A fully operational gamer PC, featuring an i9 13900HX, a desktop-graded GPU, the all water-cooled, and the entire thing under 5.6 Liters of volume and below 4 Kg (3.7 Kg to be precise).
How is that even possible?
GEEKOM and TECNO have been working quietly to manufacture one of the biggest innovation in the gaming industry in quite some time, and I have played with it :)!
I had the opportunity to go and cover IFA 2024 in Berlin, and very little did prepare me for what I was about to stumble on!
PURE TECH GOLD!
THE MEGA MINI (GAMING) G1. Behind that strangely compensating name, is the holly grail of MINI PCs! Namely, do what a full size desktop can do, but holding in the palm of your hand (or almost).
Form Factor
Dimensions:
There is very little I can write to convey how impressively compact this thing is!
It is 255 mm tall for 150 mm wide, and 150 mm deep. That’s a volume of 5.737 Litter! Smaller than a show box. It weights right about 3.71 Kg! About the weight of a gaming laptop!
Design & RGB:
The MEGA MINI G1 is encapsulated by a space-gray, sand-brushed aluminium enclosure. Three of its sides are undressed by large see through tempered-glass windows to allow an intimate look on the G1 inner-works.
They are each underlined by a thick RGB strip which can be configured and individualized through any RGB dedicated software.
The back and top plate are both punctured by a series of laser holed, T-shaped, vent openings. It is precise, agreeable to the eye, and sturdy to the touch.
In short, this thing was ENGINEERED. And everything in its aspect, aesthetic and standing says so.
Under the hood
GEEKOM, which took care of the actual manufacturing of the MEGA MINI, has delivered an obscenely powerful PC in an unprecedented condensed form factor.
Their custom made motherboard is equipped with nothing else than the gargantuesc i9 13900H, on of Intel’s best and more powerful portable processor.
- CPU: Intel CORE i9 13900H
-
- 14 CORES / 20 THREADS
- 5.4 GHz MAX Clock
- 24 MB Smart Cache
- 35-115 W
-
There is a 2nd more affordable variant powered by an Intel CORE i7 13620H processor.
As far as gaming goes, and what probably the REAL revolution here, is the presence of a fully desktop-graded GeForce RTX 4060.
- GPU: GeForce RTX 4060
-
- 3072 CUDA CORES
- 96 TMUs
- 48 ROPs
- 96 Tensor Cores
- 24 Ray Tracing Cores
- 8 GB of DDR6 RAM
-
The RTX 4060 is NVIDIA’s to go to gamer’s graphics card. And can and will handle the most recent AAA gaming titles with most higher tier resolutions (2K-4K) with an FPS above 40, depending of imposed details (RT off suggested).
But what truly makes the G1 such a good investment is its future-proofing abilities. The G1 has an OCULUS ( PCIe 4.0 x16 Lanes, for 64 GBs) link which allows the user to upgrade the G1 graphical abilities through an external GPU.
MEMORY
STORAGE
The MEGA MINI G1 comes equipped with 2TB of PCIe 4.0 enabled M.2 SSD, meaning that it can swap data up to blazing fast 64 Gbs.
There is a 2nd M.2 SSDS connector in the case you’d want to add a 2nd M.2 SSD.
Worth noting, in a dual M.2 SSD setup, they can operate in a RAID configuration (0,1,5,10).
RAM
The MEGA MIN G1 comes with 32 GB off DDR5 RAM clocked at 5.2 GHz, setup in a dual channel configuration. Worth noting, you can expand the memory up to 96 GB of DDR5 RAM (48 GB x2)
THERMALS
Thermals management are probably the most impressive technological side of the GEEKOM MINI G1.
MINI PCs are known to have thermal limitations. Cramming so many performance-centric components in such a small volume results in higher components temperatures.
To protect themselves from excessive temperatures and potential damages, components slow down to reduce heating. That is what we call thermal-throttling.
The MEGA MINI G1is the first mini-pc to feature an AIO water cooling apparatus, here to harvest excess heat from both the CPU and the GPU. And worth noting, there is no water maintenance necessary for this AIO loop.
In addition we have two large, fast and silent ( 27db max) 120mm ball-baring fans (100k hours rated), which expels all that heat away, and act as a very efficient exhaust.
Results are simply gorgeous.
With a resource-demanding AAA game such as Black Myth : Wukong running, the RTX 4060 stays below 45C. Which is cool as ice for a graphics card.
Worth noting, this OLED screen monitors thermal, CPU, GPU and RAM load.
Conveniently, you can chose what metric to show on the screen through the G1 priotary software.
PERIPHERALS & CONNECTIVITY
Again, we are more in the spec-world of a full desktop PC rather than a MINI PC.
We have 15 peripherals spread between the front and back of the G1.
FRONT:
-
- x4 USB 3.2 (first gen) TYPE-A plugs with a 5 Gbps maximum data swap.
- Mic/audio jack
I do need to praise the easy accessibility that the front peripherals bring. Having 4 of them is no accident. It will accomodate upto 4 controllers for more living-room minded gaming evenings.
BACK:
-
- We dow have 4 USB plugs
- x1 USB 2.0 TYPE-A (480 Mbps)
- x1 USB 3.2 1st Gen. (5 Gbs)
- x1 TYPE-C 3.2 2nd Gen (10 Gbs)
- x1 TYPE-C Thunderbolt 4.0 (40 Gbs)
- x1 HDMI 2.1
- x2 DP 1.4a ( TYPE-C plugs when not used for data transfer).
- x1 2.5 Gbs surge protected LAN
- x1 OCULINK (x16 lanes @ PCIe 4.0 standard. 64 GBs total bandwidth)
- We dow have 4 USB plugs
That is a combined 85 Gbs worth of data output!
SIDE:
-
- SD CARD reader
- Kingstone Lock
CONNECTIVITY
We have the usual suspectS gathered, meaning a rather fast and low latency WiFi 6E (2.4 Gbs). The 2.5 Gbps LAN we just spotted in our peripheral listing, and a 5.2 BT adapter.
There is talk of a WiFi 7 updated version soon coming.
What is it good at?
It is hard to predict solely based on its IFA 2024 apparition, but fortunately for all of us, I was given the opportunity to both game and do some productivity work on the MEGA MINI G1.
What I can say is that I have tried the new (and demanding) Black Myth : Wukong, and then did some video editing, on ADOBE Premiere Pro 2024.
In both situations, everything as I would expect it to run on a desktop PC with similar specs. Which is a more impressive statement that it sounds. Little content creator side note: loved to have an SD CARD reader on the side of the G1.
The all challenge here is not to just put impressively specs. In fact many China-based manufacturers are doing so.
The challenge here is to avoid :
- any kind of bottle neck across the different components
- thermal-throttling due to over-heating
On both points, GEEKOM and TECNO have done an AMAIZING job. They have calibrated the componentry menu to allow both the CPU and GPU to deliver their full potential!
And the custom-made AIO water cooling solution redefined what can be done on such a small form factor.
I have been following the evolution of PC since 1992 (yeah i’m that old), and I can count on my fingers the number of time I have been truly blown away by an assembled PC. Well today, with the MEGA MINI PC, is one of these occasions.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST AND WHERE CAN I GET ONE?
Price will range anywhere from $1,499 (Intel Core i7 13620H CPU) to $1,799 (Intel Core i9 13900H) depending on the CPU mounted on the MEGA MINI G1.
Since this is a fully crowd-base / crowd-funded initiative, the only way you can put your hands on one is through a kickstarter campaign with deliveries starting in early November 2024 (link below):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1906688106/megamini-g1-water-cooling-gaming-mini-pc
DISCLAIMER: I receive no commissions from this link.
Very fair and professional comment! Thumbs up for you!<3