GMKtec Mini PC N150, G3 Plus Intel Twin Lake N150 (3.4GHz), 16GB DDR4 RAM 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD, Desktop Computer 4K Dual HDMI/USB3.2/WiFi 6/BT5.2/2.5G RJ45

For the first 24 hours, I was really impressed. Really snappy performance, 8 GB of RAM was plenty for simple tasks, and the SSD was capacious at 256 GB, considering the price. The inclusion of Windows Pro made the box almost free! However, after updating to Windows 11 Build 22H3, during the process of applying updates, the computer locked up. After 60 minutes with the computer no longer visible on the network and the keyboard and mouse non-responsive, pulled the power cord. Upon restoring power and turning on the computer, the PC was stuck for hours at the spinning circle during boot. Two more power-cycles and Windows repair interface appeared. Selected Windows Reset, Local Source (wouldn't work with cloud source), Windows began resetting. However, after a restart, computer back to the infinitely spinning circle. :-( If this had proved reliable, I'd have bought a dozen or more as remote monitoring PCs for client networks. But given that I've had good luck with the similarly priced AWOW models, I will not be investing any more money or time in the GMKTek offerings. Update 01-07-2024 ----------------------- Fortunately, GMKTek provides a download for a Windows 11 re-installation ISO. With this and leveraging a fair amount of knowledge of Windows installation options, was able to re-image the SSD. Unfortunately, the product key is invalidated and I had to use a spare Windows 10 product key to re-activate Windows. Unfortunate the GMKTek hasn't worked out the same relationship with Microsoft that Dell has, whereby any Windows 11 ISO used to load Windows onto a Dell OptiPlex results in an automatically activated Windows 11 installation. Bottom line is that after recreating and updating all apsects of the re-installed Windows 11 OS, the PC is back to running normally. I know to steer clear now of some driver updates. The PC has been running for about 36 hours and I'll post an update if that changes in the near future. When this PC works, it represents a great value for the money in terms of hardware specs and a Windows 11 license. However, taking into account the time issue remediation takes and the expertise required, the TCO (total cost of ownership) rises significantly. If I never have to do brain surgery on this device again, I'll still feel the cost was justified based on the performance of this sub-$200 device. P.S. I now make a complete image backup before running/installing ANY updates so I can simply restore the image backup rather than running into yet another Windows 11 re-installation process and the requirement to use/purchase another Windows product key. P.P.S. The WIndows 11 re-installation ISO download was 11 GB and was not a standard Windows 11 installation ISO. This had to be burned to a flash drive (I used a 16 GB USB3 model; I used Rufus to create the bootable UEFI flash drive) and then the GMKTek PC booted with it. Upon boot, I was faced with a terminal window and a couple of choices. The one I chose led to an image/sysprep process that fortunately got the PC bootable once again with Windows 11 Pro. P.P.P.S. Highly recommended --> As soon as you boot the device for the first time, find a tool such as ProduKey by NirSoft and extract and save the Windows 11 product key. Ideally (although I didn't have a chance to test), this key would work if a re-install was ever required. The other option, that I was waiting for until the PC was fully updated, is to create an image backup using any number of tools, including the image backup tool in Windows. Thus, if any of your update processes results in a non-bootable PC, you can simply re-image from the backup and avoid having a non-activated instance of Windows 11. Update 01-12-2024 ----------------------- Vendor reached out proactively and offered some assistance, although I'd resolved the corrupt Windows 11 issue independently. However, that level of customer support is remarkable considering the price of this product and the lack of such support from other vendors with much pricier offerings. Due to this, upgrading the rating to four stars. Update 01-13-2024 ----------------------- Customer support proactively reached out and provided a product key so I could activate Windows 11 and free up my personal product key. GMKtec's proactive reaching out to a customer with issues is almost unparalleled in my experience over 40 years, so despite the issues I encountered, I'm raising my review to five stars. For a product this inexpensive but with excellent performance, providing this level of customer support is laudable.

I got this for my clone hero setup. I occasionally use it for minor computer functions but mostly just clone hero. I should've gotten the one with bigger storage for barely more money but overall this works really well, I was easily able to navigate everything to add the games, and all the songs from the original games with lots of space left. Haven't used it for other games because I'd quickly run out of space. Overall works perfect for clone hero though. Edit: I've now had it for several months. When playing clone hero don't expect crazy high fps. Fps with everything else turned off and settings good is 250-300. That's with no video background also. With a video background it's 150-200 fps. It also randomly slows down and then fast forwards or straight up skips a little. It's usable but a little frustrating when you start to get really good. Id definitely like to have something with more storage and definitely ram because this RAM is showing that just having CH open uses 100% of RAM. Now to the computer aspects. It works totally fine as a normal computer, but gets slow when you start adding other apps. I couldn't use high power computer games and even mobile ones sometimes froze. It also really slowed down opening tabs and stuff and just navigating anything is a little slow. It still works fine but it could definitely use a little more space and processing power. Second edit: I recently started sim racing and was running it on my laptop since I don't have an actual PC, and just for the heck of it I downloaded raceroom on this thing and hooked up my g29 and... It's running pretty much as well as it does on my $1k laptop. I have switched over my setup to this instead because it's easier and runs it basically as well, and basically never crashed, whereas my laptop crashed frequently. This mini PC is way too good for its price. Overall still a good little PC you can use anywhere, and for the price really is remarkable. Yes I have complaints but I will not be reducing my stars because for the price it performs better than I expected. My update is more to let other clone hero players, or people buying this to game, that you probably want a little more than what this has. Although the price is unbeatable if you get it on sale. I got mine for about $120. (After second update this is less true. For most games this does underperform and you'll want something better. But it randomly is really really good at certain games. It runs clone hero AND raceroom better than my main computer. Originally was 4 stars but will now be 5 stars)

I have various Windows 10 devices that are not upgradeable to Windows 11 so I purchased this with the intention of making this my new anchor Windows PC (I'm primarily a Mac user) and I plan on only using it for basic word processing, web browsing, and activities better suited to the Windows world. This is a preliminary rating as I received this device just yesterday. Packaging was professional and set up/personalization straight forward using a USB wireless Logitech Key/Mouse. Bluetooth setup for my Harman Kardon speaker and other bluetooth devices failed (wouldn't recognize anything discoverable) so I next began the lengthy process of Windows updating (actually still happening) and the bluetooth issue resolved itself somewhere along the way. So, beyond the bluetooth issue, this mini PC has been flawless, speedy, quiet, and has gotten only mildly warm during operation. I ran 5 YouTubes videos simultaneously as a test without issues. The system says it is running Windows 11 Pro, it has 475GB of storage (512 was advertised), 16GB memory, and the N150 chip. I'm on Google Fiber and my speed check was something like 400+ down/300+ up from the opposite side of the house from the router. I have NOT yet checked the other ports (USBs/HDMI/LAN). I'm not a computer geek so I can only share my 'user' experience as I compare this with my other devices (Macs/Chromebooks/Windows) and there have been no discernible performance issues. Wrapping up, so far, and comparing price vs. performance, I am happy with my purchase.

Got this for only one day. Price seems to be very good for a decent quality. Unit is around the same size of a NUC13 which I own, but is substantially lower in weight, and of course also in price and performance. With that said, it provides sufficient performance to be used as a TV box. It works fine in my older HD TV, but it seemed to struggle with my 4K monitor running at 60 Hz. At this point I still don’t know if it was a problem of my monitor or the unit itself. Although not specifically mentioned in the product description, unit comes with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. I’m a Linux person but since Windows is already there, I plan to keep it there for a while. However, I’ve tried running Remote Desktop to a Linux machine to play some videos, but the video and sound got so choppy that it was not workable. The dilemma is that I have some videos in a format that would require me to login to my MS account and perhaps buy or subscribe to some licenses if I were to play these videos in Windows, but I hate doing that, so sooner or later I might just install Linux on this PC. Update: After more use and testing, I’ve come to the conclusion that this PC is under-powered even for 4K videos, but it suffices for lower resolutions. It consistently struggles and stutters while my 6 year old PC with an i5 CPU had no trouble. I have since switched to Linux and upgraded the RAM to 16G, but the conclusion is the same.

I have been using a GMKtec G9 since early February and when I purchased it, I did a comprehensive review on Amazon about using it with several DIY NAS packages. In that review I found the G9 to be a very capable machine with some concerns about the thermal performance when loaded with NVME drives. Although, I personally did not have any thermal issues that caused the system to become unstable or exceed the upper limits for throttling none the less it was higher than I was comfortable with using for a 24/7 system. Since that review I have used the G9 for a couple of months as a Proxmox Virtual Hypervisor running half a dozen LXC containers and a couple of Virtual Machines. In that configuration it exceeded my performance expectations, was very dependable and I never encountered a thermal issue. However, in the meantime several video reviewers with much more demanding requirements than mine reviewed the G9 and pointed out the cooling issues particularly in the NVME drive area. One even had several system crashes while trying to configure the system as a NAS device. At the time of that review, I was considering reconfiguring my G9 to become a TrueNAS server. I had not had any temperature shutdown issues but took this opportunity to provide the NVME drives with additional cooling by 3D printing a new bottom section and fitting it with an 80mm 12VDC fan. In my earlier review I had tested the cooling performance with this type of fan, but it was only attached to the NVME area in a temporary manner. Now I was going to make a permanent case to house the fan and retest the thermal performance compared to the stock configuration. I designed the case; 3D printed it and installed the fan and replacement case bottom onto the G9. I loaded and configured the system with TrueNAS running from the 64MB EMMC storage along with populating all the M2 slots with 2TB NVME drives to provide a total of 8TB of NAS storage. The 80mm 12VDC fan replaces the two current small fans that are designed to cool the NVME drives. The 80mm fan is located such that it blows directly on all the NVME drives and is supplied with 5 VDC instead of 12VDC. From my testing this provides exceptionally good cooling with no measurable noise increase. I have been running this TrueNAS configuration without any thermal issues. The fan/case modification adds 20mm to the total case width. Recently, I learned that GMKtec was planning to release a modified version of the G9 called the G9 PLUS with some thermal mitigation improvements. Since I needed a system to replace the Proxmox server when I reconfigure the G9 for TrueNAS this would be an ideal purchase and allow me to compare the thermal performance of the original G9 to the G9 PLUS and my80mm fan modified G9. The first thing I wanted to do was to visually examine both the original G9 and the G9 Plus side by side to note any obvious difference. They were identical except for the following. 1) The G9 Plus replaces the case side exit holes with a larger black mesh grate. This provides increased area for the warm air to escape. 2) The top air slots for the CPU air cooling inlets have been expanded from two lines of slots to four lines. Providing double the opportunity for air inflow. Pictures of these two changes have been included in this review. I disassembled the G9 PLUS to examine the inside components to determine if there were any thermal related changes and could not find any. I even looked closely at the cooling fans taking measurements and removing stickers to see if a change could be found but they appear visually to be the same on both the G9 and the G9 PLUS. I set up the G9 PLUS to take temperature measurement for comparison to the original G9 and my 80mm fan modified G9 utilizing the same software and NVME drives in each configuration. The numerical results are shown in tables below. These results are for my use case, and I cannot know if they apply to all units. Similarly, one of the video reviewers had thermal shutdown issues on his unit but I experienced no shutdown issues. These numerical results represent a comparison of the three systems under high load and stress conditions. I can say from actual personal experience using the G9 for 6 months as both a Proxmox server and NAS that I have never seen the system get anywhere near these thermal results. The testing was done with the BIOS settings set to “Performance” and the Smart Fan setting left at Default. You should note my 80mm fan runs to cool the NVME drives constantly. It is a 12V DC fan, but I am running it at 5V DC, so it is quiet but still directs enough air flow to provide cooling to the NVME drives. The units are outfitted with four 2TB NVME drives with heatsinks installed. The system was stressed with a combination of several 4K videos, benchmark software and large transfers often at the same time to determine average and maximum temperatures. All temperatures are in degrees Celsius. CPU Temperatures Original G9 = 72 average, 88 maximum G9 PLUS = 66 average, 81 maximum G9 80mm fan = 63 average, 78 maximum Outside Case Temperatures Original G9 = 50 highest area, 36 rest of case G9 PLUS = 46 highest area, 36 rest of case G9 80mm fan = 47 highest area, 36 rest of case NVME Drive Temperatures Original G9 = 62 average, 74 highest G9 PLUS = 60 average, 73 highest G9 80mm fan = 41 average, 54 highest In summary GMKtec has made some modest thermal improvements in the G9 PLUS over the G9. These improvement can be found mostly in the CPU cooling (6-7 C) while the NVME cooling is slightly better (2C). If you believe your use case would result in high stress workloads then the addition replacement cooling like the 80mm fan modification shows that significant temperature improvement (9C CPU and 20C NVME) can still be made at the expensive of a larger case width. It cannot go without mentioning that these result are from a highly stress system and each buyer would need to evaluate the ongoing use case to determine if their system would experience similar stressed conditions. In my case with using the G9 over the last 6 months I have not seen these highly stressed conditions. As a result, I continue to be impressed with the performance, capabilities, and price of the G9 and from the testing I expect to have comparable results with the G9 PLUS.

I usually don’t write reviews but feel I had to for this product. Very competitive pricing. Pluged in my wireless USB for my keyboard and mouse and was up and running in 20 min. It does everything I need it to do. Followed the instructions not to connect to the internet until setup was complete. Once that was done seamlessly connected to the internet and updates were downloaded one took quite sometime and installing then took about 1 1/2 hours be patient. Very impressed so far.

Didn't waste time setting it up since it is Windows 11. Took a while but finally had all the updates installed. The first test was 4k video on YouTube - no issues. Network speed on fiber was almost 400mbs. The green color plastic case is nice, and wife thinks it's cute. Pretty snappy for what it is - paid $137 and it is well worth it. Basically, as much as a Raspberry Pi but $37 dollars more for memory and a hard drive. Loaded some GIS software to test performance and didn't see any issues there either. Loaded a fancontrol program for more refined control. Will test more but am very satisfied👍 FEW DAYS LATER I bought this little PC ($135) for streaming TV and web browsing from a hotel. In the past I purchased a travel router and a streaming TV dongle, and it worked OK. This G3 is substantially better, is a great deal with all the hardware and Windows 11. The TVs picture is substantially better than the Chromecast while running the same YouTube TV app on the same TV. There were a number of settings I had to figure out but it's well worth it. First I like using a Bluetooth mouse with Windows accessibility virtual keyboard. The fan was a little loud but go to GetFanControl and read what their software does. The bios is very functional also with many settings but didn't change any yet. Had to change settings on my Samsung TV for the way the TV monitors USB connections. Turned it all off to work properly. It's a PC so it has all the same issues - updates, power settings, etc. but WOW! Connect to TV, log into Wi-Fi and you're up and running. Purchased an air mouse with keyboard and track pad but a regular mouse works well and less complicated. I didn't know my TV could look this good. You will need to figure out how to use the power button to hibernate and turn on. Once I turn it on I have to move the mouse to get a picture but as I mentioned - ITS A NICE NUC👍 for a TV streaming and web browsing from a hotel. In the past I purchased a travel router and a streaming TV dongle, and it worked OK. This G3 is substantially better, is a great deal with all the hardware and Windows 11. The picture is substantially better than the ChromeCast and running the same YouTube TV app on the same TV. There were a number of settings I had to figure out but it's well worth it. First, I like using a Bluetooth mouse with Windows accessibility virtual keyboard. The fan was a little loud but go to GetFanControl and read what their software does. The bios is very functional also with many settings but didn't change any yet. Had to change settings on my Samsung TV for the way the TV monitors USB connections. Turned it all off to work properly. It's a PC so it has all the same issues - updates, power settings, etc. but WOW! Connect to TV, log into Wi-Fi and you're up and running. Purchased an air mouse with keyboard and track pad but a regular mouse works well and less complicated. I didn't know my TV could look this good. You will need to figure out how to use the power button to hibernate and turn on. Once I turn it on, I have to move the mouse to get a picture but as I mentioned - ITS A NICE NUC👍 It has computer graphics and the latest Wi-Fi chip too...

I wanted to love this device, and in many ways I do — the GMKtec NucBox G3 Plus is compact, fast, quiet, and a great value overall. However, the built-in WiFi 6 performance is a major letdown. The product advertises Intel WiFi 6 (AX201), which sounds great on paper. But in real-world usage, the speeds I get are dramatically lower than expected. On a direct LAN-to-WiFi test (using iperf3), I was only getting around 50–70 Mbps, with periodic dropouts — even though my Pixel 8 Pro gets over 400 Mbps on the same network in the same room. I’m streaming media over the LAN (Kodi), and the weak WiFi leads to laggy library browsing and slower metadata fetching. After some testing and research, it’s clear the issue isn’t the WiFi chip itself — it’s the tiny, poorly placed internal antenna inside the mini-PC chassis. This is a known limitation of small-form-factor PCs, but it’s frustrating when the device is advertised as having “WiFi 6” without clarifying the practical limitations. I ended up needing to buy an external USB WiFi 6 adapter with high-gain antennas, which completely solved the problem — but it adds clutter and an extra $40 to the price of the system. If you're planning to rely on WiFi for media streaming or large local file access, be aware that you'll likely need to supplement the built-in WiFi. If Ethernet is an option for you, great — but if not, consider this a warning. Otherwise, solid mini-PC. Just wish it was more honest about wireless limitations.