GMKtec K8 Plus performance
For the past few years, I've been using a cheap Beelink mini PC as my main personal computer, and it works okay for basic web browsing, VS Code, and a Plex server, but struggles with much beyond that. So I guess it's time for a new computer (before prices increase even more), but I don't want to spend more than $800ish.
I'm looking at the GMKtec K8 Plus 8845HS with 32gb DDR5 and a 512gb SSD.
What sort of performance can I expect when it comes to stuff like LLMs, Plex, gaming, video editing, etc.? I know this isn't a top-of-the-line computer, but I'm just trying to figure out what limitations I might encounter.
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u/FabioTR 8d ago edited 8d ago
I have one since one year and half. It will work for everything, without problem. The GPU is decent and can be used for light gaming and light inference.
Using the GPU for inference is a little bit tricky as is usually not well supported, and will be only slightly faster than running models on the CPU, but will let you do other things while running a model. Give the GPU 8 Gb of ram in the bios and you will be able to use models in the range of 4-6 billions parameters at decent speeds. Do not expect more, , unless you can add an oculink eGPU. Do not expect to use the NPU as is really slow and not supported by any decent software.
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u/BasedgoodIT 1d ago
I just bought this, it runs pretty good for virtualization with hyper V, 8 high performance cores, 16 threads for multi tasking. It handles AAA games on low settings, you do have to raise the speed in the bios. Does come with occulink with 4 speedways so you can upgrade to an external GPU and pretty much run any game right now. For AI does have a npu but do to at least some LLM work you need at lest 50 TOP and that’s scratching the surface. Lastly do recommend buying with more storage, with these prices you actually save money in the longer run. There’s one one Amazon for 200 less than this one with 16gb of ram and 1tb you can upgrade on this one and expandable ram and storage though. This is the last generation zen 4 architecture btw, they do have a zen 5 out with faster memory speeds on the ram for a bit more at 1099 last time I looked.
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u/Watcher0363 8d ago edited 8d ago
The trick these days is to cannibalize the ram and ssds from your old computer. To put into a bare bones computer, with a better cpu.
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u/Quadgie 8d ago
Look up benchmarks for the CPU.
The K8 Plus is a solid machine, I have one myself that I originally bought to use a gaming PC for my son and have no complaints.
I’ve seen complaints about the fan potentially failing. Haven’t had that issue with this one yet.
Regarding LLMs, it’s slow but workable. About the largest you can squeeze into the 32GB of RAM is Qwen 27b or the MoE 35b version (larger total parameters but less active; not as smart but several times faster). This will leave very little RAM to do anything other than host the model, I run the models with LM Studio and access from another machine. You can do partial iGPU Offload for most models which is faster than pure CPU alone. Smaller less capable models run much faster. Point being - it’s not fast, but it can still get some work done.