MINISFORUM has been cranking out a number of small form-factor desktop computers over the past few years including models with AMD Ryzen 4000U and Intel Comet Lake or Coffee Lake chips.
The new MINISFORUM GK50 is a little
different. It’s a small, passively cooled computer powered by a 6-watt Intel
Pentium Silver N5030 Gemini Lake Refresh processor. While it’s less powerful
than some of the company’s other models, it should also be quieter – with no
fan or other moving parts, it should run silently. The starting price gets you
a model with 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM and a 128GB SATA SSD, but you can also pay $20
more to get an 8GB/256GB configuration.
Intel’s Pentium Silver N5030 processor is
a 4-core, 4-thread chip with a 1.1 GHz base frequency and support for burst
speeds up to 3.1 GHz. It features Intel UHD Graphics 605 with support for burst
speeds up to 750 MHz. And theoretically the system should be able to drive up
to two 4K displays, although I’ve found 4K performance for these Gemini Lake
Refresh chips tends to vary from PC to PC and depends greatly on the
applications you’re running and/or the bit-rate and other characteristics of 4K
video you may want to play.
The system measures 4.9″ x 4.4″ x 1.2″. There’s
also a wireless card with support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 and the system
has support for dual storage devices thanks to an M.2 2280 slot and a 2.5 inch
drive bay. It comes with a VESA mount that allows you to attach the computer to
the back of a TV or display or mount it on a wall.
