GEEKOM Mini IT12 Mini PC Review

TweakTown's Rating: 93%

The Bottom Line

The Mini IT12 is a fantastic lower cost offering for those wanting a high performance mini PC with great connectivity.

Pros

• + 2.5Gbe + Wi-Fi 6E
• + USB4

Cons

• - DDR4

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon

Buy at Newegg

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

GEEKOM continues to fill out its portfolio of mini PCs, with the 12th Gen Intel-powered Mini IT12 being the latest unit to be released. This unit is offered in three SKUs with two processors being deployed: the Core i7 12650H and Core i5 12450H. In our discussion, we did ask GEEKOM to send the highest tier for review.

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Our sample of the GEEKOM Mini IT12 is offered with the 12650H, and this CPU offers six performance cores alongside four efficient cores, core clocks coming in at 3.5GHz for the E-cores and 4.7GHz for the P-cores. Memory support includes two-slot SO-DIMM support, with GEEKOM giving our unit 32GB of DDR4-2666. Further support includes NVMe and SATA m.2, with two slots available. Legacy SATA is also available for a single 2.5" drive.

The connectivity for this machine includes both WiFi6e and 2.5Gbe LAN. USB options include three 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two USB4, and dual HDMI 2.0 connections. This unit also offers an SD card slot.

As detailed above, the pricing of the GEEKOM Mini IT12 comes in at $549. Readers of TweakTown can also enjoy an extra $30 off the Mini IT12 with the code "TweakTown30" when purchasing directly from GEEKOM.

Overview

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The Mini IT12 arrived in retail packaging, similar to the Mini IT13 we reviewed a few months back.

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GEEKOM includes the power adapter, VESA mount, HDMI cable, and reading materials.

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Our first look at the Mini IT12, and we immediately noted that this offering uses an identical design to the more expensive Mini IT13. This includes the 4x4 design and colorway; even the port layout is identical.

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The front houses two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and the left port also supports charging. Far-right, we do have a 3.5mm headphone jack and the power button.

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The left side gives us venting along with the Kensington lock.

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The right side has a similar venting with the SD card slot.

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The rear I/O is stacked with exhaust out the top, then left to right, and then power input. USB4 and HDMI. We then have a split to fit in the 2.5Gbe LAN and dual USB Type-A ports and, to round this out, another USB4 and HDMI. It's worth noting both USB4s support DisplayPort.

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Internally, the Mini IT12 supports NVMe at the top; Wi-Fi has been slid underneath. Moving down, we have a 2242 SATA M.2 slot and, at the bottom, dual DDR4 SO-DIMM slots. On the lid of the Mini IT12, we do have support for a single 2.5" drive.

BIOS/UEFI and Software

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The BIOS is very simple with the Mini IT12; the main page offers hardware info, while the second tab allows users to enable secure boot. Last, we have the boot tab, which gives options for your bootup device.

System/CPU Benchmarks

Cinebench

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to highlight their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests: a single-core workload utilizing one thread or 1T. There is also a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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R23 kicks off our testing for the Mini IT12. This machine landed us with a single thread of 1773.

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Multi-thread results pulled in 9635; this landed the Mini IT12 right in the middle of the charts.

BAPCo CrossMark

CrossMark™ is an easy-to-run native cross-platform benchmark that uses real-world application models to measure overall system performance and responsiveness. CrossMark™ supports devices running Windows, iOS, and macOS platforms.

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CrossMark picked up 1815 overall, putting the GEEKOM top five in our charts.

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Memory performance gave us 50K read, 47K write, and 47K copy. Latency lands at 73ns.

Geekbench 6

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Geekbench scored 2390 single-core and 9715 multi-cores.

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OpenCL and Vulkan weren't the best for Geekdom; we finished at 11K and 14K, respectively.

Graphics, System I/O, Battery, and Gaming

System I/O Performance

PCMark

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PCMark Extended landed at 5048.

3DMark

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CPU Profile gives us 953 and 1751 for single and two-core workloads.

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Four, eight, and sixteen thread workloads gave the Mini IT12 scores of 2910, 3951, and 4832.

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Running 3DMark Storage, the Mini IT12 produced the best results we have seen next to the Mini IT13, scoring 3443.

Value and Final Thoughts

Value

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Value for the Mini IT12 lands towards the bottom of the charts as the integrated graphics do take some performance away from the Mini IT12. Overall score was 94.1%

Final Thoughts

For those who wanted to pick up a Mini IT13 when they were released back in October but didn't due to price, the Mini IT12 slides in as a fantastic option at nearly half the price. To make this even better, every facet of the Mini IT12 is identical to the Mini IT13, from the chassis to the port configuration; really, the only thing that changed was the CPU, going from the 13900H to the 12650H in the Mini IT12. Now, I'm not going to say the performance difference isn't that big because, in certain workloads, it can be.

For instance, our single thread workloads show the Mini IT12 about 300 points behind the Mini IT13, and when we look at multi-thread, the 12650H lands at ~9600 points in R23, whereas the 13900H peaks near 13K. System-wide workloads such as PCMark or Crossmark did do quite well on the Mini IT12; there are no AMD systems in our charts that are faster than this Mini IT12, and only 13th Gen offerings are better for Team Blue.

Connectivity is, like the Mini IT13, fantastic. GEEKOM has given us four USB Type-A ports, three of which are the 3.2 Gen 2 standard and two USB4 that can double as DisplayPort outputs. This is along with WiFi6e, 2.5GBE LAN, and dedicated HDMI 2.0 outputs.

Pricing might be the best part for the Mini IT12 as top-tier offerings, like ours, come in at $549, and our readers can even knock off an additional $30 by using the code at the beginning of the review.