The Cheapest Mini PC You Can Buy! GMKtec NucBox G3 Hands On Review

**Testing the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 Mini PC: A Surprisingly Capable Device**

Upon initial loading, I was surprised to find that the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC was able to handle 4K 60 video playback with ease. The device is capable of running at a high wattage, which allowed it to achieve higher clocks on all four cores. This performance enabled smooth gameplay and video playback.

One of my first tests was Minecraft, using the Windows Store version. I was excited to see how well the device would handle this popular game. To my surprise, the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC was able to run Minecraft at 60 frames per second, without any need for adjustments in settings. The resolution on display was set to 1080p, and the performance was excellent.

Next up, I tested the classic first-person shooter game Halflife 2. Running this game at a high medium setting, the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC was able to handle it with ease, delivering smooth gameplay at 60 frames per second. This performance is impressive, considering that this game is over a decade old and should be considered challenging for most modern devices.

Another test I ran was Portal 2, another classic Valve game. Running this game on the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC resulted in smooth gameplay at 60 frames per second, with no need for adjustments to settings or resolution.

In addition to running these games smoothly, I also tested the device's emulation capabilities. First up was PSP using PPSSPP, and I was pleased to see that it ran Chain of Olympus at 2x resolution with direct de 11 back in at 60 frames per second. This is impressive performance for a device of this size.

Next, I tested GameCube using Dolphin, running Super Smash Bros. Melee (known as Splitters) on the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC. The performance was excellent, with smooth gameplay at native resolution and no need to adjust settings or upscaling.

However, running other games like F0 GX proved to be a bit more challenging. Emulating this game at its native resolution using Dolphin's Direct X11 backend resulted in 60 frames per second. This was impressive, considering that F0 GX is known for being difficult to emulate on modern devices.

Another test I ran was PS2 using PCSX2, which also performed well on the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC. Running God of War 2 and After Burner at native resolution resulted in smooth gameplay, with no issues or slowdowns.

**The Verdict: Is It Worth $99?**

Given its performance capabilities and compact form factor, I was impressed by the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC. At $99, it may be worth considering for those looking for a capable device without breaking the bank. However, there is one other option that I would like to compare this device against: the Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB of RAM.

In terms of performance, I believe the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 mini PC will outperform the Raspberry Pi 5, even when overclocked. Additionally, this device can run a desktop operating system or retro gaming software like Bota, which may not be possible on the Raspberry Pi 5.

If you're interested in learning more about the GMK Tech Nook Boox G3 and how it can be used for various projects, I'll provide links to their website and a coupon code in the description below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at one of the cheapest mini PCS we've ever had on the channel this is the gmk tech Nook boox G3 and if you head over to their website they've got a few coupons I'm also going to leave some in the description you can get this for $99 it's going to be the Bare Bones unit so you will have to add your own RAM and storage but it's really easy to do and the G3 actually utilizes ddr4 so you can pick it up really cheap right now get you a so DM stick 8 or 16 gigs it'll be plenty for this now obviously one of the main reasons I wanted to get my hands on this was the price it's not far off from a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 gigs of RAM with those coupons you can get the G3 for $99 and I wanted to see if we could outperform the Raspberry Pi 5 which I suspect it probably will now inside of the Box along with the Mini PC itself we've also got a mounting bracket comes with our 12volt power supply and an HDMI cable they do offer this in two different color variants we've got the lush green but they've also got a titanium gray over on their website and when it comes to I/O up front here we've got two full-size USB 3.2 gen 1 ports moving around back we've got two more of those 3.2 ports dual fullsize HDMI both of these will do 4K 60 out a 3.5 mm audio jack and a 2.5 GB ethernet port like I mentioned going Bare Bones is going to be the cheapest option that they offer but it's really easy to get in here and add your RAM and storage top pops right off and from here we can add a 2280 pcie 3.0 m.2 SSD and it only supports single Channel RAM and that's because of the chip they opted to use unfortunately these chips only support single Channel it is ddr4 and I'm going with 8 gigs running at 3200 MHz as for that m.2 I'm going with the 512 GB PCI E 3.0 Drive goes right here very easy to install so if you go Bare Bones with it you can put this thing together in a few minutes it will support up the 32 GB of ddr4 RAM I just went with eight to keep the price as low as possible here and when it comes to the specs the G3 is using the Intel n100 CPU we've got four cores four threads a Max clock up to 3.4 GHz built-in Intel UHD graphics with 24 execution units at 750 MHz you can do up to 32 GB of ddr4 at 3200 MHz 1 m.2 SSD Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 and if you head over to their website you can see that they are offering a few different RAM and storage variants you can go with 8 gigs of RAM with up to a 512 GB m.2 SSD or 16 gigs of RAM with a 512 SSD and if you did get one that's preconfigured it comes with Windows 11 Pro installed but keep in mind the base price on those will be higher than a Bare Bones unit okay so I've got Windows 11 installed everything's updated and I've been messing around with this for a little while trying to get a feel for what kind of TDP this little CPU is running out what kind of clocks we can expect from the GPU and CPU as you can see here we've got the Intel n100 and if I run a stress test with CPU Z we've got our wattage listed right here we're at about 12 Watts just on the CPU now all four cores on this will do up to 2.9 at the same time we can get two to go to 3.1 or one up to 3.4 and like I mentioned with a lot of these lower-end chips this isn't the full TDP this is really what the CPU is going to be pulling at kind of a Max load there it can still use a little more because we haven't hit up the igpu yet so putting some load on that igpu total TDP here is about 16.5 Watts so you saw it jump up close to 17 and with this our GPU clock is at 750 MHz well 748 so that's basically where it is and at 16 Watts we can send sufficient power to the igpu so trying to use a third party app to up the TDP on this really is going to help out because it's sending enough power to get the clocks up on the CPU and GPU and yeah this is definitely a lower-end CPU but at that kind of wattage it's actually performing much better than I thought it would now uh using this as an everyday desktop for web browsing email checking even 4K video playback is going to do a pretty decent job now uh first thing we're going to do here is just test out a little bit of web browsing I am on Wi-Fi right now we're not plugged into ethernet and we'll head over to uh gmk Tech's website real quick we've got a lot of mini PCS kind of an image heavy website here and yeah everything loads right up check out the Intel mini PCS they offer I actually haven't seen this one but yeah you could definitely get some web browsing done on this now it's time to check out some 4K video playback because I actually didn't know what to expect from this we'll just find a 4K Demo here let's go with this one we want full screen 1440 but we want to go to 4K stats for nerds you can see right there 4K and if you take a look at stats for nerds on the initial load in we had one drop frame I actually thought we'd have a lot more on the n100 but given that this is running at kind of the correct wattage I mean enough to get the higher clocks on all four cores here it's actually handling 4K 60 video playback really well and this is just streaming here if you wanted to run from the internal drive or an external drive it's also going to run them at full speed obviously this Mini PC wasn't intended for gaming but that's not going to stop us from trying out some PC games and some emulation starting off here with Minecraft this is the window store version always have people asking about this on these lower NPCs so I figured I'd test it here and yeah I mean 60fps I didn't have to change any of the settings from within Minecraft itself and the PC's resolution is at 1080 next on the list we've got halflife 2 1080p with a high medium mix and going into this I knew we'd be able to run this at 1080p obviously really old game and games like portal Portal 2 Left 4 Dead left for Dead 2 are going to run at full speed The Source engine games work really well on these lowerin Intel chips and finally here for the PC gaming side of things we've got OG Skyrim unfortunately with this even at 900p we were under 60 we averaged 54 FPS at 900 but taking it down to 720 low we'll get a 60 FPS across the board now it's time to move over to some emulation and I'm really impressed with what this can do especially given the price of this thing first up we've got PSP using PPSSPP chains of Olympus 2x resolution direct de 11 back in 60 FPS really great performance which means we'll be able to upscale the easier to emulate games with this PSP emulator next up we've got some GameCube using dolphin direct X11 back in I did have to keep it at the native resolution time Splitters to up front here easier one to emulate so we're going to move over to something then a little harder and that's F0 GX and I was sure that this was going to fall in its face when we got the this game because it's definitely a harder one to emulate on these lower-end Intel chips but at the native resolution using that direct X11 back in we can actually run this at 60 FPS now no upscaling is going to be possible especially on a track like this but easier to emulate games will be able to go up to 720 I really didn't think we'd be able to run this game at full speed PS2 is another one that performed much better than I ever thought it would on the n100 we're using PC sx2 direct X11 backend native resolution again just like GameCube we're not going to be able to upscale PS2 very well but at the native resolution with pcsx2 it even handles God of War 2 and uh if you take a look at After Burner we're up there close to 8.8 watts in some cases almost 9 Watts only utiliz in 30% of that GPU now as soon as we go to 720 it really does max out that GPU but at the native res these games run great overall I'm actually impressed with this n100 powered mini PC given the form factor and especially the price for the Bare Bones unit using those coupons you can bring this down to $99 and of course you will need to add your own storage and RAM you can pick up a used stick on eBay for really cheap I would go with 16 we've only got eight here with this unit but it handled everything we threw at it in this video now the main question is at $99 is it worth picking this up or an $80 Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 gigs of RAM with this unit we can actually run Linux on it just like we can with the Raspberry Pi and to tell you the truth I really do think that this is going to put out much better performance than the pi 5 even with an overclock on that new CPU I wouldn't be opposed to testing out Linux on this Mini PC something like a desktop operating system or we could even go with a retro gaming operating system like bota so if that's something you're interested in seeing let me know in the comments below if you want to learn a little more about the gmk tech Nook boox G3 I'll leave some links in the description along with a coupon code so remember if you use their code over on their website and the code in the description you can get this for $99 The Bare Bones unit but that's it for this one and like always thanks for watchingwhat's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at one of the cheapest mini PCS we've ever had on the channel this is the gmk tech Nook boox G3 and if you head over to their website they've got a few coupons I'm also going to leave some in the description you can get this for $99 it's going to be the Bare Bones unit so you will have to add your own RAM and storage but it's really easy to do and the G3 actually utilizes ddr4 so you can pick it up really cheap right now get you a so DM stick 8 or 16 gigs it'll be plenty for this now obviously one of the main reasons I wanted to get my hands on this was the price it's not far off from a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 gigs of RAM with those coupons you can get the G3 for $99 and I wanted to see if we could outperform the Raspberry Pi 5 which I suspect it probably will now inside of the Box along with the Mini PC itself we've also got a mounting bracket comes with our 12volt power supply and an HDMI cable they do offer this in two different color variants we've got the lush green but they've also got a titanium gray over on their website and when it comes to I/O up front here we've got two full-size USB 3.2 gen 1 ports moving around back we've got two more of those 3.2 ports dual fullsize HDMI both of these will do 4K 60 out a 3.5 mm audio jack and a 2.5 GB ethernet port like I mentioned going Bare Bones is going to be the cheapest option that they offer but it's really easy to get in here and add your RAM and storage top pops right off and from here we can add a 2280 pcie 3.0 m.2 SSD and it only supports single Channel RAM and that's because of the chip they opted to use unfortunately these chips only support single Channel it is ddr4 and I'm going with 8 gigs running at 3200 MHz as for that m.2 I'm going with the 512 GB PCI E 3.0 Drive goes right here very easy to install so if you go Bare Bones with it you can put this thing together in a few minutes it will support up the 32 GB of ddr4 RAM I just went with eight to keep the price as low as possible here and when it comes to the specs the G3 is using the Intel n100 CPU we've got four cores four threads a Max clock up to 3.4 GHz built-in Intel UHD graphics with 24 execution units at 750 MHz you can do up to 32 GB of ddr4 at 3200 MHz 1 m.2 SSD Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 and if you head over to their website you can see that they are offering a few different RAM and storage variants you can go with 8 gigs of RAM with up to a 512 GB m.2 SSD or 16 gigs of RAM with a 512 SSD and if you did get one that's preconfigured it comes with Windows 11 Pro installed but keep in mind the base price on those will be higher than a Bare Bones unit okay so I've got Windows 11 installed everything's updated and I've been messing around with this for a little while trying to get a feel for what kind of TDP this little CPU is running out what kind of clocks we can expect from the GPU and CPU as you can see here we've got the Intel n100 and if I run a stress test with CPU Z we've got our wattage listed right here we're at about 12 Watts just on the CPU now all four cores on this will do up to 2.9 at the same time we can get two to go to 3.1 or one up to 3.4 and like I mentioned with a lot of these lower-end chips this isn't the full TDP this is really what the CPU is going to be pulling at kind of a Max load there it can still use a little more because we haven't hit up the igpu yet so putting some load on that igpu total TDP here is about 16.5 Watts so you saw it jump up close to 17 and with this our GPU clock is at 750 MHz well 748 so that's basically where it is and at 16 Watts we can send sufficient power to the igpu so trying to use a third party app to up the TDP on this really is going to help out because it's sending enough power to get the clocks up on the CPU and GPU and yeah this is definitely a lower-end CPU but at that kind of wattage it's actually performing much better than I thought it would now uh using this as an everyday desktop for web browsing email checking even 4K video playback is going to do a pretty decent job now uh first thing we're going to do here is just test out a little bit of web browsing I am on Wi-Fi right now we're not plugged into ethernet and we'll head over to uh gmk Tech's website real quick we've got a lot of mini PCS kind of an image heavy website here and yeah everything loads right up check out the Intel mini PCS they offer I actually haven't seen this one but yeah you could definitely get some web browsing done on this now it's time to check out some 4K video playback because I actually didn't know what to expect from this we'll just find a 4K Demo here let's go with this one we want full screen 1440 but we want to go to 4K stats for nerds you can see right there 4K and if you take a look at stats for nerds on the initial load in we had one drop frame I actually thought we'd have a lot more on the n100 but given that this is running at kind of the correct wattage I mean enough to get the higher clocks on all four cores here it's actually handling 4K 60 video playback really well and this is just streaming here if you wanted to run from the internal drive or an external drive it's also going to run them at full speed obviously this Mini PC wasn't intended for gaming but that's not going to stop us from trying out some PC games and some emulation starting off here with Minecraft this is the window store version always have people asking about this on these lower NPCs so I figured I'd test it here and yeah I mean 60fps I didn't have to change any of the settings from within Minecraft itself and the PC's resolution is at 1080 next on the list we've got halflife 2 1080p with a high medium mix and going into this I knew we'd be able to run this at 1080p obviously really old game and games like portal Portal 2 Left 4 Dead left for Dead 2 are going to run at full speed The Source engine games work really well on these lowerin Intel chips and finally here for the PC gaming side of things we've got OG Skyrim unfortunately with this even at 900p we were under 60 we averaged 54 FPS at 900 but taking it down to 720 low we'll get a 60 FPS across the board now it's time to move over to some emulation and I'm really impressed with what this can do especially given the price of this thing first up we've got PSP using PPSSPP chains of Olympus 2x resolution direct de 11 back in 60 FPS really great performance which means we'll be able to upscale the easier to emulate games with this PSP emulator next up we've got some GameCube using dolphin direct X11 back in I did have to keep it at the native resolution time Splitters to up front here easier one to emulate so we're going to move over to something then a little harder and that's F0 GX and I was sure that this was going to fall in its face when we got the this game because it's definitely a harder one to emulate on these lower-end Intel chips but at the native resolution using that direct X11 back in we can actually run this at 60 FPS now no upscaling is going to be possible especially on a track like this but easier to emulate games will be able to go up to 720 I really didn't think we'd be able to run this game at full speed PS2 is another one that performed much better than I ever thought it would on the n100 we're using PC sx2 direct X11 backend native resolution again just like GameCube we're not going to be able to upscale PS2 very well but at the native resolution with pcsx2 it even handles God of War 2 and uh if you take a look at After Burner we're up there close to 8.8 watts in some cases almost 9 Watts only utiliz in 30% of that GPU now as soon as we go to 720 it really does max out that GPU but at the native res these games run great overall I'm actually impressed with this n100 powered mini PC given the form factor and especially the price for the Bare Bones unit using those coupons you can bring this down to $99 and of course you will need to add your own storage and RAM you can pick up a used stick on eBay for really cheap I would go with 16 we've only got eight here with this unit but it handled everything we threw at it in this video now the main question is at $99 is it worth picking this up or an $80 Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 gigs of RAM with this unit we can actually run Linux on it just like we can with the Raspberry Pi and to tell you the truth I really do think that this is going to put out much better performance than the pi 5 even with an overclock on that new CPU I wouldn't be opposed to testing out Linux on this Mini PC something like a desktop operating system or we could even go with a retro gaming operating system like bota so if that's something you're interested in seeing let me know in the comments below if you want to learn a little more about the gmk tech Nook boox G3 I'll leave some links in the description along with a coupon code so remember if you use their code over on their website and the code in the description you can get this for $99 The Bare Bones unit but that's it for this one and like always thanks for watching\n"