
The Beelink SER is powered by an AMD Ryzen7-3750H processor, 8/16GB DDR4 RAM and 256/512GB NVMe SSD. It has the performance and connectivity of mainstream desktop PCs and laptops. In this video, I am going to share with you some of my thoughts about this mini PC after using it for over a month.
Written review here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...assy-mini-pc-with-decent-performance.4346017/
Thanks for your review, man!
Do you have an idea, whether it is possible to manually adjust the fans? I would rather have them running constantly than up and down...
Mi-KhaEl- said:
Thanks for your review, man!
Do you have an idea, whether it is possible to manually adjust the fans? I would rather have them running constantly than up and down...
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I will consult Beelink for that question.
Although the AMD Ryzen7-3750H has been out for more than 2 years, it is still much more powerful than the lastest Celeron or Pentium processors.
Spot on! I have a couple of these and the GR9 both worth the acquisition
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If you follow the news of mini PCs, you should know Beelink recently announced a new model called the GTR5, which is powered by an AMD Ryzen9-5900HX processor, and is deemed as the most powerful mini PC to date. Because the GTR5 is so prominent and is getting everyone’s attention, another model that is also very good is kindda falling under the radar. Yes, I am talking about the Beelink GTI11, GTR5’s Intel powered brother.
The Beelink GTI11 is sort of a mix of the best mini PCs and NUCs, and will fit well into a living room or home office. It's quite compact, but has the performance needed to handle a fair amount of productivity work. The price is also quite reasonable, with the i5, 16GB/500GB model priced at ＄699. I've been using this tiny PC for a couple of weeks to see what it's all about and whether it's worth your investment.
Specifications
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Processor: Intel Core i5-1135G7
CPU: 4 cores, 8 threads @2.4-4.2GHz, 10nm process
GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 16GB DDR4L Memory
Storage: 500GB m.2 NVMe SSD
Wireless: WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
Ports: USB 3.0 *4, USB 2.0*2, USB-C*1, HDMI*1, DP*1, 3.5mm Audio Jack*1, 1000M Ethernet * 2, DC-in*1
Dimensions: 160*120*39mm
Weight: 597g
What’s in the box
Beelink GTI11 Mini PC * 1
19V-3A Power Adapter * 1
User Guide * 1
Wall Mount Bracket * 1
HDMI Cable * 2 (1m and 0.2m)
The GTI11 comes with simple, but attractive retail packaging.
Inside the retail box you will find a GTI11 mini PC, a 57W power adapter, a user manual, a mounting bracket, two bags of screws and two HDMI cables.
Design and build
The Beelink GTI11 looks almost identical to last year’s GTR. The chassis is completely made of magnesium alloy, with the top panel covered by glass for a little bit of extra pop. The case feels reasonably sturdy and holds strong under direct pressure. The blue coating of the exterior gives the GTI11 a professional, yet attractive look, and the matte finish on the side panels perfectly resists fingerprints.
With a small form factor, the GTI11 measures only 160mm wide, 120mm deep, and just 39mm in height. It easily fits on desks or even under a monitor stand if you have one, without taking up too much space. If you literally have no room on your desk, the bracket included in the retail box can also help you mount the mini PC onto the back of the monitor, making it completely disappear from the surroundings.
What makes the Beelink GT series (GTR & GTI) mini PCs special is the fact that they all come with a fingerprint reader, which makes unlocking extremely easy. The fingerprint scanner on the GTI11 has decent size and very high success rate. During my two weeks testing the computer, I’ve never had any failed attempts unlocking the system with my finger.
There are a lot of ports on hand here. The front side host two full-size USB 3.0 ports, a multi-function Type-C port, as well as a 3.5mm audio jack with mic support. You can also find a CMOS reset hole and power/standby key with LED indicator built in.
The rear side comes even more packed with I/O, you will find two more USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two RJ45 ethernet jacks, one HDMI 2.0 port, one DisplayPort, and a DC-in port. Unfortunately, the GTI11 doesn’t include an SD/MicroSD card slot, a USB card reader will be needed if you want to get access to the files on your storage card from the GTI11.
This PC is actively cooled, many vents are featured on the side panels.
The bottom of the GTI11 is pretty non-descript. There are two rubber strips to keep the mini PC in place while it’s sitting on your desk, you can also find the instructions on how to enter BIOS setup and boot menu.
The GTI11 weighs only 597g, moving it around your house, or taking it on a trip won’t mean much effort, as long as you don’t mind the relatively hefty power adaptor.
Getting inside the system is easy, all you need is a screwdriver. After removing the 4 screws from the bottom panel, you are able get to the GTI11's internals. As small as it is, the GTI11 still offers two memory slots, and supports as many as 3 hard drives. You can insert two m2.2280 SSD and one 2.5-inch hard drive.
Software: Windows 11 is already here
The LED on the top panel, and the LED built in the power button will both light up when the mini PC is booted.
The Beelink GTI11 ships with licensed Windows 10 Pro, which can be upgraded to Windows 11 Pro after you boot the computer up for the first time. The operating system here is a completely clean version, with no pre-installed 3rd party applications or bloatware.
For average consumers, the Pro Edition of Windows OS probably won’t mean any difference. Yet for power users, there are quite a few extra features that may come in handy.
Performance: powerful enough
Performance from the Core i5-1135G7 and 16GB dual-channel memory is about as good as I expected, putting up respectable numbers that will accommodate anyone looking to tackle productivity work or streaming. The integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics will handle creativity duties or even some lightweight gaming. To help you better understand the overall performance of the GTI11, I ran quite a few benchmarks on it, and compared its scores to the results of other midrange mini PCs.
First, I launched Maxon's latest CPU-crunching Cinebench R23 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. The GTI11 got decent scores in both CPU single core and CPU multi-core.
I also ran the older Cinebench R20 test just to compare the GTI11 to more models I had tested before. The GTI was slightly edged out by the Intel NUC 8 in CPU multi-core, but completely dominated the chart with its CPU single-core score.
This mini PC also scored 15991 kilos per nodes in Fritz Chess Benchmark, and it’s a solid number for any system with a mobile chip.
The GTI11 also did quite well in the wPrime CPU test, finishing the 1024M calculations in less than 6 minutes.
In the cross-platform Geekbench 5 test, the GTI11 scored 1431 in CPU single core, 5074 in multi-core, and 14527 in OpenCL. In terms of the CPU single-core performance, the GTI11 leads the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5i by more than 50%, and that’s incredible!
PCMark 10 simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We often use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks. The GTI11 scored 4580, which is a tie with what’s achieved by the Intel NUC 8.
The computer also features a Kingston m.2 NVMe drive, which is extremely fast, readings and scores of the CrystalDiskMark test told the story.
The unit I received comes with two Crucial 8GB-3200MHz memory sticks. This dual-channel memory setup guarantees high overall bandwidth and throughput speed. In the AIDA64 cache & memory benchmark, the read, write and copy speeds of the 16GB memory are decent, the 69.4ns latency is solid, too.
The performance of the integrated GPU also benefits greatly from dual-channel memory, as the GTI11 scored much higher in the AIDA64 memory and GPU benchmark than the Lenovo YOGA Duet, which comes with the same processor and integrated GPU, but a single 16GB memory stick.
The Intel Iris Xe Graphics in the GTI11 is a huge step up from older UHD graphics, and completely dominated the Radeon Vega 10 GPU of the Beelink SER and the Iris Plus 655 GPU of the Intel NUC 8. In the 3DMark Sky Diver, Fire Strike and Time Spy tests, the GTI11 scored 12862, 3683 and 1437 respectively.
In the real-world use, the GTI11 handily saw me through most common home and office tasks, from web-browsing, editing my work presentation to streaming my favorite movies and TV shows. This system could even play 8K YouTube videos in Chrome without any frame skip.
There are only a handful of models which can be used for content creation, and the GTI11 is one of them. I had no problem editing photos in Adobe Photoshop, the system wouldn’t even slow down while I was adding many layers and filters to the picture. I also did not encounter any issue editing a 4K video clip in Power Director, everything felt reasonably fast and smooth.
I didn’t really think about playing 3D games on the GTI11 before receiving it. Having tested the Lenovo YOGA Duet, which runs on the same processor, I thought I knew what the performance was going to be like on the GTI, but I was proven to be dead wrong. Titles like “League of Legends”, “War Frame” and “Resident Evil 3”played fairly smoothly under 1080P and medium to high settings. In League of Legend, the frame rate stayed above 120FPS all the time. Even “Conqueror’s Blade”, which was always a challenge for systems with integrated graphics, recorded an average frame rate of 36 frames per second at 1080P and medium settings. And during those intense battle scenes, the graphics still stayed well above 25fps, which is simply amazing for a computer this small.
These were all the games I tested on the GTI, and it's really promising to see that we are now able to have decent gaming experience on mini PCs.
As powerful as it is, the Beelink GTI11 is still a compact PC system with no discrete graphics, so it probably won’t see you through difficult workloads like super complex artistic design or gaming in 4K. Nonetheless, it ought to be greater than sufficient for most computing duties.
Noise, Stability and Power Consumption
There are two high-speed fans and two heat conduction tubes inside the shell for cooling. Beelink called these fans "silent" in their advertising, but believe me, they are not really silent. The GTI11 will make a fair amount of noise during multitasking or while running big applications. The noise is audible and may even be a little bit distracting at times if your room is quiet enough. With that said, It never really made my ears too uncomfortable to the point that I wanted to shut it down. And the system is relatively quiet during handling low-power duties such as video playback and social networking.
Fortunately, these fans are proven to work pretty efficiently. The GTI11 was amazingly stable, I could edit videos for hours on it without experiencing a hiccup. It also easily passed the 3DMark Time Spy Stress test with an impressive score of 99.6%, handily beating all the computers I have tested before.
In the AIDA64 Stress test, all 4 CPU cores were running at full load for 50 minutes, but their temperature stayed under 70℃ the entire time and didn’t trigger a warning.
Running on an Intel Core i5 processor, the GTI11 is not technically a low-power system, but it still consumes way less power than, say, a normal-size desktop PC.
I recorded its power outputs in different working scenarios and found that it was quite energy-conservative in video playback and office duties. Only when benchmarking or gaming did the power output exceed 20W.
Connectivity: WiFi 6, dual LAN, 3 displays
As mentioned above, The GTI11 offers a wealth of ports for its size. The HDMI, DP, and multi-function Type-C all support [email protected] video output, so you can connect the mini PC to as many as 3 monitors at the same time. This can be particularly useful if you have some complex office duties at hand.
The GTI11 features Bluetooth 5.0, with Bluetooth input devices and speakers, you will be able to have an almost wire-free desktop setup. And when it comes to surfing the internet, there are 2 RJ45 ports on the back of the GIT, meaning you can even use the mini PC for soft routing. WiFi 6 is also onboard to guarantee fast and stable wireless internet access.
Verdict: too good to ignore
The Beelink GTI11 is a feature-packed mini PC with a lot of horsepower under the hood. No matter what your computing tasks are, it always has the answer. Special features such as the fingerprint scanner, WiFi 6 and dual ethernet jacks just make your computing experience more convenient than ever. Yes, you may find better value with a normal-size desktop PC if space and power consumption aren’t that much of a concern, but the Beelink GTI11 is simply too fetching of a product to look past, I am sure it will have a pretty long stay on my desktop.
nice read up, thanks for sharing
blaze2051 said:
nice read up, thanks for sharing
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Thanks for reading it!
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Small form-factor (SFF) machines have been one of the major drivers in the resurgence of the PC market. The trend was kickstarted by Intel's NUCs in the early 2010s. These PCs have usually relied on low-power processors with compelling performance per watt metrics. AMD was largely absent in this market till the introduction of its Ryzen processors. While mini-PCs based on Ryzen embedded processors are still outnumbered by those powered by Intel, more and more OEMs are beginning to utilize AMD Ryzen CPUs in their own high-performance mini-PC lineups.
The Beelink GTR5 released last year arguably represents the best of AMD powered mini PCs, but the Ryzen9-5900HX processor was way too much of an overkill for average consumers. For those who have less CPU-intensive tasks to deal with in their everyday computing, the newly released SER4, which comes with a less power-hungry Ryzen7-4800U SoC. and a slightly lower price tag, could be a better offer.
Specifications
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7-4800U, 7nm process, 15W TDP
CPU: 8 cores, 16 threads @1.8-4.2GHz
GPU: Radeon RX Vega 8 @1750MHz
RAM: 16/32GB DDR4 3200MHz (dual-channel)
Storage: 500GB/1TB m.2 NVMe SSD
Wireless: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Ports: USB Type-A 3.0*3, USB Type-A 2.0*1, USB-C*1, HDMI*2, 3.5mm Audio Jack*1, 1000M Ethernet*1, DC-in*1
Dimensions: 126*113*42mm
Weight: 455g
What’s in the box
Beelink SER4 Mini PC * 1
57W Power Adapter * 1
User Guide * 1
VESA Mount Bracket * 1
HDMI Cable * 2 (1m and 0.2m)
Design: she’s quite a beauty
The SER4 is a gorgeous piece of tech. It has a much more attractive design than the likes of the uninspiring ASUS PN50 and Intel NUC 11 Pro. The panel on the top is perforated, which not only allows more efficient air flow, but also gives the machine an extremely classy and premium look. There’s quite a lot of branding here, besides the AMD and Beelink logo, you will also find the Ryzen7 and Radeon Graphics stickers, but I personally don’t really hate them, cause they just make the machine look more professional.
The ventilation grilles on the two side panels are coated in red, but whether you like it or not will come down to personal preference. The chassis has a metallic build, which means it will be able to take a fair amount of reasonable office abuse. The build quality is excellent, as there are no ugly mold lines on the case, and none of the panels tend to flex, even when I impose some serious force on them.
Measuring only 5 inches wide, 4.4 inches deep, and just 1 and a half inches in height, the SER4 is less than 1/6 of the size of the new Apple MAC Studio. It easily fits on any desk or even under a monitor stand if you have one, without taking up too much space with its small footprint. If you literally have no room on your desk, the VESA mount included in the retail box can help you attach the mini PC onto the back of the monitor, making it completely disappear from the surroundings.
Despite its trim dimensions, the SER4 is very well endowed with connectors. On the front, alongside the power button, you‘ll find a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port that also supports DisplayPort 1.2.
Around the back you’ll find one more USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, one USB2.0 port, two HDMI 2.0 ports, an RJ45 1000M Ethernet LAN connector and a DC-in. As the keen-eyed have noticed, that gives the SER4 the potential to drive three 4K displays at once. Running multiple screens in a retail, commercial or corporate environment is one of the SER4’s raison d’etres. Unsurprisingly, given the absence of an Intel chipset, there's no support for Thunderbolt protocols, but if you don’t need an eGPU, it won’t make much difference.
Getting inside the PC couldn't be easier. There's a panel underneath the chassis that can be removed once four screws have been extracted. This reveals the two DDR4 3200MHz memory slots, 2.5-inch mounting area, as well as access to the m.2 slot. The m2.2230 wireless card on the other side of the motherboard is also replaceable, but you wouldn’t have much reason for replacing it any time soon, since it already supports the latest WiFi6E and Bluetooth 5.2.
This computer weighs only 455g, moving it around the house or taking it on a business trip won’t be much of an effort. If you have monitors in both your office and your apartment, this thing should be far less of a carry than, say, an average notebook computer.
Software: licensed Windows 11 Pro, and it’s clean
Most mini PCs run on the Home Edition of Windows OS, but the Beelink SER4 ships with licensed Windows 11 Pro, Average consumers will probably see no difference, but for power users, Windows 11 Pro offers a few extra features, the most important of which is being able to join a domain, including Azure Active Directory for single sign-on to cloud services (and have group policy applied as part of that).
You also get Hyper-V for virtualization, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode Internet Explorer, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business, Enterprise Data Protection containers (a feature that comes later in the year) and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Pro users can get updates from Windows Update for Business, which includes options for scheduling updates, so they don't reboot PCs at important business times.
The Windows 11 Pro here is also a completely clean version, with no pre-installed 3rd party applications or bloatware that you need to uninstall.
Performance: old processor that still rocks
The unit I have on hand features an AMD Ryzen7-4800processor, which is a 7nm Zen2-based APU that has 8 CPU cores, 16 threads, as well as integrated Radeon Graphics GPU. There’s also 32GB DDR4 3200MHz dual-channel memory and a 500GB m.2 NVMe SSD in my unit. Although the Ryzen7-4800U is a mobile chip released more than 2 years ago, it is still mighty impressive, and benchmark scores told the story.
These are the models I use for comparison, including some of the most popular machines out there.
First, I ran Maxon's latest CPU-crunching Cinebench R23 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. The SER4 got a solid score in CPU multi-core, beating the M1 powered Apple MAC mini and both variants of the Intel NUC 11 Pro, but it fell a little short in terms of single core performance.
In the older Cinebench R20 test, the SER4 easily outpaced the Intel NUC 11 Pros again in multi-core CPU performance.
Comparing the SER4 to the Intel NUC 11 Pros using GeekBench 5 tells a similar story. Intel has AMD beaten in single-core performance but in multi-core performance, the AMD chip simply stomps the i7 into the dirt.
PCMark 10 simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. we use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and video conferencing. The SER4 notched 5177 in the standard PCMark 10 test, ranking above both variants of the Intel NUC 11 Pro.
In everyday use, the difference in single-core performance will go largely unnoticed, but if you decide to edit some high-resolution images or 4K videos, then the multi-core ability of the AMD chip will shine through.
The m.2 NVMe SSD is not the fastest we’ve seen, but at nearly 2,000MB/s for reading data off the drive, this is still more than ideal for booting Windows and all your favorite productivity apps.
The unit I received comes with two Crucial 16GB DDR4-3200MHz memory sticks. This dual-channel memory setup guarantees high overall bandwidth and throughput speed. In the AIDA64 cache & memory benchmark, the read, write and copy speeds of the 32GB memory are decent, the 95.6ns latency is not the best we’ve seen, but still solid. The performance of the integrated GPU also benefits greatly from dual-channel memory, as most of the numbers in the GPGPU test result look lovely.
The AMD are known to offer better integrated GPUs than Intel, that’s why you often see Intel powered laptops relying heavily on GeForce MX series discrete GPU for gaming, while AMD chips can take care of gaming all on their own. The integrated Radeon Graphics GPU here isn’t powerful enough to make the SER4 a proper gaming or VR machine, but it is still reasonably capable. In 3DMark, the SER4 was returned 1,420 in Time Spy, 3,573 in Fire Strike, and 13,036 in Sky Diver.
Running “Genshin Impact” at 1920 x 1080 and medium settings saw an average of 44fps, not great, but still generally smooth the whole time. “Spell Break” returned very similar results. Less graphics-intensive games such as LOL can run smoothly even at 4K and high settings.
“Conqueror’s Blade” tells a different story, though. At 1080P and medium settings, the average frame rate recorded by GamePP was only 22fps. It is still playable, but you probably will want to turn down the resolution, or settings, or both for better smoothness. Because when I switched to 720 and low graphics settings, the average frame rate was improved to 42fps.
Those results mean the SER4 should be able to deal with reasonably intense graphic workloads without grinding to a halt. With that said, please bear in mind that the SER4 will not be enough if you want to game in the highest possible settings and still get a fair chance against other players.
The SER4 can also be a solid HTPC if you want it to. It has no problem decoding any video formats I played on it, including a few [email protected] and [email protected] clips. Streaming 4K YouTube Videos in Chrome, this machine does not skip a bit, either.
However, the SER4 did struggle a lit bit with 8K online streaming, as you can see in the screenshot that the CPU usage reached 100%, and I did notice some frame skip.
The SER4’s performance hasn’t come at the expense of heat or economy. The power draw is only 5W at idle over the course of two hours. When running the AIDA64 stress test, the SER4 drew an indicated maximum of 38W. Even under stress the casing never became more than slightly warm to the touch and the fans were impressively quiet. The quoted noise levels 21.9dB at idle and 37.7dB with the fans at full chat tallied with the results from our sound monitor.
Thanks to the efficient cooling, the SER4 is also extremely stable, it passed the 3DMark Time Spy Stress test with a very high mark.
Internet Connection
The SER4 supports the latest WiFi 6E technology, also known as WiFi 6 Extended. It allows the PC to use the 6GHz band, which in return brings more bandwidth, faster speeds, and lower latency, opening up resources for future innovations like AR/VR, 8K streaming, and more.
There’s also a 1000M Ethernet jack for wired internet access. Although it’s not as fancy as the 2.5Gbps ethernet found on the Intel NUC 11 or Beelink’s very own GT series mini PCs, it won’t make much difference for average users, not for now.
Competition
Price at $699 (16GB+500GB), the Beelink SER4 is well positioned in the mini PC market. The choice of a Ryzen 7 CPU (from the 4000 series) is a good step when going against Intel powered mini PCs that often don't go beyond an Intel Core i5. While it is not as powerful as its Ryzen9-5900HX powered brother, it is slightly more affordable and power-efficient than the latter.
Probably the closest competitor to the SER4 is the i5-1135G7 powered Intel NUC 11 Pro. As you can get the latter with 8GB memory and 500GB SSD on the same budget. The NUC comes with more versatile Thunderbolt 3 ports, which is a must for some users. However, in terms of horsepower, very few Intel powered models can really match the SER4.
Verdict
Beelink has squeezed plenty of performance and features into a tiny box. The Ryzen 7-4800U chipset delivers terrific performance while the abundance of upgrade options and connectors makes it supremely versatile. That it runs cool, quiet and economically should further endear it to business and corporate users and guarantee it a home in many an office, boardroom and customer-facing environment.
My video review of the SER4 will also be available in a week, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and get notified if you are interested in more content about the SER4. Thanks for reading, hope to see you next time.
Some of the benchmark screenshots here:
Hey Folks,
This is my first post here. I hope I will get the resolution I need from you guys. As I have two pc and I want to connect ethernet adapter with them. but I am not able to connect them.
I think it is not working. looking for the new one. I tried to find out from https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/acce...dapters/cables-&-adapters_adapters/4x90s91831, https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/usb-ethernet-adapter but looking for more.
Can someone suggest one?
The good:
Compact design and great build quality.
Plenty of ports and the ability to drive 4 screens.
Decent CPU and GPU performance.
Licensed Windows 11 Pro operating system.
Easy access to the internals.
The bad:
Relatively old processor.
No WiFi6.
Thanks to continued improvements in mobile chips’ computing horsepower as well as power efficiency, scenarios that require large traditional desktop PCs have shrunk considerably. Most people only need a small form factor PC to deal with all their computing tasks nowadays. While cheap Celeron-based models may struggle with heavier and more graphics-intensive duties, and high-end ones could cost you quite a fortune, there are a healthy number of mid-range offerings worth looking at, and the GEEKOM Mini IT8 is one of them.
For those who have never heard of GEEKOM, it is a Taiwanese PC company founded in 2003, and has products ranging from PC accessories to complete PC systems. GEEKOM hasn’t entered the mini PC market until earlier this year, but their first model, the Mini IT8, which comes with a beefy i5-8259U processor, licensed Windows 11 operating system, and a very attractive price tag, is catching a lot of eyeballs recently.
Main specs of the GEEKOM Mini IT8
Processor: Intel Core i5-8259U
CPU: 4 cores, 8 threads, 2.3-3.8GHz
GPU: Iris Plus 655 Graphics
Process technique: 14nm
OS: Windows 11 Pro
RAM: 8/16GB DDR4 2400MHz (expandable to 32GB)
Storage: 1*M.2 NVMe/SATA SSD, 256/512GB (expandable to 1TB);
1*2.5’’ SATA HDD/SSD (expandable to 2TB)
Network: WiFi5 + BT 4.2 / Ethernet Gigabit
Ports: 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 / 2x USB-C / 1x HDMI 2.0b / 1x Mini DisplayPort / 3.5mm audio jack / 1* SD card slot
Accessories: 19V-4.74A DC adapter/ 1x HDMI Cable (1m) / User Manual / VESA Mount / Carrying pouch
Packaging
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GEEKOM takes a simplistic approach to the packaging of the Mini IT8, there’s not much to find on the blue box besides the brand, the model name and some key specifications. Inside the box you will find a mini PC, a VESA mount bracket, a 96-watt power adapter, an HDMI cable, a bag of screws, and a user manual, there is also a greeting card to show the brand’s gratitude for its buyers.
Design and build
The GEEKOM Mini IT8 employs a well-ventilated PC-ABS chassis measuring 117 mm x 112 mm x 45.6 mm to house the Intel Core i5-8259U SoC and other internal components. The matte black finish on top may not win any beauty pageant, but it does give the machine a premium look, in a low-key kind of way. You can find the branding in the middle of the top panel, and an “Intel Inside” logo on the upper-right corner.
The GEEKOM Mini IT8 packs plenty of IO for its size. The front panel sports a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port, a USB-C port (data only), and a 3.5mm audio jack with mic support. The power button on the right has status LED built-in, which will light up in blue when the machine is booted.
The rear panel plays host to two more USB 3.2 Gen2 ports, a Gigabyte Ethernet jack, an HDMI 2.0b, a mini-DisplayPort 1.4, a multifunction Type-C (data & display), and a DC-in. As the keen-eyed have noticed, that gives this machine the potential to drive three 4K displays at once. GEEKOM advertises that the Mini IT8 supports four simultaneous screens, but to achieve that you need a Type-C hub with two video output interfaces, and it won’t be cheap.
Due to the soaring prices of card readers recently, many PC makers have removed the storage card slots from their PC products, but not GEEKOM, as you can find an SDXC slot on the left side of this mini PC.
Getting access to the internals could not be easier, just loosen the four screws and you will be able to remove the bottom panel.
There are two memory slots, an M.2 2280 NVMe/SATA SSD slot, and a connector for a 2.5-inch SATA HDD/SSD on the Mini IT8’s motherboard. You can have up to 32GB dual-channel DDR4-2400 memory, and as much as 3TB of total internal storage. The Mini IT8 doesn’t come with fancy features such as WiFi6, or 2.5Gbps ethernet like some higher-end mini PCs do. But dual-band WiFi5 still offers fast and reliable wireless internet access, and the Gigabyte Ethernet jack can come in handy when you want more stable data rate.
Because of the magnalium impact-protection frame, the Mini IT8 is a little bit heavier than most other mini PCs of the same size. The unit that I am testing weighs 580g on its own ( with two memory sticks and an M.2 2280 NVMe drive). When we add the relatively bulky power brick to the equation, the combined weight reaches 996g. In comparison, the Beelink SEI8, which is about the same size, weighs only 340g on its own and 500g with the power brick included. Still, moving the GEEKOM Mini IT8 around in the house or taking it to work shouldn’t be too much effort.
The build quality of the Mini IT8 is among the best I have seen in any mini PC. The PC-ABS chassis is extremely robust, and won’t flex however I squeeze it. Thanks to the well-structured metal impact-protection frame inside, this machine looks like it can take a serious amount of office abuse, and may even be able to survive a few occasional falls.
System & App
Most mini PCs and laptops run on the Home Edition of Windows OS, but the GEEKOM Mini IT8 ships with licensed Windows 11 Pro, which offers quite a few extra features. The most important one is being able to join a domain, including Azure Active Directory for single sign-on to cloud services (and have group policy applied as part of that).
You also get Hyper-V for virtualization, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode Internet Explorer, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business, Enterprise Data Protection containers (a feature that comes later in the year) and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Pro users can get updates from Windows Update for Business, which includes options for scheduling updates, so they don't reboot PCs at important business times.
The Windows 11 Pro here is completely clean, with no pre-installed 3rd party applications or bloatware that you need to uninstall after first bootup. The Windows 11 OS license will be automatically activated once the mini PC gets internet access.
Performance
The GEEKOM Mini IT8 is powered by an Intel Core i5-8259U processor (2.3-3.8GHz), which is built on 14nm process, has 4 CPU cores, 8 processing threads, and integrated Iris Plus 655 Graphics. This processor was released way back in 2018, so it won’t be able to compete with the latest high-end chips found in mainstream laptops and desktop PCs, but it should be more than capable for any mainstream computing duties you care to throw at it. My unit comes with 16GB memory, as well as 512GB NVMe SSD, but you can also get the 8GB/256GB variant for less money.
Benchmarks
First, I ran Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R20 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. The Mini IT8 scored in 373 in CPU single-core, and 1613 in multi-core. Somehow the Mini IT8 managed to surpass the NUC8i7BEH, which rocks a higher-end Core i7-8559U chip.
Each Geekbench 5 CPU workload models a real-world task or application, ensuring meaningful results. These tests are complex, avoiding simple problems with straightforward memory-access patterns, and push the limits of the tested system. The GEEKOM Mini IT8 did quite well in the CPU tests, beating the NUC8I7BEH again in multi-core performance. It also snatched 8651 in OpenCL, indicating that the integrated graphics here can do a lot more than just office work.
PCMark 10 simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. we use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and video conferencing. The Mini IT8 notched 4186 in the standard PCMark 10 test, not that far behind the i5-1135G7 powered Beelink GTI11.
My review unit features a Kingston m.2 2280 NVMe SSD. At nearly 2.5GB/s for reading data off the drive, it is still more than ideal for booting Windows and all your favorite apps.
If you are going to get a GEEKOM Mini IT8, be sure to ask the seller for the full configuration of your unit, as you will need dual-channel memory to get the best performance out of the mini PC. However, some units only ship with 1 memory stick inside. The 16GB/512GB variant I have received comes with one Kingston 16GB DDR4 memory stick, so I added another Crucial 16GB DDR4 memory stick to set up dual channel. In the AIDA64 cache & memory benchmark, the read, write and copy speeds of the memory will almost double after dual-channel setup, and the performance of the integrated GPU will benefit from it, as well.
Daily computing
The GEEKOM Mini IT8 was quite efficient in all kinds of daily computing duties, including office workflows, web-browsing, and multi-media. There were no hiccups or delays when loading 10+ image-heavy webpages in Chrome, playing an 8K video and running a few big apps side by side.
Lightweight creativity tasks were also not an issue for this mini PC, as it was fast and perfectly responsive while running apps such as Photoshop and Lightroom. Even editing videos, which should be challenging for most SFF PCs, is a can-do on the Mini IT8. When I was adding filters to multiple 1080P clips at the same time, the machine did not seem like it’s struggling, although it did take more time to finish each task than the Ryzen9-5900HX powered Beelink GTR5. With that said, you would not want to use this mini PC editing videos in 4K, as that requires even more processing power from the system.
Gaming
The Intel Iris Plus 655 Graphics GPU in the Core i5-8259U is not as fast as the Iris Xe Graphics found in the 11th and 12th generation Intel Core processors, but it is still a much better integrated GPU than the Intel UHD Graphics found in Celeron and Pentium processors, and scores of 3DMark test told the story. The Mini IT8 was returned 7428 in Sky Diver, 1957 in Fire Strike, and 743 in Time Spy.
League of Legend was fairly smooth in 1080P and medium settings. There were no noticeable frameskip or stutters even in the most intense battle scenes. GamePP recorded an average of 98fps, pretty decent for a midrange mini PC.
Genshin Impact was playable in 1080P and medium settings, but at only 30fps on average, it's not all that enjoyable. After turning the resolution down to 720P, GamePP recorded an average of 49fps, and the smoothness improved significantly.
Spell Break was a very similar story. At 1080P and medium settings, we got an average of 41fps, which wasn’t too bad, but there were noticeable frame drops and delays in some of the more complex scenes. Turning the resolution down to 720p, the frame rate could stay above 55fps all the time.
As the results indicated, even though the Mini IT8 isn’t built for gaming, it can run some most modern games at moderate settings. And if you are a fan of simpler, more casual games like Angry Birds, Plant VS Zombies, or any games installed from Microsoft Store, then you should not be worried about the smoothness at all.
HTPC
If gaming isn’t one of the Mini IT8’s strengths, media playback certainly is! According to DXVA Checker, the Iris Plus 655 GPU inside the machine can decode most video formats of up to 4K or 8K. If you have a collection of high-res movies and shows, you are in for a treat! I tested dozens of 4K and 8K clips on the Mini IT8, all of them played smoothly. Also, because the mini PC always utilized hardware decoding, the CPU usage was low and the cooling fan stayed fairly quiet in video playback.
Streaming super high-res videos online was not a problem for the Mini IT8, either. Playing an [email protected] YouTube video in the Chrome browser, the utilizations of the CPU and GPU were 40% and 81% respectively, and the playback was extremely smooth.
Power consumption, temperature, and noise
Power consumption on the GEEKOM Mini IT8 is at 15watts idle and 70watts on max load. Not the most energy-conservative we’ve seen, but still more environment-friendly than most large desktop computers. Internal CPU temperatures ranged from 35℃ idle and 78℃ under max load which caused the cooling fan to spin up.
The Mini IT8 stayed quiet when dealing with light-weight tasks, I could watch the “Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard” court drama all day long without hearing any noise from the machine. However, the cooling fan will make audible noise when the system is under heavy workloads. Fortunately, it was neither too loud nor too annoying. If you had the Mini IT8 mounted under your desk or behind a monitor in an office cubicle, it would be highly unlikely for you to get distracted by the fan noise.
Competition
The 8GB/256GB variant of the GEEKOM Mini IT8 is priced at $379.89 on Amazon, but right now GEEKOM is offering all buyers a $20 coupon, after which you can get a unit for only $359.89, making it one of the most affordable choices among mini PCs with similar specs. In comparison, Beelink sells the SEI8 for $379, and the price of the Minisforum U820 starts from $499.9.
Verdict
There’s a lot to like about the GEEKOM Mini IT8. It's conveniently-sized, and could easily fit into even the most tightly-packed desktops. It's also highly versatile, with a range of different ports, mounting options, and configurations available to suit almost every conceivable business need. If you are looking for a small desktop PC that is more than capable for your everyday basics, yet still affordable enough as not to break your bank, the GEEKOM Mini IT8 is too good of an option to be overlooked.
Benchmark scores here:
If you are interested in buying this mini PC, here are the links to their official stores:
GEEKOM Brand Strore USA- https://amzn.to/3A7EcJF
GEEKOM Brand Strore DE- https://amzn.to/3FmZsgS
USA Official- https://bit.ly/GEEKOMUSAMiniIT8
DE Official- https://bit.ly/GEEKOMDEMiniIT8