GEEKOM Mini IT11: An enormous review of miniscule proportions

GEEKOM, a small form-factor (SFF) PC company out of Taiwan, contacted our news site to review the company’s newest Mini PC, the GEEKOM Mini IT11. I had heard of the company in passing while browsing on Amazon but had never had the opportunity to look into its products. I owned a Micro PC stick a few years ago, which was my one experience with a small PC system, so I was eager to review GEEKOM’s newest system.

A little history about the company

The company was founded in September 2003 by founder Kom de Olde, who gathered like-minded professionals to make a company where “everyone should pursue their passion.” The core team members of GEEKOM have worked with companies such as Quanta, Inventec, and others and pride themselves on their superior research, development, and innovation strategies. The company has several branches, with its headquarters located in Taiwan.

The GEEKOM Mini IT11 box protects the system quite well and allows users to see the front and back of the system on two of the six sides of the box. The packaging also shows that the Mini IT11 offers the power of the Intel Core i7 or Intel Core i5, depending on the configuration chosen and the graphics of the Intel Iris-Xe GPU.

The physical design specifications for the GEEKOM Mini IT11 are 4.61 x 1.80 x 4.41 inches and a net weight of 565g. The picture below shows my Logitech G502 Hero wired mouse sitting next to the system for appropriate size comparisons.

The model received was the Intel Core i7-1195G7 CPU configuration ($649), with 16GB of DDR4 SO-DIMM memory and an M.2 SSD with 512GB of space. The processor is from the 11th Gen Core family of processors, also formally known as Tiger Lake. Tiger Lake’s microarchitecture allows four cores across eight threads, a boost clock of 5 GHz, and 12MB of L3 cache. The L3 cache is 12MB shared between the CPU and GPU, with the processor utilizing 8MB and the graphics processor using 4MB.

Other configurations available on the GEEKOM website were:

i5-1135G7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD – $529
i5-1155G7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD – $549
i7-1165G7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD – $629

Readers should keep in mind that the company has a lot of products on sale, including the Mini IT11 series, and can be found on GEEKOM’s 19th-anniversary page.

The Intel Iris Xe GPU is a dedicated graphics processor, allowing HD video abilities for work, home, and remote learning. It is the company’s first dedicated GPU add-in GPU for PCs based on the Xe architecture. The GPU can support up to 3 simultaneous 4K HDR displays. The GEEKOM Mini IT11 promotes 96 Execution Units and a clock frequency of 1.35 GHz for the Intel Iris Xe GPU. The TFLOPs on the GPU are rated at 2.07 for FP32 and 4.15 for FP16.

In the connectivity department, the GEEKOM Mini IT 11 offers a USB 3.2 Gen2 Port, a USB4+DP data Port, and a 3.5mm audio port on the front of the device. On the back of the Mini IT11 is another USB4+DP data Port, an HDMI 2.0 port, two USB 3.2 Gen2 ports, an Ethernet port, a mini DisplayPort 1.4, and the 19V power connector port. Rotating the device 45° counterclockwise, you will find the SD card port compatible with SD cards with a maximum capacity of 128GB.

GEEKOM welcomes updates to their systems’ hardware and promotes updating hardware on the Mini IT11. The website advertises that the DDR4 SODIMM memory can be expanded to 64GB total (starting at an estimated $149), and the PCIe 3.0 M.2 2280 SSD can be increased to 2TB (also for around $149). The 2.5-inch SATA HDD slot can be expanded to 2TB (the least expensive found on Amazon was $72). We will leave the system at stock settings for a consistent “out of the box” review, but for those interested in updating, accessing the internal components on the Mini IT11 is a cinch and will be very easy to change out parts.

Internally, the system includes a free copy of Windows 11 Pro for consumers. The system uses Bluetooth v5.2 for wireless connectivity, Ethernet speeds as high as 1000 Mbps, and Intel’s Wi-Fi 6 for those looking to connect wirelessly. The Mini IT 11 has a single cooling fan with a decibel rating of 30 to 45 dB. The system is advertised to “run continuously, consistently, and reliably” at average room temperatures.

Another feature is that users can install two operating systems simultaneously, so interested users can install on a separate partition something like Ubuntu OS, which is an excellent open-source operating system with a large community for support.

Included in the box are a VESA-certified mount, power adapter, storage bag, HDMI cable, a user guide (which can also be obtained from the company’s website), and a “Thank You” card to all consumers, showcasing where the company can be found online. The company offers a one-year warranty and a thirty-day refund and return policy.

The GEEKOM Mini IT11 product page discusses several system features, including a bar graph of the frames per second of twenty-five playable titles at a 1080p screen resolution. The Mini IT11 also supports up to four 4K UHD displays. I will use the Samsung 32″ S6 QHD display (LS32A600N) and Alienware curved QD-OLED gaming monitor (AW3423DW). The Samsung QHD display will utilize the HDMI functionality of the system, while the Alienware curved QD-OLED monitor will use the Mini DP port. The Alienware monitor will be in landscape mode for viewing, and the Samsung display will act as the secondary monitor with portrait mode activated.

Also, in the interest of this review, I will be writing and multitasking as if the system were my “everyday-use” system. Using the system as my main desktop PC will allow for a more honest reaction and real-world scenarios as I game, work, and create content on my regular PC.

Lastly, the company provides a listing of PC game titles — twenty-five to be exact — that are playable at a screen resolution of 1080p. I will test five games from the list for this review that were on different levels of frames per second concerning this chart:

The game titles tested for this review are:

Borderlands 3
Hitman 2
Gears Tactics
GRID 2019
DOTA 2

Two of the above titles are listed on GEEKOM’s website, which utilizes variable ray-shading, used with Intel Gen 11 graphics architecture. Those two titles are Gears Tactics and GRID 2019. The above titles’ frames per second start just above 30fps and top at 175fps.

Before I go into benchmark testing, I would like to talk about overall performance in everyday use. Upon receiving the GEEKOM Mini IT11, I experienced around eight instances where the system crashed in updating the Windows operating system. Additionally, each time the system would error, the defaulted blue screen would appear, offering to scan the QR code to find out more about the error experienced. In all instances where the QR code appeared, I took out my phone to check the code and find out why the error happened. Every time, the website link would take me to the following page, but I could not locate the information I was searching for because the link was no longer valid.

I use Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Discord for daily use, whether it be for work, content creation, or communication. Discord and both web browsers were installed with little problem, but utilization of video streaming through the web browsers and Discord was very weak. Discord, which offers H.264 video codecs, would be choppy in video discussions and was terrible at trying to communicate with multiple individuals. However, YouTube and Twitch defaulted to 720p and experienced little to no hiccups during active use.

I have stated on multiple occasions in reviews that I enjoy playing Fortnite, and it is usually the first game I install onto a system. With the time I have spent in the game, I can notice inconsistencies, and I feel capable of making adjustments to the overall video, graphical rendering, and more. This was when I realized that this is not an ideal system to use as a replacement for a gaming device. The Intel Iris Xe graphics and the Intel Core i7-1195G7 processor could not realistically play the game and, at times, would cause the system to crash, needing to be restarted. The graphics rendering, available frames per second, image quality, and more were placed on the lowest settings possible, and the experience was hardly tolerable. The images were incredibly pixelated by this point, and it felt like I was playing on a handheld from the previous decade.

I also have access to two wide monitors to access multi-monitor support and how the system handles specific aspect ratios. With four separate windows open on my primary monitor, the Alienware curved QD-OLED gaming display, and four on the secondary display, the Samsung 32″ S6 QHD monitor, I begin to see how the GEEKOM Mini IT11 strains at a solid picture on the Alienware display, with continual pixelation appearing when highlighting links, hovering over a YouTube video, and more. I switched the configuration to make the Samsung the main display and experienced identical issues. Having to restart the computer to fix the graphical inconsistency each time became more of a headache, as it happened in several instances.

We will review our standard tests for miniature PC systems, starting with the 3DMark Time Spy test.

3DMark Time Spy

3DMark Time Spy is created to calculate the gaming performance of a Windows computer system. The utility allows us also to view the processor’s performance.

PCMark 10

PCMark 10 is a comprehensive benchmarking tool for Windows 11 systems. The PCMark 10 tool offers exhaustive Windows PC performance testing for everyday home and business use, including workloads for basic computing, storage, image, video manipulation, web browsing, and gaming. The benchmark tests are designed to be tested on everything from power-hungry PC systems to laptops to microcomputer systems, such as the GEEKOM Mini IT11.

Cinebench R20

Cinebench Release 20 (R20) offers a real-world cross-platform test suite that assesses the abilities of the system’s hardware. Over the last few years, the suite has been updated to provide more support for newer processor and imaging render technology, supplying an exact measurement of Cinema 4D’s capability to utilize multiple CPU cores and current CPU features that are obtainable to most users.

CPU-Z

CPU-Z collects data from your system, such as the CPU name and number, series codename, process, package, cache levels, mainboard and chipset, memory type, size, timings, module specifications (SPD), and real-time measurement of each core’s internal frequency and memory frequency.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench 5 allows users to measure the system’s CPU power.

Gaming Benchmark Tests

Most of the performance in the above benchmarks, including gaming, is on par with previous mini PCs that we have reviewed, such as Minisfourum EliteMini TH50 Mini PC with the Intel Core i5-11320H processor on board.

In the 3DMark Time Spy and PCMark 10 benchmark tests, I did experience some visual disturbance when using the Alienware gaming display. I could not get a good picture of the disruption on digital film, but it only happened when the system was pushed to an extreme level for several seconds before it appeared on the screen. When using the Samsung display, I experienced a similar disturbance. Both times I had to restart the system.

Regarding maintaining two operating systems, I did not experience any lag switching back and forth between the two. I will look into repurposing some of my older systems to create a fully open-source PC system or see if they, too, have dual-boot capabilities.

Regarding gaming, smaller and retro-inspired titles would be a better fit for the system. The occasional lag of the system, especially when having a large download in the background, working on a graphic, and typing a document, was not ideal. However, watching a streaming video, browsing the web, and working on lighter tasks simultaneously would be easier for the GEEKOM Mini IT11 to handle. This is expected with the Intel Iris Xe Graphics and i7-1195G7 processor on board.

Upgrading will cost between $300 to $400 depending on what deals can be found on the Internet or at your local computer store. In a situation with constantly evolving systems, I recommend looking into it for “future-proofing” to as high as necessary for your needs. This will, however, put the cost of the system and upgrades to $950 and above, depending on the configuration.

For a system used for minor tasks, upgrading may seem unnecessary. The GEEKOM Mini IT11 would be a suitable home PC for streaming to television from YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, and more or playing light games from previous generations.

Again, I would not use this for the amount of work I produce daily or what I do in my free time when not writing. I fall into the category of “high-level” or “power user,” and the GEEKOM Mini IT11 is not a system that I could use as a replacement without sacrificing additional costs for upgrades or time waiting for renders and content creation needs.

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