The Mini PCs keep coming! This time I take a look at the GMKTec K11, which offers a solid mix of price and performance. You can watch my video review here.
It’s running a Ryzen 8945HS processor with eight cores and sixteen threads, with performance not far off from some of the pricier Ryzen AI models. You can find it here at Amazon (compensated affiliate link).
Before we dive too much further, another option to consider if you want to save a little more is the GMKTec K8 Plus (compensated affiliate link), which I looked at recently. It has similar performance, the same case, and sometimes comes in cheaper. Either way, this mid-range category is delivering a lot right now.
The specs include 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 5600 MHz and a 1TB NVMe SSD. Inside, there’s room to expand: you can go up to 96GB of RAM and add a second NVMe SSD, making it possible to dual boot Linux and Windows or just have some extra storage.
The K11 is equipped with an Oculink port, which allows direct bus connections to external desktop GPUs and other PCIe cards. I’ve covered that in other videos. GMKTec also sells a hardcover book-sized eGPU that connects through Oculink you can see my review of that product here.
Alongside that port is a USB 4 connection rated at 40 Gbps and compatible with Thunderbolt, which means you could hook up multiple GPUs if you really wanted to. It also includes two USB-A ports at 10 Gbps, a headphone/mic jack, and on the back, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, plus another USB 4 port. You can drive up to four displays making use of the two display outputs and the USB 4 ports. Networking is solid too, with dual 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports that performed well on both upstream and downstream in my testing.
Wi-Fi performance is a bit better than some of the other mini PCs I’ve tested, but not perfect. The downstream was a little lower than expected but upstream was close to what I should get off of my Wifi 6 access point. Still, it outperformed some previous models from GMK Tech.
There’s also a colorful RGB-lit fan on top, which you can disable in the BIOS if that’s not your thing.
Windows 11 Pro comes pre-installed and activated. Browsing performance is fast and responsive, as expected. I tested YouTube at 4K 60fps and only saw a few dropped frames—nothing disruptive. The Speedometer browser benchmark gave it a score of 29.4, putting it in line with similar systems, including newer Ryzen AI chips.
In DaVinci Resolve, simple 4K 60fps video edits with basic transitions played back in real time using the integrated GPU. More advanced effects required waiting, though, and that’s where something like an external GPU becomes important. For simple video projects like I do on the channel, this should be more than sufficient. It would also likely hold up well for livestreaming, especially with the high-speed I/O ports.
For gaming I tested Cyberpunk 2077. At 1080p and low settings, frame rates hovered above 45 fps and held steady. It’s not meant to be a high-end gaming rig, but it gets by. For retro emulation, it’s more than capable. On the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark test, it scored 3,349, which puts it close to the more expensive Evo X1 running an AI 9 chip.
Its thermal performance is also decent, with a passing grade of a 97.2% on the 3DMark stress test. Fan noise is there under significant load, but it’s not a terribly loud or distracting fan. Under most day-to-day use cases the fan is practically silent. Power consumption sits around 13.5 watts at idle and peaks around 96 watts under full load.
With 32GB of RAM and plenty of expansion room, I also tested some local AI models. I ran the Gemma 3 12B model locally, and despite the fact that Ollama isn’t currently using the GPU for processing on these Mini PCs (even with the Ryzen AI chips), performance on the CPU was about the same as what I’ve seen on more expensive mini PCs.
I finished up by booting into Ubuntu. Everything was detected properly—Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, audio, and video all worked at 4K 60 without a hitch. It’s a smooth Linux experience and could even serve as a compact server or DIY NAS core with the right configuration.
Disclosure: GMKTec provided the Mini PC free of charge for this review. No other compensation was received and they did not review or approve this post or my video before it was uploaded.