This GEEKOM mini PC makes me surprise why folks even purchase desktops

I’ve been constructing PCs for over 20 years, so naturally, I get why folks do it: it is enjoyable, and also you get a terrific laptop on the finish. But past the enjoyable, is there any purpose to spend the money and time anymore when a plug-and-play mini PC can completely exchange your day by day driver for nearly something however gaming?

8/10

Brand

GEEKOM

CPU

Intel Core Ultra 7 356H (16 cores, 16 threads, as much as 4.7GHz)

Graphics

Intel Graphics (built-in, 4 Xe3 cores)

GEEKOM’s newest mini PC packs plenty of energy in a small footprint. It has a extremely succesful CPU and NPU combo and it may well simply exchange most individuals’s day by day driver.

Pros & Cons

• Powerful efficiency in a tiny package deal
• 50 TOPS NPU breezes by AI duties
• Upgradeable RAM
• Great connectivity, together with 2.5G Ethernet and Wi-Fi 7

• The value level is fairly steep
• One M.2 2280 slot

Price and availability

The GEEKOM IT13 2026 mini PC is on the market straight from GEEKOM and Amazon. Both promote it for $1,399, which is a reduction from its MSRP of $1,689.

GEEKOM’s IT13 is a tiny field of many potentialities

It did a greater job than I anticipated

As I exploit an enormous desktop tower as my day by day driver, I feel I’ll have underestimated GEEKOM’s newest tackle a mini PC. Testing it rapidly cleared that up for me, although.

This mini PC, whereas actually tiny (1.29 kilos), is a beast in additional methods than one. It weighs lower than my laptop computer, all of the whereas providing efficiency far above what many laptops can present. I’ll dig into the numbers in a second, however let’s begin with a big-picture overview of what we’re coping with.

The IT13 has glorious construct high quality. The steel body positively provides a little bit of weight, but it surely’s negligible given its small footprint. It feels and appears premium, although, with a pleasant blue-ish end that units it other than related PCs.

As far as ports go, you’ve gotten a full-fledged desktop in your fingers, with extra connectivity than many ATX motherboards can present. Two USB4 (40Gbps) ports, 4 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, two HDMI, one 2.5GbE Ethernet, an audio jack, and an SD card reader is lots sufficient for my wants, though I might’ve preferred a front-facing USB4 port.

I do know it is a small factor to many, however aside from the shortage of a front-facing USB4/USB-C, I like the best way the producer deliberate the ports right here. You can plug in as much as 4 screens, so these cables can be a ache to cope with in the event that they weren’t precisely the place they’re: behind the PC.

The IT13 stayed cool below stress

Better cooling than many laptops

Taking it aside was straightforward, and because it’s upgradeable, that is noteworthy. I like that the screws are hooked up. You can add up further RAM, though the 32GB DDR5 that it comes with needs to be lots for what most individuals are going to make use of it for. You may add further storage as much as 4TB.

Despite the tiny kind issue, temperatures do not look like an issue for this mini PC. It averages 51 to 58 levels Celsius throughout my benchmarks, though operating 3DMark Steel Nomad Light (GPU check) made the CPU spike as much as 74 levels. No biggie, although. The field remained quiet all through each check. It acquired heat to the contact at instances, and the again vents did a superb job of expelling scorching air. I’ve definitely had laptops that carried out worse whereas heating up extra, so on this regard, it is a full 10/10 for GEEKOM’s IT13.

The efficiency shocked me

I put this mini PC by its paces, and it saved up all through

Under the hood, the IT13 runs on Intel’s Core Ultra 7 356H, a part of the Core Ultra Series 3 household, which you most likely know as Panther Lake. It packs 16 cores with out Hyper-Threading, with 4 Cougar Cove P-cores, eight Darkmont E-cores, and 4 low-power E-cores.

As everyone knows, uncooked benchmark numbers imply little or no when considered in a vacuum. To make sense of those scores, I in contrast this mannequin to the opposite mini PCs we have just lately reviewed right here at How-To Geek, together with the Acemagic K5 and the Lenovo Yoga Mini Gen 11. GEEKOM’s personal IT13 Max is one other fascinating level of comparability.

In Geekbench 7, the IT13 2026 scored 2,430 in single-core and 15,504 in multi-core, which really places it forward of the IT13 Max by roughly 14% and eight%, respectively. The Yoga Mini leads the cost by about 4% and 10%. Geekbench 6 confirmed related outcomes, though the multi-core rating turned out to be a lot nearer once we evaluate the 2 GEEKOM PCs.

Cinebench 2026 backed that up, with the IT13 touchdown about 11% and 17% forward of the IT13 Max. The Yoga Mini maintains a lead, but it surely’s a refined win that will not be felt in real-world efficiency.

7-Zip benchmarks flipped the state of affairs round just a little bit. The older GEEKOM pulled forward due to the additional threads on the Core Ultra 9 185H. However, the outcomes are all shut sufficient for these PCs that we’re not speaking a couple of make-it-or-break-it kind of state of affairs.

GEEKOM’s IT13 has a powerhouse of an NPU, and it reveals up in benchmarks

The AI capabilities are positively there

The 50 TOPS that the Core Ultra 7 356H is rated at is sufficient to clear Microsoft’s 40 TOPS bar for Copilot+ PC options with room to spare. It additionally units the IT13 other than different, extra budget-oriented mini PCs, just like the Acemagic K5—which, whereas geared up with an NPU, is nowhere close to as succesful.

The scores converse for themselves. I examined the CPU and the NPU utilizing Geekbench AI, and thru Intel’s OpenVINO framework, the NPU scored 34,822 in half-precision and 54,006 in quantized, which is about 21x and 7x quicker than the CPU. The Acemagic K5 was left within the mud.

These scores bode nicely for this PC’s capabilities in the case of operating native AI. The solely factor stopping you’ll be the shortage of a discrete GPU, which might clearly be remedied with an exterior graphics card.

Actually utilizing this PC was a wild journey

In one of the simplest ways attainable

GEEKOM could not have picked a greater individual to ship this assessment unit to, not less than if being unbiased was their aim. In reality, I’ll not have been unbiased, however reasonably borderline prejudiced.

My earlier experiences with mini PCs have not been pretty much as good as this, so to say that the GEEKOM IT13 impressed me would’ve been an understatement.

I put the PC by its paces. Benchmarks, stress checks, and all of that went easily, so I made a decision to strive utilizing it for my precise work, which entails having dozens of tabs open at any given time, typically whereas operating some type of software program within the background, from video games to Photoshop. All that RAM mixed with a beefy processor ensured that the IT13 did not even wince when confronted with my typical workloads.

I additionally tried some duties that I do not usually cope with, corresponding to video modifying in 4K, and thought the complete course of was tremendous easy. I haven’t got a benchmark to check to as it has been some time since I examined a mini PC, however there have been no freezes or different weirdness that may’ve made me pause and wonder if I used to be pushing the PC previous what the producer meant it to do.

I truthfully might’ve changed my desktop with it and never even seen.

I’d have seen when it got here to gaming, although. This is not a gaming PC by any stretch, however I used to be capable of run some video games on it, together with World of Warcraft Classic, Fortnite, and Apex Legends. I needed to scale right down to 1080p and play on low settings, however I used to be capable of preserve round 40-60 fps in these titles. One of the few downsides of this mini PC, in addition to its processor, is that the built-in graphics could possibly be higher, but it surely was by no means made to be a gaming laptop, so this is not actually a difficulty.

Should you purchase the GEEKOM IT13 2026?

At slightly below $1,400, GEEKOM’s IT13 2026 is not the most affordable mini PC you should purchase proper now. If you simply need one thing that’ll run your spreadsheets and allow you to watch Netflix, you will get away with one thing cheaper.

However, if true efficiency is what you are after, GEEKOM’s IT13 2026 positively delivers. Although I might’ve preferred to see it at a lower cost level, I really feel just like the efficiency and construct high quality nearly justify it. It’s quick sufficient to maintain up with my $3,000 desktop PC in every thing associated to my work, and that is much more than I can say about most laptops I’ve had the prospect to check.

If you are searching for one thing really good and never simply one thing that works, GEEKOM’s IT13 2026 is a unbelievable alternative. It’s a strong machine hidden in an ultra-portable little field, and it is fully plug-and-play, with zero problem concerned.